Let’s ban elementary homework
It is great to hear someone so prominent say this, and I hope it makes a difference.<p>I will say, as someone who has worked in education, education as an area is incredibly cargo cult-filled. Even educational research, and educational theory is full of culty trends (that seemingly change entirely every few years) and aren&#x27;t what I&#x27;d call scientifically rigorous.<p>As this article itself says we&#x27;ve known since the 1980s that homework at that age was harmful and we&#x27;ve known since the 1990s that older kids need a later start, but has that changed anything? Not that I&#x27;ve seen, High School level kids still start at 7:30am here and homework is still given to elementary school-age kids.<p>Education has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s or before (technology not withstanding), and we&#x27;ve likely spending more on educational research and training now as we ever have, and what are the results? How much has school really changed in our lifetime? If anything they&#x27;ve only doubled-down with classical education being popular again, homework for homework&#x27;s sake, learning for the tests, heavily structured classes, and subjects which both kids and staff call useless.<p>I just want to say I am not shitting on teachers. Teachers do a fantastic job under difficult conditions and near constant criticism. This is a structural problem, not a teacher problem. It is at the school district&#x2F;state education&#x2F;educational research level, it is also somewhat intertwined within teacher education itself (e.g. continuous learning, but learning this year&#x27;s latest trendy teaching technique which will be forgotten and discarded in a year).