The Great Homework Debate

Monica Fuglei posted “The Homework Debate: The Case Against Homework” on November 14, 2013, and being a student who doesn’t enjoy doing excessive homework, I was agreeing with most of the propositions that were brought up against homework, the ones that were saying homework is assigned just so children will have something to do and that homework is assigned to make children hate school, because I have grown up listening to students and parents who object the concept of doing schoolwork for hours after they already spent all day at school. However, there was a link at the bottom of that article that said continue reading, and it lead to plenty of assumptions brought up for why homework has to be beneficial, and that is where I started to disagree

Have you ever wanted to just shred up your homework or throw it out the window and have no consequences? Kids are assigned daily homework from the time they start kindergarten at the ripe young age of five. Is it really necessary? Does it even help better learning or even higher test scores? The amount of homework we do wastes time, money, paper, and trees because it’s practically the exact same thing we did in class that day. Homework causes kid’s and teen’s frustration, tiredness, little time for other activities and possibly even a loss of interest in their education. It also keeps everyone up; it has kids and teens staying up until they finish it, the parents trying to help them and the teachers grading it. So, I think that homework is

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?

There is a general consensus in educational literature today that homework does have a positive effect on learning, through extending the time available for learning. Teachers are clearly convinced

This article form Stanford University introduces the physical and mental faults that homework causes. The author, Clifton B. Parker sited all of his sources and quoted an education scholar at Stanford University which increases the credibility of the article. Clifton B. Parker has written hundreds of articles for Stanford University many of which have to do with education. His article was published in 2014 which gives me the most up to date information on the downfalls of

“Does Homework Really Work?” by Leslie Crawford agrees with The Huffington Post and Murphy Paul. “homework (takes) precious family time and puts kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.” -Crawford. One Canadian couple took the case to court claiming their children’s academic performance was not improved after completing homework assignments and won: their children were exempt from future

For one thing, homework may actually make it harder to learn. Many people say that the more sleep you get, the more your brain rests. When you are rested, it is easier to focus on learning. On school days it is difficult to get the rest you need. Many students get up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready and make it to school by 7:20. After spending many hours learning in school, they return home to do homework. Some students also participate in sports after school that take up much of their time. By the

The general arguments given by teachers and some parents are that homework increases the overall grade averages, sharpens study habits, and helps students become more prepared for college work. Along with that, it helps students learn responsibility for life in the work field of the real work. Although these arguments are valid, there are arguments against homework as well. Homework causes students to be stressed out when there is too much to be done by a certain deadline and takes away the free time of students. Some of the work that students are assigned isn't relevant to what they are studying. Worst of all, it causes that struggling student to lose interest in the study of that subject ("Students and Homework"). While it does have negative outcomes, homework also has it's perks.

Alfie Kohn, a principal who is also working on a book, says “In preparation for a book on the topic, I’ve spent a lot of time sifting through the research. The results are nothing short of stunning. For starters, there is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school . . . , in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement. At the high school level, the correlation is weak and tends to disappear when more sophisticated statistical measures are applied. Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.” He is not the only one to have recognized this, many teachers and researchers have, too. Unfortunately, it’s one of the many issues addressed towards schools that is payed no attention

Homework is an educational and easy way to allow teachers to get some extra grades in and get some work out that hasn't been done in class. Not only does it increase grades, it sometimes can grasp a concept that a student might not understand in class. Is it really all that good for students? Despite the fact that homework can help a student understand a topic better in class in some cases, but less homework can prevent stress, health problems, and it also improves the amount of free time a student gets with less homework.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to declare ourselves independent from completely unnecessary and excessive homework. We as a student body of Anaheim High School believe that it is very necessary to rid ourselves from excessive amounts of homework and also the stress, sleepless nights and makeup work that comes with it.

I strongly believe that homework is extremely bad for children. Simply put children need exercise and sun to stay healthy, children don’t need homework to be successful and most importantly kid are already exhausted after school.

Homework, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Does homework truly have a positive effect on improving student achievement? Homework is the task assigned by a teacher to a student to be completed outside of the classroom. Homework can range from reading a story, writing or typing research, solving math problems, or a project. Teachers assign these task in order for the student to increase their knowledge on the topic at hand. Parents, at least most of them, agree that homework needs to be done in order to improve student achievement; however, most student do not like the task, nor do they see the relationship between homework and increased student achievement.

Most teachers tend to give between 30 minutes to one hour of homework per night, multiply that by about five or six classes equates to four to five hours of homework per night. Galloway, in his article “Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools, stated, “Students who did more hours of homework experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives” (2013) If homework causes these things in students then it is more harmful than helpful. Homework is meant to help students, not cause many problems to one’s

Homework may bring emotional, physical, and socially damaging to students. Most of the students in the U.S. take multiple classes with different subjects each school year. Some of these students see their teacher every day or every other day, this means students are going home every day with homework and that includes weekends. Students already spend 8 hours a day on weekdays in school and then they also have to go home with about 2-4 hours of homework. If there are only 24 hours in a day and 8 are spent at school, another 8 hours sleeping, and about 3 hours of homework that leaves students with 5 hours to eat, shower, socialize, be involved in extracurricular actives, work for those who need to, and time to spend with their family. Above all, it is obvious students do not have enough time in the day to juggle all of this, and that is not counting the students that take bus and arrive home later than other students. Due to not having enough time through the day students will have to pick and choice how they spend their hours outside of school, one of the most common things students sacrifice is their sleep at night and this affects them so bad and they have no idea. According to the research MD Craig Canapari found “Short sleep makes children obese, sleepiness is a significant cause of automobile accidents which is the most common cause of death in teenagers, depression, anxiety, and irritability are all associated with insufficient sleep.”(2012 p.1) Another thing students usually