Reduce homework, lengthen schooltime

My thanks to Muted for his acceptance. I hope for an intelligent, interesting debate. By virtue of his brief R1, I presume he understands the resolution in full.Massed vs. Spaced PresentationOne of education’s main goals is for students to retain what they learn at school – we ought to prefer systems which result in greater retention of knowledge as it’s a goal for education. A good test score due to cramming, with the student later forgetting such knowledge is sub-optimal vs. a lower test score yet greater memory retention.How does this relate to the resolution? Being in school encourages spaced presentation, which results in better memory retention.This is all about the ‘spacing effect’ [1]. This effect details how humans more easily learn / remember things when studied a few times over a longer period of time (spaced presentation) as opposed to repeated study in a shorter timespan (massed presentation). However, and this is key - "the benefit of spaced presentations does not appear at short retention intervals; that is, at short retention intervals, massed presentation lead to better memory performance than spaced presentations" . SeeGreene, R.L. (1989). Spacing effects in memory: Evidence for a two-process account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15(3), 371-377.School via timetabling tends to promote spaced presentation – lessons are not put back to back to back for the same subject. However, many students might do a mass of homework for a subject in one go because a) Their schedule promotes that, b) They remember as they go (ie. Ex 1. Is a prerequisite for Ex 2. And so remembering Ex 1 helps with Ex 2) along with other reasons. Essentially, students will tend to group together clumps of related homework and do them in go, which is more a form of massed presentation than spaced presentation. Ergo, school, by encouraging spaced presentation under the proposed model through putting ‘homework’ in class time in effect, is preferable. But it doesn’t end there for memory retention. I recently read Memory by Jonathan K. Foster (first published 2009), one of OUP’s fascination very short introductions. To quote one part: “Other things being equal, we tend to remember information better if we are in a similar physical context and emotional state at the time we wish to retrieve information as we were in at the time we were exposed to that information.” School is more akin to work than the home environment, so as per a more similar physical context we remember better. This is specified in the encoding specificity principle. Also, the emotional state at school is more constant than at home, more like work. This again promotes better memory retention as the retrieval cue matches memories better. This sort of logic strongly explains why we can’t remember dreams – the physical context is different, our emotional state different and our physiological state are also different. Homework vs. InstructionOn homework briefly:Much homework is sub-optimal, which can't be helped. Some homework is good but a student doesn't realise it. Some homework is simply beneficial. The issue in evaluating the value of homework is what students do outside of school - for some capable people homework is restrictive; many are just wasting their youth on trivialities; homework is good, no matter it's sub-optimal state, for these people.Textbooks are instructional to a point. However, a teacher’s guidance + a textbook is superior. If a student doesn’t understand their textbook’s example (say, maths) when doing an exercise (the type of homework being restricted) then they will perform sub-optimally (ie. Very short answers to written questions), waste an inordinate amount of time doing the exercise (vs. doing the exercise then something else productive) or they’ll copy the answers. Some of those are diametrically opposite, but that reflects the student’s beliefs being different. A student at school will seek guidance from a teacher when stuck, eliminating time wastage (‘inordinate’). They will have greater difficulty copying answers due to teacher supervision. They will be pushed to perform optimally not just by the teacher, but by peers – iron sharpens iron is just as true in education.CostStreamlining students and workers to the same timetable reduces things like day care costs somewhat, debases tuition costs (private tutoring that is) and ensures maximal use of public transport on a wider basis (many buses and trains around school time are less cramped than during peak hours) . More importantly though, parents can work for longer. There’s less concern for parents to be at home, supervising their children, if they can trust that their child is safe and productive at school, vs. potentially the converse at home.Reduction in general mischiefIt’s a fact – youth disproportionately commit crimes. “A comparison of the proportion of total offenders who were aged 10–24 in 2009–10 (48%) with the proportion of the general population who were aged 10–24 in Australia as at December 2009 (23%), clearly shows the higher proportion of young people in the offender population (graph S13.1).” [2] What do youth have that adults have? A disproportionate amount of unallocated free time, which combined with various rebellious impulses and hormones results in crimes being committed. See the graph in the link for a visual explanation of the aforementioned.A solid school environment and a reduction in this poorly utilised free time (crime is a poor use of time with regards to the collective) will reduce crime. Furthermore, additional schooling increases the ability to get messages out to avoid drugs and the like. Government messages have been effective at reducing drug use, such as smoking [3] [4]. Education is cited as one of the main reasons for this decline in smoking. If we can combat smoking then a more effective message through a safe, controlled environment like school will also reduce illicit drug use, and legal, yet harmful drug use. Longer school hours can help achieve this through better education.Working mindset / Lack of agrarian workforce currentlyWhy did the US and many other countries originally adopt a 9-3 style of schooling? Why did the, now rather ludicrous, idea of summer vacation eventuate in the US? The reason that this occurred was that the US was formerly an agrarian society – children of agrarian society left school to go work in the field at home. Now we have no such demand on our time other than school. Let me quote YYW from the second link last round:“Children must be taught the importance of self discipline, the necessity of a strong work ethic and the importance of maximized productivity from birth. I'm not saying that kids should be pushed into the fields or factories, but rather suggesting that all the time wasted in the summer months is the opportunity cost of greater preparation for college, for grad school, for work and for life.”Now, this debate isn’t about summer vacation, but why not have children work as their parents do? It instills the values of work, the value of free time, presents social mischief (see earlier) and gives children and teenagers a greater appreciation of their parents duties and workload, which increases familial harmony. This mindset in beneficial for future productivity – another goal of education. ConclusionEncouraging spaced presentation, increasing available instructional assistance, reducing cost, a reduction in crime and social mischief, the development of a working mindset and familial harmony are all good reasons to extend the school day.I eagerly await my opponent’s response.Sources1- http://en.wikipedia.org...2- http://www.abs.gov.au...3- http://www.cancercouncil.com.au...4- http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au...