Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 25, 2025

I have occasionally found homework to be interesting, but never at the grade school level. When I was there, it was rote, rote, and more rote. And reading which was fun when they didn’t make us listen to poor readers doing severe injustice to the books.

PS: Lots of people are motivated by competition with each other. Not a good way to do learning, imo, but folks like that ARE motivated by grades.

To teach you how to just git ’er done.

Simple progression: See the work. Do the work. See the day. Work the day. See the problem, handle the problem. Get behind. See the first 2 statements.

Yes, it sounds dull, but it is a function of life. The very young don’t understand but learn it from their parents’ examples. The teens and twenties try to ease into it but sometimes don’t have the time. The middle aged fit themselves into at least one occupation, if not several, and look ahead to not having to do that. The elderly retire and often wish they had done something different or a bit better.

And all along the way there are choices that can change the direction and function of one’s life.

As a jazz musician once said, Life ain’t no easy gig. You gotta find your groove.

Getting your work finished; it’s the same whether you’re 8 or 80- a drudge or a joy. You’re choice!

There are plenty of studies that show that homework is basically useless. Without a teacher to guide the student through the problems or answer questions about the assigned reading, homework becomes frustrating, boring, and the source of some family strife. We’d be better off doing all the work in school, with help from teachers in addressing the various issues kids will run into. But we don’t, because it’s that old “I did this when I was your age! I’ll be danged if you don’t do it too!” mentality. Also, it normalizes the concept of doing “work” outside of your normal work hours, priming the kids to be ready to work overtime because the boss demands it.

I’m 63 and still getting a scorecard at work

Yep. I wish I had worked more/harder on my homework and rote memorization, rather than getting by largely on quiz and test results, especially multiple-choice. On the other hand, I do think learning could be more fun. That sort of repetition could be built into a game, and these days into a video game. It seems to me in the early days of home computing there was a push to make educational software (to help sell parents on the idea of buying a computer), but a lot of it was disappointing. There doesn’t seem to be so many educational programs these days, but maybe I just haven’t been looking in the right places.

My daughter’s high school was pass/fail. There were no GPAs.

What about making them “sheets” and “home” and not making them “work”. “Fun sheets” and “Home fun” has a nice ring to it.

I’m strongly opposed to homework. Americans start teaching our kids early to be good little corporate wage slaves and have no work/life boundaries.

Rote or repetition, do it often enough and it becomes a habit and when it becomes a habit it becomes excellence further on. I was one of those kids who knocked out homework as soon as I got home, then high school came… What homework?

Too Zen for me.

Not everything you’re going to have to do in life will be interesting.