The Effects Of Homework On American Teachers

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 allows parents to become involved in their child’s education, and communicate more with their children regarding school (Plato). It is the link which allows parents to know what their child is learning at school. Homework is also a great method for reinforcing concepts learned in class. Sharon Stallings, principal of Signal High School in NJ says that “Homework is important because it’s an opportunity for students to review materials that are covered in the classroom. You need to practice in order to become proficient” (Akman). There is only so much time that teachers have in the classroom. Homework offers more practice that can’t be completed in class time so students can master the subject content. This practice at home is essential, because American students already spend much less time studying academic content when compared to students of other countries. A study by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning found that “students abroad are required to work on demanding subject matter at least twice as long as US students” (Marzano & Pickering, 2007). With that said, the fact that students in countries like Japan, Germany, and France outperform students in the US is not that surprising. Proponents of homework believe homework is one of the ways we can raise the quality and standard of American

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 The Battle 0ver Homework, Harris Cooper defines homework as, “tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours” (27) Common homework assignments might include reading, writing, problems to solve, a school project, or other skills to be practiced. The purpose of homework is to assist in reinforcing what was taught in class. Sometimes the purpose is to gather extra information beyond what was taught that day. There are many teachers who don’t understand the meaning of homework and just give it as something to keep students busy. Homework should be given to students on a regular basis but only in reasonable amounts.

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?

Homework has been present in schools for decades; it’s been ingrained into our culture and lifestyle. In recent years, however, many have begun to take notice of the negative effects and unnecessary stress it’s putting on America’s students. The effectiveness and benefits of after-school work have not been questioned until now, when studies and polls have begun to show just how damaging it is. Will American schools ever make a change in homework culture, or will grades continue to

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

For the most part, education in the United States has revolved around the idea of a “work hard, and succeed” system. Educators strongly push for this idea and are in a way obliged to extend learning by assigning more work, which they are unable to complete in a school setting. In turn, they rely on homework to expand knowledge beyond the classroom. Homework has become what may seem a positive influence on education and test scores in the United States. However, It has also become one the biggest burdens on high school students.This burden fails to reflect today’s advancing technological society. It needs to conform to a more individualized and purposeful approach for students.

The younger generations have been assigned an extreme amount of homework in school. The homework has overwhelmed many of them making them dislike school or even wondering the point of it. Education today is taught on the same level to all students but every child is different on their ways of learning, their attitude towards it is different. It is sad to know that even an Act created by a president titled “No Child Left Behind” has failed in an article by Kenneth Jost critics say that law has hurt education by overemphasizing standardized tests and unfairly labeling schools as underperforming without providing necessary help to improve. Students should be taught in a group and one on one at their own pace not the pace that some teacher’s paper says. Today, schools are issuing an abundant amount of homework to pupils ones which has caused a lot of stress, a dislike of learning, and even have caused grades to drop.

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

after school hours. There are some teachers here in the United States that allot their students several homework assignments to have completed each night. A lot of these teachers assign their students so much homework with the hopes of raising their test scores. However, are these homework assignments actually helping to raise student’s test scores or is this a myth? The large portion of homework that teachers are assigning to their students nowadays is not only affecting these students on the social aspect of their lives, but with their extracurricular activities and the amount of sleep they get each evening as well. Therefore, homework should be divided amongst teachers in a way in which they are told which days they are allowed to assign homework and how much they are allotted to give their students on a daily basis.

Homework efficiency and effectiveness has been a long debated topic. Many people view it as important keystone to reinforce learning, while others think it is only busy work that interferes with activities at home. One article gives an example of how homework is debated, “During the first few decades of the 20th century, educators commonly believed that homework helped create disciplined minds . . . by 1940, growing concern that homework interfered with home activities sparked a reaction against the practice of homework . . . and this trend was reversed in the 1950’s when the Soviet’s launched Sputnik lead to concern that education in the United States lacked rigor” (Costley 2). Many studies have been

Students should only spend enough time on homework so that the subject is reinforced and not just a waste of time. The national PTA suggest that from K-3 grades there should be no more than 20 minutes a day, for 4-6 grades there should be 20-40 minutes of homework, and from 7-12 grades time varies do to types of subjects and number of subjects taken(KidSource). Anymore than these recommended amount of times is seen excessive by the national PTA. Surprisingly U.S. students are working as hard as Asians: 24% of eighth graders do more then two hour of homework compared to Japans 28% and Germanys 17%(Brimelow108). Are we working to hard, researchers don't think so, U.S. student grades are improving. As of 1996 one in every sixth grader does more than an hour of

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

Starting in Preschool, students experience the responsibility of completing homework. Whether a student is memorizing the alphabet, completing multiplication worksheets, writing poems and essays, or completing pre-calculus problems, homework consumes much of their time. As time progress homework is becoming more of a burden to students. As children become older and life becomes more hectic, they cannot find enough hours in a day to correctly and fully complete their homework. Because of this, students can possibly fall behind in school and homework quickly becomes useless. Students of all ages are assigned too much homework.