It would help if the kids were taught how to think instead of what to think. Not to mention all the repetitiveness - you could fit more knowledge in if they didn't repeat the same stuff year after year.

Reply to post #33 (show post):
I want to like this about a bazillion times. :)

Reply to post #34 (show post):
Me, too!

Reply to post #34 (show post):
Yup.

Reply to post #33 (show post):
I'm in my fifties -- I don't think I learned anything new between fourth grade and ninth grade other than taking pre-algebra in eighth grade or a few things in papers I researched in order to write (and those restricted you to certain topics).

I had way too much American History on just the Independence War and Constitutional stuff (admittedly part of that was military moving us from state to state where I was often repeating required classes because schools titled them something different and wouldn't believe I already took that class) -- so much of my own country's history not studied (and way too much of World History was a long list of dates when each monarch's reign or major war started). Attending school on a base with WWI/WWII/Vietnam veterans (my dad and his contemporaries served in Vietnam), you'd think that would be studied but, nope, let's memorize the bloody damn preamble again and which founding fathers signed it. In absolutely no way denigrating the U.S. Constitution and the incredible impact on past and current history and our freedoms -- but there were amendments and all kinds of historical eras like the civil war, industrial revolution, civil and women's rights, the atom bomb ...

It's worse now where I often suspect kids are just coached on the material long enough to pass the tests to get the funding/stats school needs -- while given mountains of homework. Homework that if they actually understand the work is just a chore to get through 100 problems they already know how to work — and if they don't understand it does them no good to not understand it and fail at it for 100 problems ...

It's not learning if you memorize it just long enough for a test. It's not going to teach a kid about learning and possibly engage them in learning if you give so much homework it's a chore that they never, ever want to do once they don't have to (well, with most professions they'll work in as adults they are in for a reality check on that notion).

Yes, I realize that for many teachers the homework is very much trying to ensure the kids keep up with expectations. I just don't get the amount of it.

I went to a good high school, where I had both science and history (mostly from good teachers) every year - and the name of Humboldt was never brought up.

I took a couple of semesters of biology in college, and the name was never spoken there, either.

However, I think my science instruction was pretty good - it was experimentation-heavy, and memorization-light. (My history instruction was excellent, though erratic. If I had Mrs. Jones, as I did most of the time, the coverage *of what we got to* would be great. But we were guaranteed not to get to the end of the material. For example, in "ancient and medieval history," we got up to the coronation of Charlemagne. She did not, alas, teach American history. The woman who did was very mediocre and covered everything at the depth of half an inch.) One of the reasons I liked Mrs. Jones (as did basically everyone in her classes) was that there were only a handful of dates in any one class we had to know cold - everything else we just had to know the right *order* of events, and why one might have led to the other.

As for "make work" homework - I don't believe it helps. At all. (On the other hand, assigned reading does, I think.)