*Taps mic*
As a lifelong teacher, homework should be abolished.
At every grade level.
No research we have supports homework as being effective, and most of it (like teaching grammar) *ACTIVELY HARMS STUDENTS*.
(Except maybe some very mild homework in math and a couple of highly specific sciences).
@Impossible_PhD wait wait wait
great thread, okay, I'm not arguing with the homework discussion, it's totally there to teach idleness is bad
but, why do you think teaching grammar is ...bad? like...grammar is one of the few things that helps language become comfortably predictable?
@draNgNon @Impossible_PhD I don't think anyone is saying grammar is bad, it's just useless in take-home worksheet form.
Either kids will pick it up organically by reading (hopefully things they enjoy!) or they need someone who can answer questions live, like "why is it 'the big brown cat' but never, ever 'the brown big cat?'"
@pelielios that last is kind of what I was thinking by saying "comfortably predictable", especially for ESL students (since I'm in the US); if a student is/was not able to pick it up organically, having it laid out in class by a good teacher is great.
@pelielios @draNgNon No, I'm saying that teaching grammar in English to native speakers is very bad. It causes measurable and consistent skill regression because what students get taught has nothing to do with how English actually functions. Think all that "I before E except after C" crap, where there are for times as many exceptions as the rule.
Our brains have an area called rhe language acquisition device, and it absorbs language like a sponge (until you're in your late teens).
@Impossible_PhD
Amazing & fascinating. I did not know about skill regressions, I always thought there was a formalism & structure to the written word that grammar was for, that's somewhat divorced from casual communications.
you're making me think of some of the explainers Duolingo publishes for why they don't take a grammatical approach to their gamified system.
I wonder if this skill regression is part of why reading comp is so bad...
anyhow, thanks for answering my surprise!
School is a long way behind me now, and I'm not in the US, but from what (admittedly little) I've read this is why reading comprehension is bad:
There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this new podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an expose of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.
Doc Impossible
draNgNon
Ampelios
The Essence of Woerm Sin