David Mills Homework

By not giving out homework, students will work harder in class and have better grades. Teachers have to understand that if students are tired from late nights, they wouldn't be able to work efficiently during the day. In addition, students would be much more excited to come to school because they know they wouldn't have to worry about getting any homework. In 2010, a survey was taken and it showed that about 70% of teen ages 11 to 17 get less than 8 hours of sleep per day due to the amount of homework they have to do (Logos). According to Alfie Kohen, students feel forced to do their homework, therefore they aren't learning as much as they should (Ethos). Students lose interest in the topic and do not benefit from what they’re learning. In China, a cry for change by a mother who lost her thirteen year old daughter who committed suicide due to her inability to achieve in math, the mother considers homework is a huge negative factor toward her deceased daughter's tragic ending along with the pressure of society (Pathos). Such a story should leave us wondering, how many more children need to suffer the silent epidemic of school stress. Statistics prove the leading cause for the majority of physical and emotional complaints leading up to diagnosis of depression in middle and high school due to the amount of

One of the most controversial topics in education today is homework. This debate has been going on for decades, as teachers, administrators, and parents disagree on whether homework should be assigned, and if assigned, then what the right amount of homework should be. The time students spend on homework has increased over the years. “High school students get assigned up to 17.5 hours of homework per week, according to a survey of 1,000 teachers” (Bidwell). Recently, more fuel has been added in this debate because younger students in particular are receiving much more homework than before. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, states that “The amount of homework that younger kids – ages 6 to 9 – have

Imagine having a full time job where you did not get paid, could not quit, and have at least a few hours of paperwork to complete each night. This is what students go through everyday with homework. Homework is assignments sent home from school for students of all ages to finish by a certain due date, for a grade. In the past decade, controversies over the amount of work kids and teens are given has lead many to study the benefits of homework to see if the work teachers assign is actually helping students academically and improving test scores. It has grown to an extreme amount, prevents kids and teens from getting the things they need in life, gets in the way of a good childhood, damages relationships, and has not proven to actually aid

“Homework is arguably the worst punishment inflicted upon the student body.” One would think this extreme statement would come from the 10-year boys and girls who complain to their parents about the homework they have to complete. However, Rodney Jones starts of his argument against homework using this statement. He argues that homework does not help children taking up all their time. Continuing, he explains how parents should extend child’s knowledge out of school instead of homework and in the end these assignments do not help students grade. However, in contrast of Jones’ beliefs homework indeed benefits children’s learning through the small amounts of extra practice it gives to help the students excel.

High school students feel more stress than working adults, and children are beginning to feel aversion towards learning. Both adolescents and children are at risk of health issues due to anxiety and less time is spent with family, playing, and sleeping. The cause for all of this is too much homework that is suffocating students. Homework causes students to sleep less, have more stress, and even forces students to give up extracurricular activities. These negative results can be improved by reducing the homework load.

Homework has been an area of discussion for teachers, students, and even psychologists. It’s been a practice which has been used throughout the United States to help students learn material, reinforce their day’s lesson, or just as busy work to improve a student’s work ethic. Several people view homework as useless, or just plainly unhelpful; this view has been demonstrated ever since the early twentieth century, where many authors and politicians were vehemently against homework, going as far as to write whole books and draft legislation (legislation which had passed the Californian government and had been law) against homework. This opposition has ever since faded, but is now seeing a new movement around America, and there are reasons as to why that is. In an article from CNN, they quote a study from another article published by The American Journal of Family Therapy which states that: “students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended”, and, as such, students are raised within a state of stress from the first grade. Several other studies also find that homework is very hurtful; the Journal of Experimental Education published an article which had made a study that found that the average amount of time students spend on homework each night had been 3.1 hours from a sample of high-performing schools in California, when the recommended time on homework is, at most, one hour each night. Homework has been mandated work for students all around the country, and several others, and the workload seems to only be increasing, and so, how might this workload affect a student’s ability to live a healthy life, a teacher’s work plan, and a psychologist’s view of an enormous workload on a student?

In the early twentieth century, the brain was seen as a muscle that had to be strengthened. They believed that with every piece of information they learned, their brain would physically grow. Therefore, most teachers during this time period’s response was to assign more and more homework. Although some students saw positive results, the majority did not. This led to a national crisis; more students were dropping out of school than ever before. Reformers at the time believed that homework was a sin, as it increased negative attitudes towards learning, deprived students of time to relax or complete any tasks that were not school related, and it had the ability to cause several different health problems. Now over a hundred years later, homework

On average, American high school teachers assign approximately 3.5 hours of homework each week, meaning that teens with multiple classes spend around 17.5 hours a week working on these assignments. In only 13 years, the percentage of teens that claim they spend an hour on homework each day has increased to 45%, from the 39% in 1994 (Bidwell). Parents and students across the country are beginning to spot the flaws in these homework methods, however, claiming that academics are merely being memorized instead of thoroughly taught. Is homework truly helping America’s students? To the majority of high schoolers, the answer is clear: homework is unnecessary for academic development.

Across the world, children and teens do homework after school. Many people expect homework to be a healthy educational learning tool, but is it really? No, I believe homework is something we need to get rid of. Instead of making it easier to learn, it is creating stress and medical issues with students, finally, it doesn’t affect academic success. Why exactly?

Roberto Nevilis, a teacher in Venice, changed history when he created the first use of homework in 1095. Since then, students’ opinions of homework haven’t changed. Roberto Nevilis started homework as a way of punishing his students for not doing their work. Nowadays, homework is assigned to help students receive more practice for what they learned in school that day. Despite the good intentions that homework is supposed to provide, it actually proves more harm than good. In the twenty-first century, the increase of homework negatively affects American teens’ sleep schedules, stress levels, and after school opportunities. Parent involvement in homework can turn into parent interference.

Homework has been at the front of school reform since the early 1900’s. Debates over the benefits of homework include “immediate impact on the retention and understanding of the material it covers” (Cooper, 1989, p.86) and downsides of homework include “satiation, denial of access to leisure time and community activities; parental interference; cheating; and increased differences between high and low achievers” (Cooper, 2006, p.7) have led to a see-saw of support and objection regarding homework. There is support from several studies (Maltese, Tai, Fan, 2012; Cooper, Robinson, Patall, 2006; Falkenberg & Barbetta, 2013) that cite homework as a source of increasing students’ achievement level. None of the

In many American households, homework is the main cause of stress. Some people think that America is not so well and adding more homework will fix that problem. A study by Indiana University found that students who do more homework tend to get higher scores on standardized tests” (“Do Kids Need Homework?”). “Plus, part of growing up is learning to balance outside activities and the demands of schoolwork” (“Should Parents Help Kids With Homework?). Teachers have their reasons as well. “Teachers say homework is important in the learning process and can help kids develop study and organizational skills. They say kids need to practice what they've learned in school so that the material sticks in their brain” (Strauss). “Having too much homework

A longitudinal analysis of NAEP data by the Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless in 2014 found that more 9-year-olds were regularly doing homework than their parents' generation: In 1984, 35% of students reported no homework the previous night. By 2012, that had shrunk to 22%. But the share of 9-year-olds reporting an hour or more of homework was also down by two percentage points in that same period, from 19% to 17%. The percentage reporting less than an hour of homework had risen from 41% to 57%. Loveless also found that 27% of 17-year-olds reported having no homework. And the share of 17-year-olds who spent more than two hours a night on homework remained unchanged at 13%. This shows that a lot of students are having homework. Kirkwood High School was trying an experiment for the sake of student and teacher mental health. Some schools across the country have already tried discarding homework, and many reports success and positive feedback from students and

When you think about school one of the first things that pops into people’s mind is homework. Basically if you have asked your parents or your grandparents they would say that they remember the homework load. Now we all know that homework can be beneficial but also can be very unhealthy with all of the stress that it causes. Over the years the homework load has increased because of the fact that schools think that they need to try to keep up with other countries in academics. And will doing all of this homework now be all for nothing later? The homework load has increased these past couple of years and it is causing a lot of stress on kids and overall is not helping their academics in the long run.

The majority of students have, at one point or another, wished for less homework. For some student’s homework is not a big issue but for other students it can take hours and even days to do all their homework. That wasted time could be used for enjoyment or learning life skills instead of homework. Nine in ten high school students reported feeling stressed about homework (Galloway 4). So, should students get less homework? Yes, students should receive less homework because it improves their well-being by reducing stress and its impacts on health, increasing leisure time, and showing that homework does not affect grades significantly.