In recent years, the argument over assigning students tremendous amounts of homework each night continues to grow. In a few districts scattered across the country, superintendents refuse to allow teachers to assign homework to children. The superintendent of Marion County Public Schools in Florida recently assigned a “no homework” policy for the current school year, joining districts in Massachusetts and Vermont. Most parents and students across the country admired the district's decision and hoped their own school system would follow suit. A study from Duke University in 2006 showed that assigning homework did improve academic performance, but an excessive amount could hurt student’s mentality. The famous saying “practice makes perfect” does prove to help people achieve their goals. The more one practices something, the easier it will come to them. Teachers assign homework to give students more opportunities to practice what they have learned in class. In that case, some homework should be assigned, but on the other hand, too much homework becomes unhelpful to the student. For instance, if a math teacher starts on a new section, practice problems will help the student prepare for the next class. Except, assigning thirty questions of the same type of problem becomes too monotonous. A math teacher should only assign ten problems at the maximum. At that point, the teacher should answer any question a student might have the following day. Teachers tell students that the
Is homework more trouble than it is worth? Many students would say it is. Often times, students will work on homework for several hours a day and produce no results. Whether it is in tests, quizzes, or real life situations, improvement does not always show in the results. In fact, homework can cause many different problems. Teachers should stop assigning homework so students will not feel as stressed about school, will have more time to do activities, will have less strain in their relationships, and will not have the negative effects that homework brings.
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.
The debate regarding exactly how much homework is too much homework has been an ongoing debate for years. As of right now, there seems to be no end in sight for this debate. Various adults believe that if children do not obtain homework, then they are not learning properly. However, numerous children are obtaining a substantial amount of homework per night, as well as per each class. Once a child exceeds a certain amount of homework, then it is no longer beneficial for the child’s education. An excessive amount of homework can essentially become harmful to the child’s education. As a result, teachers are struggling with finding the right amount of homework to assign to students. The National Education Association as well as the National Parent-Teacher Association endorse the “10-minute rule” for teachers to follow when assigning homework to students. If a child is assigned an excessive amount of homework, then the child might experience more harm than good when attempting to complete the assigned homework.
Mills begins the article by touching upon the effectiveness of a no-homework policy. As explained, “They reported the no-homework policy has taken the stress out of their afternoons and evenings. In addition, it’s been easier for their children to participate in after-school activities” (Mills). Although this method has been expected to be advantageous for all students, this cannot be the case for all situations. For example, children in most schools, regardless of class difficulty, have homework count for at least some portion of their overall grade. If a student were to have a heavy load of assignments in all classes, the no-homework method may provide temporary relief. It would help ease their mind off of the topic and allow them to
Castle View High School, although some teachers,students,and parents say that homework is something that every student should do and should be a necessity, there should actually be less homework for students so their brains don’t get hot wired. The first reason is that students tend to improve if they spend at least 2-3 hours of doing homework. Students don’t want to spend 2-3 hours of homework after a long day of school, that can be exhausting to them and their brains. Doing homework very little, improves elementary and middle schoolers, homework mostly only helps improve high school students. Another reason is, teachers like students to continue working on the lessons that were taught, to be continued at home. We’ve decided ahead of time
Christine Hauser writes, in her 2016 article “As Students Return to School, Debate About the Amount of Homework Rages,” published in The New York Times, "My daughter, Maya, who is entering second grade, was asked to complete homework six days a week during the summer. For a while, we tried gamely to keep up. But one day she turned to me and said, 'I hate reading'". Hauser tells a story about children having negative attitudes about school because the workload is so heavy. The implications of this are students will stop trying to complete their work well and do worse in school, because of their hate for school and the heavy workload. Pawlowski, in her 2014 article “The End of Homework? Why Some Schools are Banning Homework,” published in NBC
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?
The quality of students’ homework is much more important than the quantity of students homework and data collected during recent studies has proven that homework is not making the grade. “. . . American students are entangled in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math according to the most recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)” (Murphy-Paul). Students should not be given an excessive amount of homework because the pressure of having to complete excessive amounts of homework every night is quite daunting for most students. Knowing how much homework is the right amount correlates with age and grade. An 8th grade student should not be given a myriad of homework that would keep her awake past midnight completing assignments. In any case, there should be a limit on the amount of homework all teachers give to students because an excessive amount of homework would eventually cause students to become uninterested in school and learning, which could result in poor test scores and low ranks in international academic rankings. In order for students to carry out daily activities throughout the day restfully, teachers must be able to provide homework that does not exceed the appropriate amount of time needed to complete it, which is based on grade level. If teachers are too clueless of a students health due to excessive amounts of homework, many students will develop cases of sleep
One thing that homework also, is that homework can take up time. Which limits the amount of time students can get involved in activities that can improve and teach kids skills not taught in schools. So, these activities can teach students some key life skills like teamwork and dedication. So if we put a limit on homework, the students can have more time to get
One reason schools should not do away homework is it helps students succeed when it is mandatory. A high school in Texas stops counting homework assignments as a part of student's grades and "[...] over half of the students [are] failing one or more classes" (Graham). If every high school stops counting homework assignments, one can imagine the negative impact on student performance. However, a research conducted by Harris Cooper, a Duke University professor, reveals, "Middle and high school students see gains beyond one-and-a-half to 2 hours mandatory homework per night" (Mangione). Student performance increases as they are given mandatory homework, proving how homework can be effective in improving learning and building good study habits. Assigning and completing mandatory homework is the only way that helps students with their academic performance.
When a class is almost over and a teacher starts assigning homework, every student's heart drops. When students have an excess of homework, they do not do as well. Even though homework is a good tool to help teachers teach students subjects, teachers should give less homework because too much homework causes mental health issues in students and less homework helps improve test scores.
This is because I believe that students already get enough practice in an average school day and giving them too much homework will lead them to despise learning and school. I think teachers should not give homework for three main reasons: so kids can have more family time, participate in other out-of-school activities without worry, and so they don’t have to stay up late finishing homework, which greatly strains their academic performance. Homework affects your family life in two main ways. First, you don’t have time for family activities after school if you are overwhelmed with homework. And second, if you stay up late doing homework, you will be too tired to do any family activities. Teachers should not consider other activities when assigning homework. This is because not all students have the same
In today's education system, its teachers are held to a standard where they are supposed to give carrying amounts of homework to their students. While on paper this sounds like an obvious decision, recent studies have shown that while homework is helpful, the content that is on the homework can be unimportant or irrelevant. Often times homework is most important for students in high school and should be utilized more effectively. Therefore the amount of homework should remain the same, but at the same time be challenging and productive as well as relevant to the topic at hand.