Let’s make some assumptions. Let’s assume some primary school teachers can teach their students what they are supposed to learn in the classroom during class time. These teachers would have no reason to assign homework, as the kids have learned the material.
Then there are the teachers who can’t teach. But the kids in their class have to learn the material. So what to do? Send it home to Mom and Dad and have them do what they should have done in the first place!
I was homeschooled. Didn’t spend more than three hours a day on schoolwork until highschool - which I started early - and never ever ever had “homework”, everything got done during the school day.
That’s pretty interesting. Did you have any issues...adapting, I guess, to homework?
I was HS’d, too, but we did full days and I had homework (usually studying for tests), but I’m not afraid of rethinking how I did things for my own kids. Different HS experiences are fascinating to me.
I respectfully disagree. The better the teacher I had growing up, the more homework. However, it was effective practice of what we learned in class and very relevant. To this day, I am grateful to my 3rd grade teacher for the amount of handwriting and multiplication table memorization she required. I mastered Geometry because I made so many mistakes on my homework early on and the teacher’s method of reviewing homework showed me where I was making the mistake and gave me the ability to correct it. I wouldn’t be as adept if I hadn’t spent time on any of this on my own at home.
Early in my career I worked with two high school students who were very bright (perfect score on SAT bright) and they were flunking a basic college math course. I asked one of the the students what happened and he told me that he got the material but he didn’t realize that he’d have to practice it. “Learning” the material is slightly different than mastering the material which should be the goal.
Quality homework also teaches people to work independently.
That's a bit easier to accomplish when you're not one of 20+ students under one teacher.