An often made fallacy is that if a little of something is good, more of it must be better. People will go way overboard. The truth is for many things it is important to find a balance. It is important to eat, but not to excess. It is important to work, but not a hundred hours a week.
One of the places this fallacy is being implemented to great destruction is by assigning hours of homework each day to young children. The movie Race to Nowhere focuses on the damage done by too much homework.
The Homework Revolution is a great column by a young school student who refutes many of the common arguments for more homework. This was one of the great points made:
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Is homework really necessary? Most teachers assign homework as a drill to improve memorization of material. While drills and repetitive exercises have their place in schools, homework may not be that place. If a student does a math worksheet with 50 problems but completes them incorrectly, he will likely fail the test. According to the U.S. Department of Education, most math teachers can tell after checking five algebraic equations whether a student understood the necessary concepts. Practicing dozens of homework problems incorrectly only cements the wrong method.
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And this point is one of our first reasons for homeschooling:
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Some people argue that homework toughens kids up for high school, college, and the workforce. Too much homework is sapping students' strength, curiosity, and most importantly, their love of learning. Is that really what teachers and parents want?
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It is a good column, well worth reading.
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