To live is to work and to work creatively. To live is to accomplish things. To be great is to accomplish more. If we teach kids to value doing things by the book what kind of a lesson is that?

Our virtues are built out of the stuff of our vices. Productive laziness, the kind which says "I want to accomplish such and such but there must be a way without working that hard" is a virtue.

My advice is to figure out what homework is really important and try to figure out what you want to do. Shortcuts aren't cheating. Picking which homework to do is not cheating.

If what you learn out of school is to work hard, memorize things without understanding them, and do without sleep, then it is the perfect preparation for, say, doing data entry for someone. But if you want to be great, learning how to get out of homework is a much more valuable lesson....