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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

> Then he gets enrolled in primary school, within 3 months all the joy is sucked out of this kid, loathes going to school, doing homework is a daily struggle

Kids have homework in their first year of primary school???

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Yes, same here in Austria (if that isn't were OP is based). I would imagine it's the same in Germany, since the school system is quite similar. Of course it's possible that some schools handle it differently, but this is the "standard" way as far as I am aware.

AFAIK none of the primary schools here in the Netherlands give kids any homework until the last 2 or 3 years of primary school, when the kids are 9 or 10 at least.

Don't forget that primary school starts later in Germany than in the Netherlands where children go to primary school from the day of their fourth birthday. In contrast, German primary school starts around the age of 6 (not exactly because all children regardless of birth date start in summer).

That means that the two to three years of primary school without homework mostly equate with the last two years of kindergarten in Germany (which obviously also do not assign any homework)

Primary school in the Netherlands lasts 8 years, typically from age 4 to 12. The first 2 years used to be to be separate and non-mandatory until the 1980s, when they were merged into a single 8 year track. Homework typically doesn't start until the 5th or 6th year, so when the kids are age 9 or 10. They certainly don't get any homework before they're 8 years old.

That is yet another difference, indeed: Primary school is only until grade 4 in most states, i.e. from around 6 to 10 years old.

To be honest, I don't know if and how much homework is assigned in primary school. I imagine that this also differs between states and even schools.

Around here the public schools give homework starting in 1st grade. Very little, but it increases pretty fast after that.

Not new, really. I was assigned lots of homework in grade school, back in the early 90s. I just easily got all of it done at school (still with tons of time to spare for reading, writing, and drawing), so it never actually went home.

I remember I did here in Italy. Seems normal to practice reading or writing.

Sure, why not?

Why have homework at all for anyone? Can’t the school do its job of educating within the four walls? If the school day isn’t long enough by all means let’s make it longer.

The problem in education is that it's very hard to separate what works and what doesn't because there are too many subjective factors.

If Tommy diligently practices math every day and does all his homework, but gets worse test scores than lazy Billy, it's impossible to know whether he is studying in a counterproductive manner, has poor test-taking technique, or is just less able than Billy. If the inverse is true, intuition and a desperate desire for justice tell us that Tommy's hard work is what made his performance better (and possibly, that he works harder because he's more intelligent).

OR we can just say that it probably doesn't make a difference and that it's ok to give back to the kids the few free hours they get at home everyday by not making them do the same thing they did all the day.

Different students are... different.

Some goof off all day at school instead of doing any work- should they be able to then not take the work home and do it there and still get the same grade as the students who don't goof off and get their work done in class?

Should all students be required to spend the same amount of time at school doing school work when some would prefer to do their work at home?

At what grade level is it appropriate to allow students to manage their own schedules and where they do their school work? Elementary? Junior high? High school? College?

One size does not fit all.

> by all means let’s make it longer.

Oh ok, if you say so. I'm sure we'll get right on that. But until that goes into effect, we'll have the homework to compensate.

It’s a failure on the part of the education system to specify what they need to succeed. If schools are going to outsource their work back to parents and guardians maybe they should pay them.

I don't understand this point of view at all. Parents aren't expected to do homework. Furthermore, I consider it to be fundamentally the responsibility of parents and guardians to educate their children. The outsourcing goes in the opposite direction. If that education is insufficient, the ultimate responsibility lies with the parents, not the school. Maybe the parent can engage with the school to improve the situation, but that's not always a given.

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