homework gate controversy

The independent voice of cricket

How an off-hand comment from Ed Cowan led to the homework-gate scandal

The homework-gate scandal was arguably the defining incident of Mickey Arthur’s spell as the Australia men’s head coach.

Midway through Australia’s tour to India in 2013, Arthur, along with captain Michael Clarke and team manager Gavin Dovey, chose to stand down four players from the Australia team after they failed to complete a simple off-field task – to give three points on how the team could progress and three points on how players could progress as individuals – after their defeat in the second Test at Hyderabad left them 2-0 down in the series with two to play.

The four players in question – Shane Watson , James Pattinson , Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson – were controversially made ineligible for selection for the third Test of the series in a move that hung over Arthur for the remainder of his reign before he was replaced as Australia coach weeks before that year’s Ashes series in England by Darren Lehmann.

Speaking on the Cricket Life Stories YouTube channel, Arthur, now the Sri Lanka head coach, explained that he did not think much of the quartet’s failure to complete the task at the time and it was only after more members of the support staff caught wind of what was going did matters escalate.

“At the end of the day, I wasn’t that worried…those four players who forgot, all I was going to do that day was to remind them that day when we arrived at Mohali, ‘Hey guys, remember your lists’ and they’d have probably said, ‘Yeah sorry coach, I’ll get them to you tonight.

“But on the plane, I was sitting next to Michael Clarke, the manager Gavin Dovey was next to us and Eddie Cowan was sitting just in front of us. Eddie Cowan just happened to turn around and say, ‘Hey coach, how’s it all going with those things?’ I said, ‘Great but I need four to come in.’ And then the manager said, ‘Who are the four?’ and I said who the four were.

“Then they [members of the support staff] said, ‘that’s not very good, what are we going to do about it?’ In my mind at that point I was just going to nudge them as I got off the plane, it hadn’t become a massive issue for me at that time. It then became common knowledge that those four players hadn’t done it.

“You had Michael, the manager and the support staff saying, ‘What are you going to do?’ And then suddenly I’m sitting in a pickle. They clearly hadn’t done what I’d asked but I didn’t think it was that big a deal at that point in time. Had they not done it by the first practice, that then would have become a massive issue. It became a no-win situation for me.

“I wonder what would have happened to my Australia coaching career if Eddie hadn’t turned around and said, ‘Hey coach, how have the players responded?”

Watson, the Australia vice-captain at the time, labelled the punishment “extremely harsh” after his dropping. The decision to not consider the four players for selection for the third Test in Mohali was widely criticised, with the likes of Mark Waugh remarking: “I’ve never heard anything so stupid in all my life. It’s not under 6s – this is Test cricket.” Australia went on to lose the series 4-0.

You can watch the full Cricket Life Stories interview with Arthur here .

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Mickey Arthur admits to big regret over Homework-gate, says the punishment didn’t fit the crime

MICKEY Arthur has expressed regret at his handling of the infamous Homework-gate saga on Australia’s 2013 tour of India, admitting “maybe the punishment didn’t fit the crime”.

Arthur, now at the helm of Pakistan, is returning to Australia for the first time as an international coach since he was axed by Cricket Australia on the eve of the 2013 Ashes series.

In an exclusive interview with Fox Sports News 500, Arthur admitted he harboured some regrets about his 21-Test tenure as Australian coach and, specifically, the controversy that resulted in Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja and James Pattinson being stood down from the Mohali Test in 2013.

“I would do a couple of things differently, without a doubt I would,” Arthur said. “The constant thing that always plagues and plagues me is around Homework-gate. Would I have handled that differently? I guess I might have.”

TUNE IN TO FOX SPORTS NEWS 500 FOR PART ONE OF NEROLI MEADOWS’ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MICKEY ARTHUR

Asked what specifically he would change, Arthur replied: “Probably not suspend four guys! But there needed to be a significant stand made.”

“Discipline was not where it should be,” he continued. “We wanted to try and create an environment of excellence, we working hard to create that environment of excellence, and then something like that happens. So, what do you do? Do you just let it pass?

“If you let it pass then the guys who have worked extremely hard at doing what they did will look at it and go, ‘Why did we do it?’. You have to keep integrity in the system. But maybe the punishment didn’t fit the crime, I guess, and maybe that is something we’d certainly look at.”

Australia’s Test side won 11, lost seven and drew three Tests during Arthur’s tenure, which followed a highly successful stint as South Africa’s head coach. That came to an abrupt end just 16 days before the first Ashes Test in 2013 following a bar altercation between David Warner and Joe Root during the Champions Trophy.

Discipline, it was deemed, had deteriorated on Arthur’s watch and Cricket Australia promptly replaced him at the helm of the national team with Darren Lehmann.

Arthur sought compensation from CA at the Fair Work Tribunal and was left shocked and disappointed when court documents relating to issues within the Australian team — including the relationship between Michael Clarke and Shane Watson — were leaked to the media.

Arthur revealed he had reached out to Clarke to repair the relationship.

“Pup and I always had a really good relationship,” Arthur said. “It was really solid. Obviously around the time I went through the legal issue there was stuff that came out that soured our relationship just a little bit. But we’ve spoken through that.

“I reached out to Michael (and no other player) because I felt an obligation to Michael. And that was it and I left it at that. I’m looking forward to seeing Michael (this summer). I really am.”

Asked whether he felt the issues besetting Australian cricket in 2013 were unresolved in light of recent upheavals in the national team, Arthur was diplomatic.

“International cricket is a cycle,” he said. “When I came in as a coach it was in a crisis then. We had just come out of the Argus Review, there was myself, there was the captain, there was a national selector who became a fulltime role and obviously the director of cricket, Pat Howard’s role.

“We were all trying to work our territory out, work out what our boundaries were. It was a fairly unstable period to start off with but we worked our way through that. As I always said, things went really well for a year. We had some really good young players come through the system, we got gametime into a lot of good younger players who are making significant contributions now.

“That’s what happens. Then you lose your job at a time when you think the team’s just ready to kick on. Then you watch them kick on and I was really happy, I was really chuffed. Darren has obviously brought in his way and his way is a good way, it’s worked.

“Then it will work for a period of time and then it all comes crashing down again and that whole cycle starts. They’ve started that cycle now. That’s just what happens. That’s international sport.”

Arthur already has the unique distinction of coaching Pakistan to the No. 1 Test ranking, however a recent 2-0 series defeat in New Zealand has seen the tourists slip back to No. 4 on the ICC ladder.

He conceded it was a strange feeling returning to Australia as touring coach.

“It’s a surreal feeling coming to the Gabba and being in the opposition dressing room and coaching against guys I was particularly fond of and guys whose careers I’ve watched develop,” he said. “But that’s the world of international coaching. It’s a pretty ruthless world and that’s what happens. You come up against your old charges all the time.

“The toughest part was around three years ago, getting my head around exactly how that all happened, because your integrity, your reputation, everything, takes a massive knock. That was tough. But I worked my way through that.

“Coming back, I always knew it was going to be tough. The media has got a job to do. It annoys me that those stories are going to get rehashed and rehashed and rehashed, but that’s just part of it. I’ve learned to smile and take it on the chin.

“I want to make it really clear again: it’s not about me against Australia. It’s about two very good young cricket teams going head to head. That’s where the focus should be. The focus is certainly not on any revenge mission or anything like that. I hold no anger. I made peace with it a long time ago.”

PART TWO OF MICKEY ARTHUR’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WILL BE AIRED ON FOX SPORTS NEWS 500 ON WEDNESDAY.

Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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This post has been updated as of December 2017.

It’s not uncommon to hear students, parents, and even some teachers always complaining about homework. Why, then, is homework an inescapable part of the student experience? Worksheets, busy work, and reading assignments continue to be a mainstay of students’ evenings.

Whether from habit or comparison with out-of-class work time in other nations, our students are getting homework and, according to some of them, a LOT of it. Educators and policy makers must ask themselves—does assigning homework pay off?

Is there evidence that homework benefits students younger than high school?

The Scholastic article Is Homework Bad? references Alfie Kohn’s book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , in which he says, “There is no evidence to demonstrate that homework benefits students below high school age.”

The article goes on to note that those who oppose homework focus on the drawbacks of significant time spent on homework, identifying one major negative as homework’s intrusion into family time. They also point out that opponents believe schools have decided homework is necessary and thus assign it simply to assign some kind of homework, not because doing the work meets specifically-identified student needs.

“Busy work” does not help students learn

Students and parents appear to carry similar critiques of homework, specifically regarding assignments identified as busy work—long sheets of repetitive math problems, word searches, or reading logs seemingly designed to make children dislike books.

When asked how homework can negatively affect children, Nancy Kalish, author of The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It , says that many homework assignments are “simply busy work” that makes learning “a chore rather than a positive, constructive experience.”

Commenters on the piece, both parents and students, tended to agree. One student shared that on occasion they spent more time on homework than at school, while another commenter pointed out that, “We don’t give slow-working children a longer school day, but we consistently give them a longer homework day.”

Without feedback, homework is ineffective

The efficacy of the homework identified by Kalish has been studied by policy researchers as well. Gerald LeTendre, of Penn State’s Education Policy Studies department points out that the shotgun approach to homework, when students all receive the same photocopied assignment which is then checked as complete rather than discussed individually with the student, is “not very effective.”  He goes on to say that, “If there’s no feedback and no monitoring, the homework is probably not effective.”

Researchers from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia had similar findings in their study, “ When Is Homework Worth The Time ?” According to UVAToday, these researchers reported no “substantive difference” in the grades of students related to homework completion.

As researcher Adam Maltese noted, “Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be.” The report further suggested that while not all homework is bad, the type and quality of assignments and their differentiation to specific learners appears to be an important point of future research.

If homework is assigned, it should heighten understanding of the subject

The Curry School of Education report did find a positive association between standardized test performance and time spent on homework, but standardized test performance shouldn’t be the end goal of assignments—a heightened understanding and capability with the content material should.

As such, it is important that if/when teachers assign homework assignments, it is done thoughtfully and carefully—and respectful of the maximum times suggested by the National Education Association, about 10 minutes per night starting in the first grade, with an additional 10 minutes per year after.

Continue reading — The Homework Debate: How Homework Benefits Students

Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

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• Ending the Homework Debate: Expert Advice on What Works
• Advice on Creating Homework Policies
• Elementary Students and Homework: How Much Is Too Much?
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• Homework Helps High School Students Most — But it Must Be Purposeful

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Homework-gate cricket call wrong: Khawaja

Recalled Test batsman Usman Khawaja reckons he has learnt some harsh lessons of late.

But he is adamant "homework-gate" taught him nothing and it had been wrong of the previous management to enforce their controversial penalty.

Khawaja, 28, has credited soul searching during a nine-month rehabilitation from a shattering knee injury with helping him earn another international lifeline.

He is tipped to bat at No.3 in his first Test in two years, the trans-Tasman series opener starting on Thursday at the Gabba.

However, Khawaja gave no credit to the now infamous homework-gate controversy during the doomed 2013 tour of India.

In what then Australian coach Mickey Arthur described as a "line in the sand" call, Khawaja, Shane Watson and two other teammates were suspended after the second Test because they had failed to complete a team task.

Asked if he had learned anything from the drama, Khawaja said: "Not really - I just thought it was the wrong decision.

"I think the penalty didn't suit what happened.

"It's been talked about a lot but there were better ways to go about it.

"I know as a captain, if the same thing happened to one of my players, I would have treated it differently, but everyone has their own way.

"I don't think even think about it, until someone brings it up."

Khawaja was later cut from the Australian team after the failed 2013 Ashes campaign.

Then came the biggest blow of all in December 2014.

Khawaja required a full knee reconstruction after a training mishap with Big Bash League side Sydney Thunder, ruling him out of 2015 World Cup and Ashes contention.

"I never expected to do an injury for nine months - it was a tough time," Khawaja said of his recovery.

"I was just really disappointed because I wanted to put my hand up for the World Cup.

"I thought I was really close.

"Now I am back, I am making sure I am enjoying it because you know you can't take it for granted - it can all end pretty soon."

The stage is set for Khawaja to launch his Test comeback at the Gabba.

In eight Sheffield Shield matches at the Brisbane venue, Khawaja has stroked 839 runs at 69.92, including three tons.

Only two of his 15 Shield innings in Brisbane have not been at No.3.

After nine Tests, Khawaja has 377 runs at 25.13 with just two 50s.

"I love playing at the Gabba; it's home for me now," the NSW-bred Khawaja said.

"But I would be happy playing anywhere.

"I would play on Mars if they asked."

More Cricket news and highlights

• ICC ODI Player Rankings
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• ICC Test Player Rankings

The homework-gate controversy – the two sides of a coin!

The homework-gate controversy that has engulfed the australian cricket has drawn the ire of the critics, while the others are set about defending the abrupt removal of the players from the team..

Questions are being raised against the Arthur’s integrity as a coach and the puppy, who is ‘supposedly’ incapable of keeping his players behind the line .

Amidst all these unnecessary brouhaha, the question that needs answering is “whether the players deserved such harsh treatment for a silly theological process. The blatant answer would be in the negative, but that is how Australians operate, both on and off the field. They are completely professional and extremely passionate on what they do.

Sample this : The world T20 2009 saw Australia being ousted in the preliminary rounds. Their arsenal was severely depleted with the retirements of Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden and yet they saw fit to drop Symonds owing to indiscipline. Australians are extremely proud about their cricketing acumen and their former grandeur.

The Australian think-tank:

“We were particularly aware of where we were as a team and how we were going to get back. I asked the players at the end of the game to give me an individual presentation. I wanted three points from each of them technically, mentally and team as to how we were going to get back over the next couple of games, how we were going to get ourselves back into the series. Unfortunately four players didn’t comply with that. We pride ourselves on attitude. We have given the players a huge amount of latitude to get culture and attitude right,” – Mickey Arthur, coach, Australian cricket team.

Having been at the top of the table for the major part of the last decade, they are visibly facing a torrid time swallowing the bitter pill of climbing down the ladder. The team that once boasted of world-beaters tag remains a mirage of its former glory, unable to replicate its success story of the past.

Obviously, Mickey Arthur would be having a tough time in his endeavour to put the Australian team back on the board. The further losses of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey have pegged them quite heavily and the humiliation in India isn’t lifting any moods back in Australia. As the coach, he bears the responsibility to Cricket Australia and its fans. Therefore it isn’t hard to discern his predicament. A whitewash here would put his career in jeopardy.

The mindset of the players : Too harsh a punishment for the homework-gate controversy

“Any time you are suspended from a Test match, unless you have done something unbelievably wrong and obviously everyone knows what those rules are – I think it is very harsh. In the end I have got to live with it. That is the decision they have made and at this point in time I am at a stage where I have to weigh up my future with what I want to do with my cricket in general.” – Shane Watson

On the other hand, let us spare thought for the situation of the suspended players. Shane Watson isn’t exactly a youngster and to be frank, he understands his place and responsibilities in the team. As a vice-captain, it would have been humiliating for him to be put under the scanner.

For the major part of his stop-start yet brilliant career, Watson was shunt from one side to the other. Injuries, form fluctuations and a certain other factors that included the might of the Australian team that kept him out of action. It was a struggle and yet he has managed to keep himself afloat. It is a huge achievement considering the facts presented, not to mention his single-handed effort that led Australia into the semi finals of the T20 world cup, 2012.

The others players (Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Johnson and James Pattinson) involved in this homework-gate controversy are extremely professional as well and with the kind of the competition that they are facing in the domestic circuit, it isn’t difficult to attest the fact that they are indeed deserving of their place in their side. Having seen club cricket, I have come to understand that a major part of the cricketers love to operate in their unique manner. Be it their fitness routines, or the type of drills that they undergo every day; it is certainly diverse for each player. To ask them to fill a form would absolutely sound ridiculous to their routines, not to mention their egos.

Homework-Gate Controversy : the bottom line

Though the Australian management saw fit to ban these players, they simply do not have a point to prove. Ultimately they are branded as the villain. Instead, they could be a modicum of support to the players. They could have had a chat on the issue, rather than make a catfight out of it. Clarke should know better to keep his players in check, not by this means though.

The players on their part should have a better understanding of their responsibilities and go with the flow. A rebel on an alien land would certainly tarnish the image of the board and as players they wouldn’t want to have that kind of dirt on their hands. The homework-gate controversy should be considered as a one-off incident and the team should work together to salvage some pride before they venture home

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Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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Aust cricket ‘has leadership vacuum’

With no obvious successor to Michael Clarke in sight, Australian cricket’s young guns have been urged to strive high to be the next Test captain.

Chief selector John Inverarity has admitted it’s a wide open field to replace Clarke when his tenure ends – and he wants emerging players to put their hands up.

Ever since the Test captaincy was forced on Allan Border following Kim Hughes’ tearful resignation in 1984, there’s been an obvious successor groomed as the next skipper.

But allrounder Shane Watson’s decision to stand down as Clarke’s vice-captain following the so-called `homework-gate’ controversy has highlighted the current leadership vacuum in Australian cricket.

Veteran wicketkeeper Brad Haddin, 35, was last week appointed as Clarke’s Test deputy for the Ashes, while 30-year-old George Bailey was named official vice-captain of the one-day team on Wednesday.

The country’s Twenty20 skipper, Bailey is highly regarded and also captained Australia to two wins from three one-dayers last summer but has never played a Test and is just two years younger than Clarke.

Inverarity admitted the five-man selection panel seriously considered giving deposed Test gloveman Matthew Wade, 25, a leadership position before opting for Bailey’s experience.

David Warner, 26, has often been mentioned as a future leader but the selectors did not even consider the explosive opener.

Inverarity admitted succession planning was a “challenge” for his panel, who made fringe Test batsman Steve Smith, 24, vice-captain of the upcoming Australia A tour of the UK.

He acknowledged the stark contrast to previous years when the Test side usually had a number of Sheffield Shield captains in their ranks.

“It’s an open field so it’s a great opportunity for a lot of young players,” he said.

“That particular age group they need to look at that and look at the opportunities there.

“It is a fantastic opportunity for some young men.”

Inverarity’s statement took top-order batsman Phil Hughes, 24, by surprise.

He admitted leadership aspirations would only be on the radar of rising players once they cement themselves in the Australian side through consistent performances, and that took the prime focus.

“Leadership – number one foremost is performing and staying there for a few years,” Hughes said.

Tasmanian skipper Bailey agreed and didn’t believe his one-day appointment would help move him any closer at all to Test selection.

“The best way of getting into the Test team is scoring runs in long-form cricket,” he said.

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Usman Khawaja slams Pakistan’s potential team director Mickey Arthur

The Pakistan Cricket Board is set to appoint former coach, Mickey Arthur, as Pakistan’s team director

News Desk in Karachi

08 February, 2023

Usman Khawaja has lambasted former Australia coach Mickey Arthur for the 'homework' gate controversy that took place during Australia’s tour of India in 2013.

Khawaja, along with three others -- James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson, and Shane Watson -- was suspended for one match for not submitting a 'homework' assigned by the then coach, Arthur.

The players were assigned to give in writing answers to queries on ways to improve the team's performance, and the four did not submit their answers in time.

The left-hander believes Arthur was trying to prioritise everything other than being a better competitor on the field.

"All the coaching and support staff with Mickey (Arthur) at the top were trying to concentrate on all the other things, but that wasn't why we were losing," Khawaja said.

ALSO READ:  PSL franchises make late changes to their squad

He added that India were a better team, which is why they won the series.

"At that point, we weren't a more skillful team than India, and that's why we lost. We didn't lose because we weren't fitter than them, we didn't lose because we weren't a better fielding side than them, we were just not as skillful as they (India) were," he said.

 Khawaja said he felt like an outsider in the dressing room after the incident.

"It was already tough enough for a new guy to fit in the team. And when something like this happens, it just made you feel like you were more of an outsider," he added.

According to media reports, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is set to appoint former coach Mickey Arthur as Pakistan’s team director.

Despite assuming the team’s director position, Arthur will not be with the team during the international series that will take place during the English county season, as he will continue to work as the full-time coach for Derbyshire County Cricket Club.

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Hannah Hidalgo nose ring controversy: Notre Dame coach, freshman speak out after forced removal of jewelry

Hidalgo had to sit for over four minutes vs. oregon state after the officials decided she needed to remove her nose ring.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Anticipation bubbled over inside MVP Arena as the first NCAA Women's Sweet 16 game tipped off between No. 3 Oregon State and No. 2 Notre Dame. However, there was a stoppage 32 seconds into the game to fix a shot clock issue. Another clock review in the dying seconds of the first quarter came when Notre Dame freshman Hannah Hidalgo committed an undisciplined body foul with less than a second left.

Hidalgo wouldn't been seen on the court again until the 5:51 mark of the second quarter. That was because her training staff was using what appeared to be pliers to remove her nose ring. Before the start of the second quarter, Hidalgo had a small piece of tape covering her nose ring.

Hannah Hidalgo missed some time in Notre Dame's Sweet 16 matchup with Oregon State to have her nose ring removed. pic.twitter.com/1XF0XCCrjM — ESPN (@espn) March 29, 2024

In a postgame interview with ESPN , Hidalgo said she was told before the game she could wear her ring as usual as long as she covered it up. However, Hidalgo was instructed to remove the ring before returning to the game, leading to her unexpected absence. 

"I mean, it was hard starting the game," Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey told CBS Sports. "Felt we got a flow, got a stop, then the clock. I mean, it's part of it. We just have to pivot. But it definitely had more stoppage than I would have expected in a Sweet 16 game." 

After the game, the NCAA pool reporter issued the following statement to answer why Hidalgo was required to leave the game:

" Head decorations, head wear, helmets, and jewelry are illegal," the statement read. " ... At the first dead ball, [the player] shall be required to remove the jewelry immediately or be required to leave the game and not return until after removing the jewelry. [The player] cannot 'buy' the right to wear the jewelry by being charged with a technical foul." 

Ivey told media she "didn't know what happened" with Hidalgo. 

"I guess it was a point of emphasis in the Sweet 16 with jewelry," Ivey said. "She's had a nose ring the entire season. Just wish we would have known beforehand. Can't control it, so we had to move on. But yeah, stoppage of play is never great when you're trying to have flow." 

The game discernibly lacked flow for Notre Dame. Hidalgo had four early points but struggled to connect for the rest of the game . She ended her freshman season with 10 points while shooting 4-of-17 from the floor and 0-of-3 from the perimeter. 

"I thought it was B.S., because I'm on a run, I'm on a roll," Hidalgo told ESPN. "I scored two baskets and then having to sit out for all that time, I was starting to get cold. I think [the officials] were worried about the wrong things. They should have reffed the game."

"I was not aware of that. I didn't know any of those things until now," Oregon State coach Scott Rueck said postgame. "I would say I thought we did a pretty good job defensively. I was really pleased. To make her go 4-of-17, those are the types of numbers that this team has forced our opponents into all season long, and so that was in a way par for the course, and it's certainly not to take away from her. I just think our length and our discipline to stay in front of her was disruptive." 

Although it is clear and understandable why the incident disrupted Hidalgo, there were things the Irish would likely want to do differently. After a brief break, Ivey's team plans to identify those things and ensure they don't happen again. 

"They definitely need some time off, and we'll regroup, refocus on our vision and get to work," Ivey said. "We're going to get back to work. That's one thing you know about me. I grind, and this team, we're about business." 

As for her nose ring, Hidalgo plans to continue on as she did this season. "Next season, I'm going to play with it still until they tell me to take it out."

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Homeworkgate

English [ edit ]

Etymology [ edit ].

homework +‎ -gate , in reference to an assignment given to the players by their head coach, asking them to write down ways of improving their team performance.

Proper noun [ edit ]

• ( informal ) A controversy involving the Australian cricket team 's 2013 tour of India , during which players were suspended from play following breaches of discipline .

• English terms suffixed with -gate
• English lemmas
• English proper nouns
• English uncountable nouns
• English informal terms

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Down-bad Baldur's Gate 3 player loses 90-hour Honor Mode run to an NSFW scene that definitely wasn't worth the sacrifice

Striking deals with Incubuses isn't generally the best idea

Baldur's Gate 3 's Honor Mode is a truly brutal way to play the enormous RPG, with tougher foes, a single save slot, and the constant threat of having to start over if your party gets wiped. A momentary lapse in judgment can mean losing hours of progress, and one player has suffered exactly that at the hands of an NSFW scene they were too thirsty to ignore. 

Before we get into it, consider this your final spoiler warning as the scene in question appears in the third act of the game. If you don't want to find out what it is, feel free to scroll away now with the sound advice that it's always worth being cautious when dealing with dialogue options you've not seen before during Honor Mode runs. 

As shared by a player on Reddit , the scene in question takes place in the House of Hope during Act 3. After 90 hours of playtime, the player arrives there with the knowledge that they need to get a key from the Incubus, Haarlep. There are a few ways you can do this – you can fight them and loot the key after defeating them, or you can choose to initiate an NSFW scene and get in bed with them. This itself also has a couple of options within it, but if you fully submit to Haarlep and give them your soul, you can expect to be met with instant death. I'm sure you see where this is going. 

"I sneak in through the balcony, and the dialogue starts, and I’m thinking, 'Well, I have never seen this [scene] before, so why not.' I knew from spoilers that this would kill me, but I had plenty of revive scrolls, so I just planned to use one after," the Redditor begins. 

"Well, I play along and give my soul to them, and then [the] lost Honor Run screen pops up, and I can see the rest of my party still alive in the background. So I lost my 90-hour Honor run because I wanted to see the scene with the [incubus]." Was it worth it, they contemplate? "No."

As others in the thread have pointed out, giving Haarlep their soul was the player's unfortunate mistake: "There's no reviving when the Incubus takes your body and soul," one responds . The first? It's not that terrible; you'll live. But the latter? It's time to roll for saves!"

Needless to say, if you're in the midst of your own Honor Mode run, just be careful when it comes to making deals with Haarlep – even if you find the scene tempting, it's probably not worth giving up so much progress for. Even so, it's certainly one of the more unusual ways we've seen Honor Mode runs fail in the months since it came out, which has got to count for something.

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I'm one of GamesRadar+'s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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