US News Elementary School Dumps Homework and Tells Kids to Play Instead

tom_mai78101

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KIPS BAY, MANHATTAN — A public elementary school is abolishing traditional homework assignments and telling kids to play instead — outraging parents who say they may pull their kids out of the school.

Teachers at P.S. 116 on East 33rd Street have stopped assigning take-home math worksheets and essays, and are instead encouraging students to read books and spend time with their family, according to a letter the school’s principal, Jane Hsu, sent to parents last month.

“The topic of homework has received a lot of attention lately, and the negative effects of homework have been well established,” Hsu wrote in her letter, which was sent home with students.

“They include: children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and family time and, sadly for many, loss of interest in learning.”

Hsu explained that the school spent more than a year "analyzing studies focused on the effects of traditional homework" and decided that it was more important for the Pre-K through fifth grade students to do activities that “have been proven to have a positive impact on student academic performance and social/emotional development” such as reading at their own pace and playing.

 
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Accname

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yeah, completely agree.
I never did any homework and all my teacher knew about it. Had a great time.
 

KMilz

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Why would you pull your kid out of school over something like this? Some people are fuckin' idiots.
 

FireCat

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Instead of "playing video games" Why not homework > Family time?
 

Varine

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Homework is routinely fucking useless.
 

ertaboy356b

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Homework destroys creativity.

If I did all my homework back then, I wouldn't had the time to learn programming.
 

envenger

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Homework destroys creativity.

If I did all my homework back then, I wouldn't had the time to learn programming.

If I did my homework then, I wouldn't have time to learn warcraft3 modding and jass. And slowly get into gamedev and programming so yeah, didn't thought about that until now.
 

tom_mai78101

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If I did my homework then, I wouldn't have time to learn warcraft3 modding and jass. And slowly get into gamedev and programming so yeah, didn't thought about that until now.

But, people at PAX put a lot of emphasis on doing your homework and practice in the fine arts of programming languages. They, at the panels, joked that developers tend to do crunch times (hitting more than 50 hours/week) is because of the habit of doing homework and practicing when they were young.
 

envenger

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But, people at PAX put a lot of emphasis on doing your homework and practice in the fine arts of programming languages. They, at the panels, joked that developers tend to do crunch times (hitting more than 50 hours/week) is because of the habit of doing homework and practicing when they were young.

Ya well it depends.. Didn't see that but I think it was like a warning to aspiring gamedevs that it is not an easy task.

Well for some reason I got used to work around 50 hours a week with time.
 

tom_mai78101

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I haven't gotten used to it, due to bad sleeping schedules. I am paranoid about it all the time.
 

ertaboy356b

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But, people at PAX put a lot of emphasis on doing your homework and practice in the fine arts of programming languages. They, at the panels, joked that developers tend to do crunch times (hitting more than 50 hours/week) is because of the habit of doing homework and practicing when they were young.

Sad thing, I never went to programming school. I feel like studying programming at school from where I live is a waste of time. IT professors here are a joke.
 

Accname

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I never went to programming school either. I am self studied when it comes to programming.
Our computer science bachelor is not about programming, its about theoretical computer science, math, logic, etc. There is also some software engineering (but no programming involved) and then there are plenty of practical courses where you need to program but nobody will teach you, you have to learn that yourself.
 

Varine

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I had some courses that used basic programming, but it was like Euler Project problems. The rest was mostly the same as my math classes, and a different discrete math class.
 

ertaboy356b

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I actually studied business during my college days. Always wanted to become an accountant or some business analyst, didn't happen though. I end up becoming a software developer in some company.
 

Varine

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I was going for something like risk analysis and ended up running kitchens.
 
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