Less Homework Essay

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

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

Jones believes that homework taking away social life and family times however homework does not take many times and it leaves the parents to focus on other aspects of their life. One of Jones’s claims states that homework, “away from free time that could be used for entertainment, work, or family time” when in reality the average students in elementary school students simply spending thirty minutes and high school student only spending fifty minutes doing homework per day (Ryan). This shows that students have much more time to do other activities and homework does not take away from their social life. Also, Jones argues that parents would supplement if teachers did not come home with homework but the average parent does not leave work till 7:00 PM-8:00 PM not arriving home till 7:30-8:30 PM not having much time to then add one to two hours of extra education for their children (Yau). Because, in reality, teachers do not give an enormous amount of homework and parents do not have the time to add to their child’s education, students benefit greatly from homework.

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.

After a long day of school, students are tired, stressed, and overworked. This is often something that is ignored when it comes to students of all ages. Homework provides a heavy load that can add additional stress and time on a student’s shoulders. Schools should be making sure that students are receiving enough work throughout the day, to make sure kids do not have the worry of homework when school is over. Students who receive lots of homework, may not have enough time in the evenings to be around family, friends and enjoy the rest of their day.

It is evident in almost every high school, students don’t seem to appreciate the piles of homework their teachers’ assign. Students don’t seem to have the time nor the willpower to do homework sometimes, due to their busy schedules or motivation for school. Majority of students, I’ve spoken to have said homework not only wastes time but also takes away from the excitement of learning. Clearly, in most schools, homework isn’t the most popular choice for students. Sometimes teachers assign a couple of pages of homework but then tag along a project and a presentation into the mix, leaving us young adults procrastinating to perfect everything before the due date, usually being the next day. Homework is an unnecessary chore which stresses teenagers out by taking time out of their day, which could be used for more effective manners for preparing for tests and developing their minds.

Another part of the problem with high schools is the amount of homework is given to students. Let’s say that a student has five classes a day and receives five hours of homework each night. That leaves the student little to no time to spend time with family and friends, go to work, play a sport, and even

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?

School is stressful and tough with all the homework and tests, In Fact all of the students I interviewed say that there is too much homework and that they can't always get it all done. Many students say that they stay up late rushing on the homework, which in the long run will affect their grades which will affect their college that they get into, which in the end will affect their future job. “I feel rushed and sometimes in a hurry to get my homework done before practice” said one student. Some students around the world spend 13+ hours a week on homework alone which is too much. One primary school in new York has gotten rid of homework and outside of school projects all together,telling the kids that they should get outside and exercise.

There are a great deal of teachers that give mountains of homework each night, and with more than one teacher in middle school and high school, a lot of kids will spend hours upon hours each night doing homework. The students who get home later than most have it even worse. Often, that means that students are awake late into the night. This makes them extremely tired the following day, making it harder for them to work and function efficiently in school. I remember one night in fifth grade when I was awake until 2:00 doing homework. If everyone’s falling asleep in class and can’t learn, what’s the point of giving them work that will make them this

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?

One of the biggest lies ever said about teen years is that they’re “the best years of your life.” If you were to ask any high schooler in today’s world how he/she feels about that phrase, they may think the exact opposite. Education dates back to the earliest human life. The American Education System offers a cosmic field of choices for all students. With so many choices, students get to choose different subjects. With all those different subjects, students become busy with a lot of classwork and/or homework, thus creating stress on students. Students who are stressed by school work, such as testing, studying, and homework, should be given less to do, because it would improve student’s energy and relaxation.

The next reason too much homework is harmful to students is that studies show more homework to cause lower test scores. One to two hours of homework a week does not cause a major change in test scores (Wolchover). There is no evidence of homework having any academic benefit in elementary or middle school, and the academic benefit found in high school is very weak (Kohn). Homework is not shown to help students academically until grades ten through twelve (Wolchover). There is also no proof that homework increases good study habits in students (Kohn).

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.