Tag Archives: Body & Mind

No More Homework?

If research is to be believed, your kids may start coming home with less homework.  For younger students, a few schools are reducing the number of repetitive exercises given, and replacing them with assignments designed to engage the mind. 

Years of research supports the idea that there is no link between grades and the amount of homework assigned.  In a study covering 50 countries, students with the highest grades (such as Japan and Denmark) did very little homework, compared to children with the lowest grades (such as Greece and Iran), who did lots of homework.  Due to various research reports, some teachers and parents now see no need to assign a lot of afterschool work in the early and middle grades. 

Harris Cooper, one of the leading researchers on homework in the United States, firmly believes in extra schoolwork.  “Kids at all grade levels are going to benefit from practice,” he states.  “…If it’s practice that gets you to Carnegie Hall, homework’s going to help.”

However, he acknowledges that too much does not mean better grades.  His rule of thumb: children shouldn’t do more than 10 minutes of homework for each grade.  For example, a Grade 2 student should have only 20 minutes of homework; a Grade 7 student, 1 hour and 10 minutes.

At Vernon Barford Junior High in Edmonton, teacher Judy Hoeksema now assigns half the work she did last year.  “We’ve all been under this illusion that lots of homework creates good study habits for the future,” the math teacher of 26 years says.  “Now, we’ve realized it isn’t making much difference.”

As a bonus for scaling back homework, many families are seeing  increased quality time for children and parents , less household stress, and less physical stress on their kids due to less books being carried.

Disney Ditches Unhealthy Diets

The Walt Disney Company has said no to unhealthy food in marketing. No longer will Disney use foods that are too unhealthy and have created guidelines that define what they will sponsor and what they wont.

“For instance, added sugar in those foods will not exceed 10 percent of calories for main and side dishes and 25 percent of calories for snacks. Total fat will not exceed 30 percent of calories for main and side dishes and 35 percent for snacks.”

I guess that means no more Mickey Mouse for many fast food chains.

Wikipedia Uncensored

wiki ballWikipedia is no longer being blocked in China! After refusing to cede to Chinese demands to censor the community made encyclopedia the Chinese government blocked access to wikipedia from within China.

Last week, Chinese-forums.com members discovered that the blocking of wikipedia has ended!

Hopefully Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft will learn that they don’t have to self-censor to get into China.

TV 45 Light Years Away

Slashdot reported that a television company is broadcasting for an audience of alien species.

“The two naked hosts will present their own unclothed bodies as examples of our physical embodiments, and will tell about daily human existence. Music, art, and our own personal messages will be transmitted as well as discussions from sociologists, scientists, and space experts. This project is the brainchild of the French-based Centre National D’etudes Spatiales and is rooted in seriousness as a natural extension of the gold-plated ambassador disks of Pioneer 10. “

Dial-a-Meal

Over at OneWorld South Asia they are running this neat story about a dial-a-meal program:

“Hunger Helpline allows hungry in Gujarat to dial-a-meal. Poor and hungry and living in Gujarat? A meal is just a phone call away, if the state’s food and civil supplies department, which is launching a Hunger Helpline, is to be believed

A novel Hunger Helpline in Gujarat, initiated by the state government in collaboration with civil society organisations (CSOs), aims to connect poor people in need of a meal with food donors through the telephone.

The brainchild of the state’s food and civil supplies department, this first-of-its-kind service aims to ensure than no person in the state goes hungry, either during a natural calamity or even on an ordinary day.”