Felicita asked:

Do you agree on having homework on weekends?

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Let me put it this way. When they studied Asian families in the States to see why their children did so
well in school compared to other children, why their IQs were higher, and so forth... all the racists
thought it was genetic. Well, it turns out that grades are due, on average, to two things: simply the
amount of time put in studying, and whether parents encouraged and worked with their children.
Period, that's it. No big secret, no genetics, just time put in.

Now, do I agree about homework? Well, here we are, in a pretty complicated world, and you have the
choice: do you want to know how things work, why, where they come from, what other people do, and
so forth, or do you want to become the equivalent of a primitive: things work by magic. Turn on the
lights... hey, magic! Start the car... magic! The TV... the stereo... computers... plastic... books... the
magic is all around you, right? Those "scientists" (hey, the magicians, right?) just wave their lab coats
and it all appears, right? Um, no. Wrong. What about all the art and music? You know, that "classical"
stuff that real old people listen to... why do you think they do that? Or go to galleries and museums
and look at art? Because it hurts them and they like to suffer? No. But it turns out that being able to
seeand hearis also something you have to learn.Time put in, that's the secret.

The math is icky, the science is icky, the "literature" is icky... right? Yes. The best thing is that maybe,
with something, you will just really likeit. If you do, go with it, whatever it is, as much as you can. Play
with it. If you haven't found anything like that... look around. Find it. Anything,just about, can be
turned into a doorway. For example, you're fooling around on a computer to write to this site, right?
So play around a bit more with it, and see where that takes you. Who knows?

So there's your choice. It's your life, and very few people will care what you do with it. But I can tell
you this... the more you learn, the more you realize how finely texturedthings are. Like looking very
closely at a piece of cloth and seeing that what you thought were threads were themselves pieces of
cloth... and on and on. It's really fantastic when you see that in things around you. Also, the more you
learn, the more doors will open to you, and the more people willcare.

Steven Ravett Brown

The central question, it seems to me, is what the purpose of homework is. If it is to assist in the
learning of something that is interesting, or worthwhile, or necessary to know for some future benefit,
then I think that homework is quite legitimate. If its purpose is more to meet some requirement that a
certain amount of homework be set, without meeting any other worthwhile purpose, then I think it is
not. In any case, the homework that you do because you see the benefit in doing it is always much
better than that which you do (solely) because your teacher has commanded it. And note that the
amount of homework required should not be so much that it throws the students' lives out of balance.

As to the weekend, if the homework is legitimate homework, I can't see why it shouldn't be done on
the weekend. However, particularly for more senior students, I always think that homework should be
set over a more extended period of time, so that you, the student, allocate the time to it as you see fit
— and if you choose never to make that time on the weekend (while still being able to meet the time
commitment that you need to reach your goals), then it is your choice.

Tim Sprod