The Case Against Homework
In recent years, the abolition of homework has been a hotly debated topic in the educational field. During the early 20th century, educators held the belief that homework strengthened students minds and created a sense of responsibility as well as developed good time management skills. However, in recent years, growing concerns that homework interferes with home activities and takes valuable free time out of student’s lives have gotten more and more attention. Research has also shown that excessive amounts of homework has lead to tremendous amounts of stress for students, as well as parents. In China, unfinished and excessive amounts of homework has lead students to commit suicide. Schools assign and expect too
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For example, from my own experience, my friends who have taken United States History this year constantly complain about the amount of homework that is assigned, and as a result, despise that teacher as well as the subject material and have developed a sense of apathy for the class as a whole. On top the sense of distaste towards the subject, the homework doesn’t have an educational value even when it is done. One of its purposes is to give additional learning opportunities to students who do not fully grasp the information. Too often, large quantities of homework force students to copy other student 's work just to complete it in a timely manner so that they can receive credit for another’s work, which does not benefit the student’s learning. This is opposite effect of what homework is supposed to have. It is especially tough for younger students from low-income families who do not have a parent to assist them with their homework or to help develop their learning at home. Without a parent to help them, these economically-disadvantaged students will fall behind the learning curve and will not develop skills as fast or as fully as other kids and will struggle throughout their entire educational career. With all the fundamental problems with homework, why do we still practice it as a society?
There are a few alternatives to homework, including stopping homework
I believe, as a student, that homework is just a tool that teachers use to keep us busy. Being a student who has received homework for various years, I have found that homework causes me a lot of stress (Ethos). Homework causes kids to get very stressed out, it causes stress in their families, and studies show that it does not improve test scores. Harris Cooper, a worker at Duke University (Ethos), found out that, doing more than 60 to 90 minute of homework in middle school and more than 2 hours in high school is associated with much lower scores (Logos). This just shows that homework is a useless item that students are forced to do. Firstly, students have to wake up from seven until two o'clock everyday,
Homework all over has been seen as a good thing for students. They get to learn more, maybe learn time management, and teachers say that students perform better when given a lot of homework. However, students from all over the world have been getting mental health issues because of the amount of homework they are being given. This essay explores the idea that homework is actually a leading cause in high school and college students death via suicide. The lack of sleep, isolation from friends and family, and the pressure from themselves, parents, and even teachers drive students to want to hurt themselves because it is all simply too much. The stress from all the work takes a toll on the scholars because of the pressure to get everything done,
David Mills’s article published in Healthline, “Is Too Much Homework Bad for Kids’ Health?” is a piece focused upon the extensive amount of time consumed by homework by students of all ages as well as the subsequent health effects that typically result from the issue. With the assistance of multiple studies, Mills argues that current students are highly exceeding the national standard of allotted time for homework and instead recommends several alternatives to the problem, such as primarily focusing upon the assignments that they deem as of appropriate and beneficial quality. Although he specifically asserts that refusing to do the work altogether is one of the best methods to easily relieve the increasing pressure felt by students in vigorous schooling systems, it actually has the opposite effect: by delaying the work until later, students fall into an endless cycle of being
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
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?
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
The negative consequences it yields come forth in multitudes. It gives teachers an excuse to not improve their teaching skills but rather assign homework to make up for squandered class time. Hours spent on homework leaves students with hardly enough time to spend on extracurricular activities, personal interests, family gatherings, and sleep. The stress it produces often leads to depression, physical health problems, unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drugs and alcohol, self harm, and suicide. An ample amount of research has been done that substantiates homework’s harmful impact towards a child’s educational progress and emotional growth, yet it is repeatedly ignored. For something with such hazardous risks to be viewed as an essential constituent of education is absurd. Our nation is essentially valuing education before life itself. Teachers should not be given the ability to deprive children of necessary developmental experiences by assigning extreme amounts of homework, and parents should not sit around allowing it to happen. In order for children to become truly educated they need to experience the world and what is has to offer, not be cooped up in their bedrooms for hours on end completing futile
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.
It is a well known fact that students of various ages and schools are assigned homework, although the motive for giving said homework may vary depending on the teacher. However, the debate about whether homework is helping or hindering education is at a stalemate. Stated simply, homework is work assigned by teachers that students should complete at home or any other non-school setting. Just how effective is homework in the long run? Is it just adding unnecessary stress to students without truly adding enough positivity to make the homework worth it? Although homework can seem burdensome, it undoubtedly solidifies concepts learned in class and aids in the development of timeless skills such as time management and accountability.
Do you know what it feels like to be pressured? To feel like you just can't do something, or just absolutely cannot complete something? To feel like you are not able to do something? Well, unfortunately, kids feel this way all of the time. You're probably wondering why. Believe it or not, the cause for this is homework. Did you know that homework can cause major stress that can lead to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or even thoughts of suicide? This partly why schools should not have homework. Yes, you might think that homework should be in schools because it can also establish great habits with kids, but homework is not such a friendly aspect of life for everyone. In fact, it takes up tons of their life. You might think that it's unfortunate, but homework should not occur.
Students claim that due to numerous hours of homework assigned, it tends to build up on them and thus, causing said students to fall into a stressed state. Although this claim is proven to be valid, the fact stands that stress will not only be encountered during an average American student’s 12 years of schooling. In 2014, The American Institute of Stress released the statistics relating to that of a person’s daily life. From this data performed by the American Psychological Association, it was found that job pressure was- and still proves to be- the leading cause of stress in Americans. The category includes those who feel this job pressure from work overload in particular. Therefore, the stress that is caused from homework in students is actually preparing these individuals for the higher workload that they may face in their lives outside of school. Adults essentially face homework as well. Although it may not be identified as homework, many of these adults take home work from their job in order to complete it on time. Thus, the factor of stress does not prove as an effective argument as to why homework should be banned.
School is arguably harder than a full-time job, and the homework it gives students is beyond what most adults would have to experience in their line of work, no matter their field. It involves changing your whole mindset every period, completely switching a job or major every hour or so. One must also take into account that they must understand all of these 'jobs' thoroughly, and some may interest students whereas others may not. Some have an impact in a student's future, and some have absolutely no application to their current life or future employment, which is often a serious detriment to a student's motivation. When homework is justified simply because "you have to do it", students that are not interested and truly engaged with the subject
Students all across the country are suffering from the same dilemma, homework! It may not be seen as a dilemma or even a problem but rather as something helpful to the learning process. From a student’s point of view, however, homework is one of the top causes of stress throughout high school. With the expectation to take about 6 to 7 classes a day, the amount of homework each teacher assigns starts to pile up and the workload gets overwhelming. No one wants to sit at a table wrecking their brain trying to figure out how to complete something they have no interest in. Is a student’s willingness and ability to learn not important? They can both be effected by the amount of stress that a huge workload of homework can cause. This is why teachers should decrease the amount of homework they assign and modify it to make it more balanced and challenging yet interesting and not time consuming. The amount of stress students face would diminish and students would still be learning.
Since the introduction of homework into the American educational system, the debate over how much work should be given to students has been constant. This debate has led to research being done on the nature of homework in schools, as well as explanations for why homework amounts vary among students. Currently, many scholars and researchers have conducted studies pointing towards the negative impacts of homework on students, particularly those in high school. One of the major side effects of homework on students is stress, which has individuals worried about the health of America’s students. Solutions such as the idea of “flipped teaching” are being implemented in schools to assist students manage homework. Because of the health risks associated with homework, the amount of work given to students should be limited.