As a parent from an educated family, whose own parents surely never complained about my or my siblings' homework, I was surprised to see how much other parents complain about homework.
It is a hard subject even to discuss because it is always approached as if homework requirements are, and should be, the same for students of all ages, even though nobody really expects it to be so. Nobody (in the USA anyway) expects children attending pre-school programs to get homework. At the same time, it's preposterous to think that university students would learn everything inside the classroom. So, sometime between pre-school and university, students should probably start getting homework. One possibility would be to start with a little and gradually increase the amount of outside work required. Then, however, you open the door to questions of how much and how soon, and everyone will have a different opinion.
One of the problems is that many people seem to conceive of education of children like filling a vessel: the students sit passively while the teacher fills their minds with knowledge through their eyes and ears. In fact, the most important things kids learn in school are skills, and the process is not unlike learning to play a sport or a musical instrument. As with all skill learning, practice is required. The important basic skills (e.g. "reading, writing, and arithmetic") especially need practice, and so do meta-skills like "how do I track and prioritize tasks that may not be due for days or weeks?" Also, work like reading, writing papers, and solving math problems can be done without the teacher present, so it's not a particularly good use of limited resources to ask the students to do that work when the teacher is present.
I find it ironic that many of the parents I know who complain about their students' homework load would blink not an eye at sending their kids to football, soccer, swimming, gymnastics, cheerleading, or whatever sports practice for hours every week, knowing that the kids have to practice "if they're gonna be any good."
It is a hard subject even to discuss because it is always approached as if homework requirements are, and should be, the same for students of all ages, even though nobody really expects it to be so. Nobody (in the USA anyway) expects children attending pre-school programs to get homework. At the same time, it's preposterous to think that university students would learn everything inside the classroom. So, sometime between pre-school and university, students should probably start getting homework. One possibility would be to start with a little and gradually increase the amount of outside work required. Then, however, you open the door to questions of how much and how soon, and everyone will have a different opinion.
One of the problems is that many people seem to conceive of education of children like filling a vessel: the students sit passively while the teacher fills their minds with knowledge through their eyes and ears. In fact, the most important things kids learn in school are skills, and the process is not unlike learning to play a sport or a musical instrument. As with all skill learning, practice is required. The important basic skills (e.g. "reading, writing, and arithmetic") especially need practice, and so do meta-skills like "how do I track and prioritize tasks that may not be due for days or weeks?" Also, work like reading, writing papers, and solving math problems can be done without the teacher present, so it's not a particularly good use of limited resources to ask the students to do that work when the teacher is present.
I find it ironic that many of the parents I know who complain about their students' homework load would blink not an eye at sending their kids to football, soccer, swimming, gymnastics, cheerleading, or whatever sports practice for hours every week, knowing that the kids have to practice "if they're gonna be any good."