Book Summary: The Case Against Homework, By Nancy Kalish

Do you ever think that homework is a cruel and unfair thing that teachers give to students? Do your kids think homework is unfair? I’m here to tell you why teachers give homework when they have enough time in class to make it classwork. Studies indicate a negative relationship between children's amount of homework and their physical health.

In an article by Marzano and Pickering it states that homework may no be an effective in educational tool. Homework is just busy work most of the time. Therefore, the extra homework doesn't help with student achievement. Inappropriate homework may produce little or no benefit, it might even decrease achievement, according to Marzano and Pickering. Homework can cause stress and when they're stressed all the homework they have doesn’t help. Let's imagine that you have homework for every class due the next day and sports as soon as you get home from school; it's a lot of stress. Marzano and Pickering say , teachers aren't well trained in how to assign homework. Moat teachers hand out mainly busy work, and aren't trained well enough to zhand out propor

Homework has been around for many years, and parents have had many questions and concerns about the impact it has on their children. Kate McReynolds states in her article Homework that, “In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik challenged the intellectual and military might of the United States. The New York Times ran a series of articles describing the Soviet educational system as superior to the United States’ system. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act and America’s youngsters were charged with restoring the nation’s competitive edge” (2). This means that schools are under the pressure to make sure their students excel and work extremely hard. So by doing so, they assign homework, which will progress to other issues for the students.

In my opinion, homework is very lengthy and over-done. Some teachers give multiple pages or packets of homework each night. My argument is not that homework should disappear completely, but that there should be a limit to how much a teacher gives per week. In other words, the homework should be shorter. The article The Trouble With Homework by Anne Murphy Paul says that most homework is “busy work”. This means that teachers constantly give homework just to keep the students busy, when it actually doesn’t benefit the student whatsoever.

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.

Homework needs to be planned out by the teachers and confirm that the students have a firm grasp on the subject. The teacher has a duty to provide students with challenging but not an overbearing amount of homework. The concept of homework remains positive, but the current system needs to change to the betterment of the student. Instead of a copious amount of questions that somewhat pertain to the question, it should instead focus on a few important questions that tie directly into the lesson at hand. According to source B homework is the primary arena for students, parents, and teachers to interact on a daily basis. Which means as a concept, homework also connects students with their

Homework needs to be smarter. In the article “Research Trends: Why Homework Should be Balanced” it is stated that “the goal shouldn't be to eliminate homework, but to make it authentic,meaningful and engaging”. I could not agree with this statement more. If we want homework to help students why do we worry more about the amount we give rather than what we give? As students, we deal with countless amounts of homework on a daily basis and much of it is just busy work. The truth is we aren't learning much from it either. There is little or no evidence that suggests any benefits amongst elementary kids, and there are only small benefits to our secondary students. In fact the opposite can be true. “Assigning too much homework can result in poor

The term “homework” has many different connotations and definitions associated with it. According to Merriam-Webster, homework is “work that a student is given to do at home” or “research or reading done in order to prepare for something.” Going off of the first definition, homework is commonly associated with those enrolled in both public and private institutions, primarily elementary school, middle school, high school and college. In order to better understand the concept of homework, it is helpful to examine homework/education in other countries, the history of homework in the United States, homework in contemporary society and how American teachers are changing their teaching styles to help combat student stress as a result of homework.

The term “homework” has several different connotations and definitions associated with its meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, homework is “work done at home, eps. as distinguished from work done in a factory” or “schoolwork assigned to a pupil to be done outside lesson time (typically at home).” Homework is commonly associated with those enrolled in both public and private institutions, primarily elementary school, middle school, high school and college. The history of homework in the United States began in the twentieth century where the “mind was viewed as a muscle that could be strengthened through exercise” (Cooper). Then in the 1940s,

Homework has been since the seventeenth centruy, and has gone through many different views on whether it should be given on not. The time between 1910 and the 1920’s, homework was opposed, the 30’s accepted, then the next decade it was once again opposed, finally since the 1950’s, during the time of Sputnik, homework was greatly accepted. According to O’Rourke-Ferrara ( ), she feels there needs to be policies set for homework, for teachers, parents, and students. There are more homework policies found in elementary schools than there are in middle and high schools. Studies have shown that when a homework policy does not exists in the elementary grades it ends up having an adverse effect on the academic performance on these students in their high school years. They should be written to specify the frequency,

Definition of homework: Tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours. Why do we have homework? What are the benefits of homework? Is there such thing as too much homework? Homework helps you to gain, and retain more knowledge than would be possible with only classroom work, this is a huge reason students get homework. Homework does actually have benefits, it teaches a host of important life skills, from responsibility and time management in prioritizing and organizing. But, how much is too much homework? That depends on multiple complex or elaborate factors, including the singular intelligence or capability of the child, type of classes, and available time. If you do have a lot

Excessive amounts of homework are not the most effective way of helping students learn and remember their material. The goal of a teacher is to teach and to encourage learning that the students can use for the rest of their lives, but some teachers seem to feel that more work assigned will mean more information remembered. However, it is more efficient to work with the students strengths and to encourage them to learn in ways that are best for them.

Homework has been the long dreaded mundane assignment that students worldwide have to suffer from. It increases at an exponential rate as one progresses up the ladder called grade school. In the typical American high school, teachers become known not for who they are as a person, but rather the workload they assign. Often students don’t get the chance to receive proper feedback on their homework, and isn’t graded until after several days or weeks after the due date, therefore rendering homework as a waste of time. Take Dylan for example. After a long day of school, he is sitting at his desk at 12:17 A.M, struggling with his AP Chemistry homework. He knows Chemistry forwards and backwards, but having to do 45 conceptual and repetitive problems is a whole different story. Getting very frustrated, he shut his book and made his way to his bed, away from the mental torture, knowing that it’s not gaining him any benefit, and deciding that getting a zero would be a bitter pill to swallow, especially when his knowledge of Chemistry is inaccurately reflected by a letter on his report card. Although homework gives students a chance to succeed in a very competitive world, it takes up a lot of time in the day, it doesn’t help students grow academically, and it also takes a toll on the personal lives and the health of many students.

Excessive amounts of homework are not the effective way of helping students learn and remember their material. The goal of a teacher is to teach and to encourage learning that the students can use for the rest of their lives, but some teachers seem to feel that more work assigned will mean more information remembered. However, it is more efficient to work with the students strengths and encourage them to learn in ways that are the best for them.

Homework has become a common practice in schools today. Almost all teachers assign it every night of the week starting as early as pre-kindergarten. Joseph Simplicio’s article “Homework in the 21st Century: The Antiquated and Ineffectual Implementation of a Time Honored Educational Strategy” states three problems with homework. The first problem is that teachers are not consistent with their homework from grade level to grade level and from subject to subject. Some teachers in a certain grade will give a pile of homework each night while other teachers of the same grade give little to none. The same is said for teachers who are in schools that are departmentalized. They do not communicate with the other teachers and coordinate the homework that they give. This results in students having homework from every subject area every night.