Some very good replies in this thread so far, especially Paul's and Mousie's. As an addition to those thoughts: I went to a very homework-intensive school, and the best thing about that was the advantage it gave me later at university. One of the reasons for homework is that it teaches you *how* to study, how to learn, and most importantly, how to discipline yourself and organise your time. I did just as many stupid, useless I-already-know-this-stuff assignments as anyone, but those ones are the best for teaching that.

If you can't make yourself sit down and spend time doing a good job of something that isn't fun or interesting, you're not going to cope very well in your job, your further education, or life in general.

At university nobody cares if you don't turn up to a single class. Nobody cares if you don't hand in the assignments. They won't tell you off or give you a detention. If you want to blow several thousand dollars' worth of education because it was a nice sunny day outside or there was a movie you wanted to see, that's fine with the professors. The role of good schoolteachers and good homework is to prepare you gently for this world, so that by the time you leave school you can do it all by yourself.

Whether or not you're going on to higher education, the theory still applies in working life and family life. And, as an aside, if you think you have no spare time NOW ... just you wait. :-) Besides, worse things happen in Japan.

Brunnen-"like most other things in life, they told me this at the time and I didn't believe them"G