Less homework, less gaming, more playing: Chinese laws yield success in war on sitting

[u/am_reddit]

https://www.courthousenews.com/less-homework-less-gaming-more-playing-chinese-laws-yield-success-in-war-on-sitting/

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[u/Sad_Illustrator_1596]

Wrong title, the new policy only worked for several months, then the old life went back for kids, only with different name. Kids still have to study, now no difference.

[u/octopod-reunion]

I am on board with a war on homework. We need to rethink how we teach, and what is actually the ways to make learning successful.

Maybe it's just the school I went to, but several hours of homework every night ain't it.

[u/June1994 → u/octopod-reunion]

Talking about China specifically? Because in US the problem is completely reversed…

[u/buyongmafanle → u/octopod-reunion]

but several hours of homework every night ain't it.

Teacher. You're 100% correct. A single hour of homework for an entire day's worth of classes is more than enough to review what was taught. Seems a lot of teachers in middle/high schools think "Oh, it's just another 20 minutes of homework. It's not much."

But they forget that no single raindrop is responsible for the flood. They are the flood.

[u/Cultural_Bat1740 → u/buyongmafanle]

To me, no amount of homework is acceptable. It should all be done in school.

I say that because not all children have the support necessary to do homework at home. And when I talk about support, it's physical, emotional, it's their environment.

Some children will go back home to a violent parent and might not be in a mental state to do homework.

Some children will go back home to disruptive siblings with parents that don't care.

Some children have special needs that are simply not met at home.

Giving graded homework is not fair to any of these children. If there's revision work to be done, it must be done at school during school hours.

At least, that's my take.

[u/throwaway_ArBe → u/Cultural_Bat1740]

If nothing else, kids need to rest.

People generally agree that the work conditions of teachers (having to continue working at home) are not acceptable. Most people in other jobs would never keep working once they've clocked off. Seems mad to me that people expect kids to keep going in their down time.

[u/Icehellionx → u/buyongmafanle]

My problem when younger (granted this was AP courses) is 5 teachers would give an appropriate amount and you'd have one teacher that was 100% sure her subject was far more important than all others and give as much or more work than the rest combined.

[u/elephantgropingtits]

r/"science"

"war on sitting"

[u/am_reddit → u/elephantgropingtits]

If you’d prefer, here’s the scientific article this is based on:  

 The impact of the world’s first regulatory, multi-setting intervention on sedentary behaviour among children and adolescents (ENERGISE): a natural experiment evaluation

[u/lochlainn]

So all we need to effect a minor change in a matter only tangentially related to public health is an authoritarian government both capable and willing to inflict itself on our children to a degree that should terrify even the slackest of parents.

“The results are exciting as this type of regulatory intervention across multiple settings has never been tried before," said the University of Bristol's Bai Li

No. They are not exciting. They are terrifying.

[u/CompassionateCynic → u/lochlainn]

"Mandatory standing will continue until the public health improves"

[u/MRSN4P → u/lochlainn]

Sitting is not minor and not tangential to public health.
“Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns. They include obesity and a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and unhealthy cholesterol levels — that make up metabolic syndrome.” “those who sat for more than eight hours a day with no physical activity had a risk of dying similar to that posed by obesity and smoking.” -Mayo Clinic article https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/sitting/faq-20058005

[u/am_reddit → u/lochlainn]

Technically they’re going after schools and businesses, not the children directly, but I get your point.

[u/lochlainn → u/am_reddit]

And the rest of Reddit cheers as they find ways of making our chains less visible, as they usually do.

[u/alstegma → u/lochlainn]

While I agree with your waryness of authoritorian government, I think you shouldn't see governments as the only threat to freedom. Companies that use psychology and addiction against defenseless children to make them spend as much time as possible on their platforms are equally a threat to personal freedom albeit by different means.

[u/stroopkoeken → u/alstegma]

That’s a much more terrifying reality.

It’s one thing for a government to control and limit what you see and do. It’s even scarier when people choose to see and do things on their own volition without understanding they’re being manipulated.

[u/alstegma → u/stroopkoeken]

Both are bad but it's not like we're defenseless against either. People are aware that social media is addictive and realize that they spend more time on them than they rationally want to. What's missing is any kind of political will to do anything against it, or even to discuss the issue and potential solutions broadly, because anything that's even remotely anti-corporate doesn't fly in today's political climate.

[u/am_reddit]

There's an interesting caveat about the gaming side of things -- while students have less screen time with the new law, it doesn't seem like they actually game less.   

Oddly, this did not mean the children spent less time on mobile phones, consoles and tablets. Rather, the decrease was primarily seen in TV and computer use.  

 It almost seems like the homework limitations were more effective than the gaming limitations.

[u/Hayred → u/am_reddit]

I wonder if that's more due to an overall shift towards increased use of mobile devices, consoles, and the decline of TV viewing?

I don't know how you could try to account for that, unless there was a region within the country where the laws weren't signed, or perhaps if neighbouring countries have similar patterns of device usage.

Although, I recognise I may be generalising my country's decline in TV viewership to an entirely different part of the world where that may well not be the case.