Homework – Top 3 Pros and Cons
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From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [ 1 ]
While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars. [ 45 ]
In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann , who encountered the idea in Prussia. [ 45 ]
In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal , decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]
Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War . And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool. [ 3 ] [ 45 ]
A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. [ 4 ] [ 44 ]
Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home. Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool. [ 47 ]
Is Homework Beneficial?
Pro 1 Homework improves student achievement. Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicated that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” [ 6 ] Students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework on both standardized tests and grades. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take-home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. [ 10 ] Read More
Pro 2 Homework helps to reinforce classroom learning, while developing good study habits and life skills. Students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide in class, and they need to apply that information in order to truly learn it. Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer, co-founders of Teachers Who Tutor NYC, explained, “at-home assignments help students learn the material taught in class. Students require independent practice to internalize new concepts… [And] these assignments can provide valuable data for teachers about how well students understand the curriculum.” [ 11 ] [ 49 ] Elementary school students who were taught “strategies to organize and complete homework,” such as prioritizing homework activities, collecting study materials, note-taking, and following directions, showed increased grades and more positive comments on report cards. [ 17 ] Research by the City University of New York noted that “students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework,” such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, “are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.” [ 18 ] Homework also helps students develop key skills that they’ll use throughout their lives: accountability, autonomy, discipline, time management, self-direction, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. Freireich and Platzer noted that “homework helps students acquire the skills needed to plan, organize, and complete their work.” [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 49 ] Read More
Pro 3 Homework allows parents to be involved with children’s learning. Thanks to take-home assignments, parents are able to track what their children are learning at school as well as their academic strengths and weaknesses. [ 12 ] Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. [ 20 ] Research from Johns Hopkins University found that an interactive homework process known as TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) improves student achievement: “Students in the TIPS group earned significantly higher report card grades after 18 weeks (1 TIPS assignment per week) than did non-TIPS students.” [ 21 ] Homework can also help clue parents in to the existence of any learning disabilities their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed. Duke University Professor Harris Cooper noted, “Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework revealed it to them.” [ 12 ] Read More
Con 1 Too much homework can be harmful. A poll of California high school students found that 59% thought they had too much homework. 82% of respondents said that they were “often or always stressed by schoolwork.” High-achieving high school students said too much homework leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems. [ 24 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] Alfie Kohn, an education and parenting expert, said, “Kids should have a chance to just be kids… it’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.” [ 27 ] Emmy Kang, a mental health counselor, explained, “More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies.” [ 48 ] Excessive homework can also lead to cheating: 90% of middle school students and 67% of high school students admit to copying someone else’s homework, and 43% of college students engaged in “unauthorized collaboration” on out-of-class assignments. Even parents take shortcuts on homework: 43% of those surveyed admitted to having completed a child’s assignment for them. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Read More
Con 2 Homework exacerbates the digital divide or homework gap. Kiara Taylor, financial expert, defined the digital divide as “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology and those that don’t. Though the term now encompasses the technical and financial ability to utilize available technology—along with access (or a lack of access) to the Internet—the gap it refers to is constantly shifting with the development of technology.” For students, this is often called the homework gap. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] 30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. [ 51 ] A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it “potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.” [ 39 ] Read More
Con 3 Homework does not help younger students, and may not help high school students. We’ve known for a while that homework does not help elementary students. A 2006 study found that “homework had no association with achievement gains” when measured by standardized tests results or grades. [ 7 ] Fourth grade students who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night actually did worse. [ 41 ] Temple University professor Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek said that homework is not the most effective tool for young learners to apply new information: “They’re learning way more important skills when they’re not doing their homework.” [ 42 ] In fact, homework may not be helpful at the high school level either. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, stated, “I interviewed high school teachers who completely stopped giving homework and there was no downside, it was all upside.” He explains, “just because the same kids who get more homework do a little better on tests, doesn’t mean the homework made that happen.” [ 52 ] Read More
Discussion Questions
1. Is homework beneficial? Consider the study data, your personal experience, and other types of information. Explain your answer(s).
2. If homework were banned, what other educational strategies would help students learn classroom material? Explain your answer(s).
3. How has homework been helpful to you personally? How has homework been unhelpful to you personally? Make carefully considered lists for both sides.
Take Action
1. Examine an argument in favor of quality homework assignments from Janine Bempechat.
2. Explore Oxford Learning’s infographic on the effects of homework on students.
3. Consider Joseph Lathan’s argument that homework promotes inequality .
4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position.
5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives .
More School Debate Topics
Should K-12 Students Dissect Animals in Science Classrooms? – Proponents say dissecting real animals is a better learning experience. Opponents say the practice is bad for the environment.
Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms? – Proponents say uniforms may increase student safety. Opponents say uniforms restrict expression.
Should Corporal Punishment Be Used in K-12 Schools? – Proponents say corporal punishment is an appropriate discipline. Opponents say it inflicts long-lasting physical and mental harm on students.
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Is homework a necessary evil?
After decades of debate, researchers are still sorting out the truth about homework’s pros and cons. One point they can agree on: Quality assignments matter.
By Kirsten Weir
March 2016, Vol 47, No. 3
Print version: page 36
- Schools and Classrooms
Homework battles have raged for decades. For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.
But when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book.
The 10-minute rule
In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. But it may not be that simple.
Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. But not all students benefit. In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research , 2006).
Then again, test scores aren't everything. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because [teachers] think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But we don't know for sure that's the case."
Even when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level — from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.
Beyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.
In a recent study of Spanish students, Rubén Fernández-Alonso, PhD, and colleagues found that students who were regularly assigned math and science homework scored higher on standardized tests. But when kids reported having more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per day, scores declined ( Journal of Educational Psychology , 2015).
"At all grade levels, doing other things after school can have positive effects," Cooper says. "To the extent that homework denies access to other leisure and community activities, it's not serving the child's best interest."
Children of all ages need down time in order to thrive, says Denise Pope, PhD, a professor of education at Stanford University and a co-founder of Challenge Success, a program that partners with secondary schools to implement policies that improve students' academic engagement and well-being.
"Little kids and big kids need unstructured time for play each day," she says. Certainly, time for physical activity is important for kids' health and well-being. But even time spent on social media can help give busy kids' brains a break, she says.
All over the map
But are teachers sticking to the 10-minute rule? Studies attempting to quantify time spent on homework are all over the map, in part because of wide variations in methodology, Pope says.
A 2014 report by the Brookings Institution examined the question of homework, comparing data from a variety of sources. That report cited findings from a 2012 survey of first-year college students in which 38.4 percent reported spending six hours or more per week on homework during their last year of high school. That was down from 49.5 percent in 1986 ( The Brown Center Report on American Education , 2014).
The Brookings report also explored survey data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which asked 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students how much homework they'd done the previous night. They found that between 1984 and 2012, there was a slight increase in homework for 9-year-olds, but homework amounts for 13- and 17-year-olds stayed roughly the same, or even decreased slightly.
Yet other evidence suggests that some kids might be taking home much more work than they can handle. Robert Pressman, PhD, and colleagues recently investigated the 10-minute rule among more than 1,100 students, and found that elementary-school kids were receiving up to three times as much homework as recommended. As homework load increased, so did family stress, the researchers found ( American Journal of Family Therapy , 2015).
Many high school students also seem to be exceeding the recommended amounts of homework. Pope and Galloway recently surveyed more than 4,300 students from 10 high-achieving high schools. Students reported bringing home an average of just over three hours of homework nightly ( Journal of Experiential Education , 2013).
On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort and paying more attention in class, Galloway says. But they were not more invested in the homework itself. They also reported greater academic stress and less time to balance family, friends and extracurricular activities. They experienced more physical health problems as well, such as headaches, stomach troubles and sleep deprivation. "Three hours per night is too much," Galloway says.
In the high-achieving schools Pope and Galloway studied, more than 90 percent of the students go on to college. There's often intense pressure to succeed academically, from both parents and peers. On top of that, kids in these communities are often overloaded with extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs. "They're very busy," Pope says. "Some kids have up to 40 hours a week — a full-time job's worth — of extracurricular activities." And homework is yet one more commitment on top of all the others.
"Homework has perennially acted as a source of stress for students, so that piece of it is not new," Galloway says. "But especially in upper-middle-class communities, where the focus is on getting ahead, I think the pressure on students has been ratcheted up."
Yet homework can be a problem at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well. Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, Internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs, says Lea Theodore, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are less likely to have computers or a quiet place to do homework in peace.
"Homework can highlight those inequities," she says.
Quantity vs. quality
One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.
"Students are assigned a lot of busywork. They're naming it as a primary stressor, but they don't feel it's supporting their learning," Galloway says.
"Homework that's busywork is not good for anyone," Cooper agrees. Still, he says, different subjects call for different kinds of assignments. "Things like vocabulary and spelling are learned through practice. Other kinds of courses require more integration of material and drawing on different skills."
But critics say those skills can be developed with many fewer hours of homework each week. Why assign 50 math problems, Pope asks, when 10 would be just as constructive? One Advanced Placement biology teacher she worked with through Challenge Success experimented with cutting his homework assignments by a third, and then by half. "Test scores didn't go down," she says. "You can have a rigorous course and not have a crazy homework load."
Still, changing the culture of homework won't be easy. Teachers-to-be get little instruction in homework during their training, Pope says. And despite some vocal parents arguing that kids bring home too much homework, many others get nervous if they think their child doesn't have enough. "Teachers feel pressured to give homework because parents expect it to come home," says Galloway. "When it doesn't, there's this idea that the school might not be doing its job."
Galloway argues teachers and school administrators need to set clear goals when it comes to homework — and parents and students should be in on the discussion, too. "It should be a broader conversation within the community, asking what's the purpose of homework? Why are we giving it? Who is it serving? Who is it not serving?"
Until schools and communities agree to take a hard look at those questions, those backpacks full of take-home assignments will probably keep stirring up more feelings than facts.
Further reading
- Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001
- Galloway, M., Connor, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81 (4), 490–510. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469
- Pope, D., Brown, M., & Miles, S. (2015). Overloaded and underprepared: Strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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15 Should Homework Be Banned Pros and Cons
Homework was a staple of the public and private schooling experience for many of us growing up. There were long nights spent on book reports, science projects, and all of those repetitive math sheets. In many ways, it felt like an inevitable part of the educational experience. Unless you could power through all of your assignments during your free time in class, then there was going to be time spent at home working on specific subjects.
More schools are looking at the idea of banning homework from the modern educational experience. Instead of sending work home with students each night, they are finding alternative ways to ensure that each student can understand the curriculum without involving the uncertainty of parental involvement.
Although banning homework might seem like an unorthodox process, there are legitimate advantages to consider with this effort. There are some disadvantages which some families may encounter as well.
These are the updated lists of the pros and cons of banning homework to review.
List of the Pros of Banning Homework
1. Giving homework to students does not always improve their academic outcomes. The reality of homework for the modern student is that we do not know if it is helpful to have extra work assigned to them outside of the classroom. Every study that has looked at the subject has had design flaws which causes the data collected to be questionable at best. Although there is some information to suggest that students in seventh grade and higher can benefit from limited homework, banning it for students younger than that seems to be beneficial for their learning experience.
2. Banning homework can reduce burnout issues with students. Teachers are seeing homework stress occur in the classroom more frequently today than ever before. Almost half of all high school teachers in North America have seen this issue with their students at some point during the year. About 25% of grade school teachers say that they have seen the same thing.
When students are dealing with the impact of homework on their lives, it can have a tremendously adverse impact. One of the most cited reasons for students dropping out of school is that they cannot complete their homework on time.
3. Banning homework would increase the amount of family time available to students. Homework creates a significant disruption to family relationships. Over half of all parents in North America say that they have had a significant argument with their children over homework in the past month. 1/3 of families say that homework is their primary source of struggle in the home. Not only does it reduce the amount of time that everyone has to spend together, it reduces the chances that parents have to teach their own skills and belief systems to their kids.
4. It reduces the negative impact of homework on the health of a student. Many students suffer academically when they cannot finish a homework assignment on time. Although assumptions are often made about the time management skills of the individual when this outcome occurs, the reasons why it happens is usually more complex. It may be too difficult, too boring, or there may not be enough time in the day to complete the work.
When students experience failure in this area, it can lead to severe mental health issues. Some perceive themselves as a scholarly failure, which translates to an inability to live life successfully. It can disrupt a desire to learn. There is even an increased risk of suicide for some youth because of this issue. Banning it would reduce these risks immediately.
5. Eliminating homework would allow for an established sleep cycle. The average high school student requires between 8-10 hours of sleep to function at their best the next day. Grade-school students may require an extra hour or two beyond that figure. When teachers assign homework, then it increases the risk for each individual that they will not receive the amount that they require each night.
When children do not get enough sleep, a significant rest deficit occurs which can impact their ability to pay attention in school. It can cause unintended weight gain. There may even be issues with emotional control. Banning homework would help to reduce these risks as well.
6. It increases the amount of socialization time that students receive. People who are only spending time in school and then going home to do more work are at a higher risk of experiencing loneliness and isolation. When these emotions are present, then a student is more likely to feel “down and out” mentally and physically. They lack meaningful connections with other people. These feelings are the health equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes per day. If students are spending time on homework, then they are not spending time connecting with their family and friends.
7. It reduces the repetition that students face in the modern learning process. Most of the tasks that homework requires of students is repetitive and uninteresting. Kids love to resolve challenges on tasks that they are passionate about at that moment in their lives. Forcing them to complete the same problems repetitively as a way to “learn” core concepts can create issues with knowledge retention later in life. When you add in the fact that most lessons sent for homework must be done by themselves, banning homework will reduce the repetition that students face, allowing for a better overall outcome.
8. Home environments can be chaotic. Although some students can do homework in a quiet room without distractions, that is not the case for most kids. There are numerous events that happen at home which can pull a child’s attention away from the work that their teacher wants them to do. It isn’t just the Internet, video games, and television which are problematic either. Household chores, family issues, employment, and athletic requirements can make it a challenge to get the assigned work finished on time.
List of the Cons of Banning Homework
1. Homework allows parents to be involved with the educational process. Parents need to know what their children are learning in school. Even if they ask their children about what they are learning, the answers tend to be in generalities instead of specifics. By sending home work from the classroom, it allows parents to see and experience the work that their kids are doing when they are in school during the day. Then moms and dads can get involved with the learning process to reinforce the core concepts that were discovered by their children each day.
2. It can help parents and teachers identify learning disabilities. Many children develop a self-defense mechanism which allows them to appear like any other kid that is in their classroom. This process allows them to hide learning disabilities which may be hindering their educational progress. The presence of homework makes it possible for parents and teachers to identify this issue because kids can’t hide their struggles when they must work 1-on-1 with their parents on specific subjects. Banning homework would eliminate 50% of the opportunities to identify potential issues immediately.
3. Homework allows teachers to observe how their students understand the material. Teachers often use homework as a way to gauge how well a student is understanding the materials they are learning. Although some might point out that assignments and exams in the classroom can do the same thing, testing often requires preparation at home. It creates more anxiety and stress sometimes then even homework does. That is why banning it can be problematic for some students. Some students experience more pressure than they would during this assessment process when quizzes and tests are the only measurement of their success.
4. It teaches students how to manage their time wisely. As people grow older, they realize that time is a finite commodity. We must manage it wisely to maximize our productivity. Homework assignments are a way to encourage the development of this skill at an early age. The trick is to keep the amount of time required for the work down to a manageable level. As a general rule, students should spend about 10 minutes each school day doing homework, organizing their schedule around this need. If there are scheduling conflicts, then this process offers families a chance to create priorities.
5. Homework encourages students to be accountable for their role. Teachers are present in the classroom to offer access to information and skill-building opportunities that can improve the quality of life for each student. Administrators work to find a curriculum that will benefit the most people in an efficient way. Parents work hard to ensure their kids make it to school on time, follow healthy routines, and communicate with their school district to ensure the most effective learning opportunities possible. None of that matters if the student is not invested in the work in the first place. Homework assignments not only teach children how to work independently, but they also show them how to take responsibility for their part of the overall educational process.
6. It helps to teach important life lessons. Homework is an essential tool in the development of life lessons, such as communicating with others or comprehending something they have just read. It teaches kids how to think, solve problems, and even build an understanding for the issues that occur in our society right now. Many of the issues that lead to the idea to ban homework occur because someone in the life of a student communicated to them that this work was a waste of time. There are times in life when people need to do things that they don’t like or want to do. Homework helps a student begin to find the coping skills needed to be successful in that situation.
7. Homework allows for further research into class materials. Most classrooms offer less than 1 hour of instruction per subject during the day. For many students, that is not enough time to obtain a firm grasp on the materials being taught. Having homework assignments allows a student to perform more research, using their at-home tools to take a deeper look into the materials that would otherwise be impossible if homework was banned. That process can lead to a more significant understanding of the concepts involved, reducing anxiety levels because they have a complete grasp on the materials.
The pros and cons of banning homework is a decision that ultimately lies with each school district. Parents always have the option to pursue homeschooling or online learning if they disagree with the decisions that are made in this area. Whether you’re for more homework or want to see less of it, we can all agree on the fact that the absence of any reliable data about its usefulness makes it a challenge to know for certain which option is the best one to choose in this debate.
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Winter 2012
Are you down with or done with homework.
By Lory Hough
Homework Policy Still Going Strong
The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough..
It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.
This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.
"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.
Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.
But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.
The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.
For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.
But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.
Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?
"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."
Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.
Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?
"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."
Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."
Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.
"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."
Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."
One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.
"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.
Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.
As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."
That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."
These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.
"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."
Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.
"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.
Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.
And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."
Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.
"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."
The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.
"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"
Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.
"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"
Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."
According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."
So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.
"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."
Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.
"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."
So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.
Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.
"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."
Read a January 2014 update.
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The Pros and Cons of Homework
Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.
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Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.
Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .
2. Homework Gets Parents Involved
Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.
3. Homework Teaches Time Management
Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.
4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication
Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.
5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time
Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.
6. Homework Reduces Screen Time
Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.
The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad
1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.
Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.
While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.
Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.
2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home
While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .
3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job
School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.
4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results
Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.
The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.
It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.
Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.
5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone
The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.
On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.
The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.
It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.
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Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework
H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?
With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.
How much after-school time should our schools really own?
In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”
My spirit crumbled along with his.
Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”
In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.
Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .
Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.
It’s time for an uprising.
Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.
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Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”
It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.
Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.
But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.
Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.
That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.
As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.
We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.
Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”
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20 Pros and Cons of Homework
Homework. It’s a word that sends a shudder down the spine of students and parents alike.
It is also a question that has become divisive. Some people feel that homework is an effective way to reinforce the concepts that were learned at school. Others feel like the time that homework demands would be better spent with a meaningful activity that brings the family together.
Is homework important? Is it necessary? Or is the added stress that homework places on students and parents doing more harm than good? Here are some of the key pros and cons to discuss.
List of the Pros of Homework
1. It encourages the discipline of practice. Repeating the same problems over and over can be boring and difficult, but it also reinforces the practice of discipline. To get better at a skill, repetition is often necessary. You get better with each repetition. By having homework completed every night, especially with a difficult subject, the concepts become easier to understand. That gives the student an advantage later on in life when seeking a vocational career.
2. It gets parents involved with a child’s life. Looking at Common Core math can be somewhat bewildering to parents. If you see the math problem 5×3 expressed as an addition problem, 5+5+5 seems like the right answer. The correct answer, however, would be 3+3+3+3+3. By bringing homework to do, students can engage their learning process with their parents so everyone can be involved. Many parents actually want homework sent so they can see what their children are being taught in the classroom.
3. It teaches time management skills. Homework goes beyond completing a task. It forces children (and parents, to some extent) to develop time management skills. Schedules must be organized to ensure that all tasks can be completed during the day. This creates independent thinking and develops problem-solving skills. It encourages research skills. It also puts parents and children into a position where positive decision-making skills must be developed.
4. Homework creates a communication network. Teachers rarely see into the family lives of their students. Parents rarely see the classroom lives of their children. Homework is a bridge that opens lines of communication between the school, the teacher, and the parent. This allows everyone to get to know one another better. It helps teachers understand the needs of their students better.
It allows parents to find out their child’s strengths and weaknesses. Together, an educational plan can be developed that encourages the best possible learning environment.
5. It allows for a comfortable place to study. Classrooms have evolved over the years to be a warmer and welcoming environment, but there is nothing like the comfort that is felt at home or in a safe space. By encouraging studies where a child feels the most comfortable, it is possible to retain additional information that may get lost within the standard classroom environment.
6. It provides more time to complete the learning process. The time allotted for each area of study in school, especially in K-12, is often limited to 1 hour or less per day. That is not always enough time for students to be able to grasp core concepts of that material. By creating specific homework assignments which address these deficiencies, it becomes possible to counter the effects of the time shortages. That can benefit students greatly over time.
7. It reduces screen time. On the average school night, a student in the US might get 3-4 hours of screen time in per day. When that student isn’t in school, that figure doubles to 7-8 hours of screen time. Homework might be unwanted and disliked, but it does encourage better study habits. It discourages time being spent in front of the television or playing games on a mobile device. That, in turn, may discourage distracting habits from forming that can take away from the learning process in the future.
8. It can be treated like any other extracurricular activity. Some families over-extend themselves on extracurricular activities. Students can easily have more than 40 hours per week, from clubs to sports, that fall outside of regular school hours. Homework can be treated as one of these activities, fitting into the schedule where there is extra time. As an added benefit, some homework can even be completed on the way to or from some activities.
List of the Cons of Homework
1. Children benefit from playing. Being in a classroom can be a good thing, but so can being on a playground. With too much homework, a child doesn’t have enough time to play and that can impact their learning and social development. Low levels of play are associated with lower academic achievement levels, lower safety awareness, less character development, and lower overall health.
2. It encourages a sedentary lifestyle. Long homework assignments require long periods of sitting. A sedentary lifestyle has numerous direct associations with premature death as children age into adults. Obesity levels are already at or near record highs in many communities. Homework may reinforce certain skills and encourage knowledge retention, but it may come at a high price.
3. Not every home is a beneficial environment. There are some homes that are highly invested into their children. Parents may be involved in every stage of homework or there may be access to tutors that can explain difficult concepts. In other homes, there may be little or no education investment into the child. Some parents push the responsibility of teaching off on the teacher and provide no homework support at all.
Sometimes parents may wish to be involved and support their child, but there are barriers in place that prevent this from happening. The bottom line is this: no every home life is equal.
4. School is already a full-time job for kids. An elementary school day might start at 9:00am and end at 3:20pm. That’s more than 6 hours of work that kids as young as 5 are putting into their education every day. Add in the extra-curricular activities that schools encourage, such as sports, musicals, and after-school programming and a student can easily reach 8 hours of education in the average day. Then add homework on top of that? It is asking a lot for any child, but especially young children, to complete extra homework.
5. There is no evidence that homework creates improvements. Survey after survey has found that the only thing that homework does is create a negative attitude toward schooling and education in general. Homework is not associated with a higher level of academic achievement on a national scale. It may help some students who struggle with certain subjects, if they have access to a knowledgeable tutor or parent, but on a community level, there is no evidence that shows improvements are gained.
6. It discourages creative endeavors. If a student is spending 1 hour each day on homework, that’s an hour they are not spending pursuing something that is important to them. Students might like to play video games or watch TV, but homework takes time away from learning an instrument, painting, or developing photography skills as well. Although some homework can involve creative skills, that usually isn’t the case.
7. Homework is difficult to enforce. Some students just don’t care about homework. They can achieve adequate grades without doing it, so they choose not to do it. There is no level of motivation that a parent or teacher can create that inspires some students to get involved with homework. There is no denying the fact that homework requires a certain amount of effort. Sometimes a child just doesn’t want to put in that effort.
8. Extra time in school does not equate to better grades. Students in the US spend more than 100 hours of extra time in school already compared to high-performing countries around the world, but that has not closed the educational gap between those countries and the United States. In some educational areas, the US is even falling in global rankings despite the extra time that students are spending in school. When it comes to homework or any other form of learning, quality is much more important than quantity.
9. Accurate practice may not be possible. If homework is assigned, there is a reliance on the student, their parents, or their guardians to locate resources that can help them understand the content. Homework is often about practice, but if the core concepts of that information are not understood or inaccurately understood, then the results are the opposite of what is intended. If inaccurate practice is performed, it becomes necessary for the teacher to first correct the issue and then reteach it, which prolongs the learning process.
10. It may encourage cheating on multiple levels. Some students may decide that cheating in the classroom to avoid taking homework home is a compromise they’re willing to make. With internet resources, finding the answers to homework instead of figuring out the answers on one’s own is a constant temptation as well. For families with multiple children, they may decide to copy off one another to minimize the time investment.
11. Too much homework is often assigned to students. There is a general agreement that students should be assigned no more than 10 minutes of homework per day, per grade level. That means a first grader should not be assigned more than 10 minutes of homework per night. Yet for the average first grader in US public schools, they come home with 20 minutes of homework and then are asked to complete 20 minutes of reading on top of that. That means some students are completing 4x more homework than recommended every night.
At the same time, the amount of time children spent playing outdoors has decreased by 40% over the past 30 years.
For high school students, it is even worse at high performing schools in the US where 90% of graduates go onto college, the average amount of homework assigned per night was 3 hours per student.
12. Homework is often geared toward benchmarks. Homework is often assigned to improve test scores. Although this can provide positive outcomes, including better study skills or habits, the fact is that when children are tired, they do not absorb much information. When children have more homework than recommended, test scores actually go down. Stress levels go up. Burnout on the curriculum occurs.
The results for many students, according to research from Ruben Fernandez-Alonso in the Journal of Educational Psychology, is a decrease in grades instead of an increase.
The pros and cons of homework are admittedly all over the map. Many parents and teachers follow their personal perspectives and create learning environments around them. When parents and teachers clash on homework, the student is often left in the middle of that tug of war. By discussing these key points, each side can work to find some common ground so our children can benefit for a clear, precise message.
Quantity may be important, but quality must be the priority for homework if a student is going to be successful.
27 Top Homework Pros and Cons
There are both pros and cons of homework. This makes whether schools should assign homework a great debating topic for students.
On the side of the pros, homework is beneficial because it can be great for helping students get through their required coursework and reinforce required knowledge. But it also interferes with life outside of school.
Key arguments for homework include the fact it gives students structure, improves their learning, and improves parent-teacher relationships. Arguments for the cons of homework include the fact it interferes with playtime and causes stress to children.
Pros and Cons of Homework (Table Summary)
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Pros of Homework
1. homework teaches discipline and habit.
Discipline and habit are two soft skills that children need to develop so they can succeed in life.
Regular daily homework is a simple way that discipline and habit are reinforced. Teachers can talk to students about what they do when they get home from school.
They might develop a habit like getting changed into a new set of clothes, having an afternoon snack, then getting out their homework.
Teachers can also help students visualize these habits and disciplines by talking about where they will do their homework (kitchen table?) and when .
2. Homework helps parents know what’s being learned in class
Parents often appreciate being kept in the loop about what is going on in their child’s classroom. Homework is great for this!
Teachers can set homework based on the current unit of work in the classroom. If the students are learning about dinosaurs, the homework can be a task on dinosaurs.
This helps the teachers to show the parents the valuable learning that’s taking place, and allows parents to feel comfortable that the teacher is doing a great job.
3. Homework teaches time management
Children often have a wide range of after school activities to undertake. They need to develop the skill of managing all these activities to fit homework in.
At school, children’s time is closely managed and controlled. Every lesson ends and begins with a bell or a teacher command.
At some point, children need to learn to manage their own time. Homework is an easy way to start refining this important soft skill.
4. Homework gives students self-paced learning time
At school, a lesson has a clear beginning and end. Students who are struggling may be interrupted and need more time. Homework allows them to work on these tasks at their own pace.
When I was studying math in high school, I never got my work done in time. I understood concepts slower than my peers, and I needed more time to reinforce concepts.
Homework was my chance to keep up, by studying at my own pace.
5. Homework can reduce screen time
Paper-based homework can take students away from their afternoon cartoons and video games and get them working on something of more value.
Screen time is one of the biggest concerns for educators and parents in the 21 st Century. Children spend approximately 5 to 7 hours in front of screens per day.
While screens aren’t all bad, children generally spend more time at screens than is necessary. Homework tasks such as collecting things from the yard or interviewing grandparents gets kids away from screens and into more active activities.
6. Homework gives students productive afternoon activities
Too often, children get home from school and switch off their brains by watching cartoons or playing video games. Homework can be more productive.
Good homework should get students actively thinking. A teacher can set homework that involves creating a product, conducting interviews with family, or writing a story based on things being learned in class.
But even homework that involves repetition of math and spelling tasks can be far more productive than simply watching television.
7. Homework reinforces information taught in class
For difficult tasks, students often need to be exposed to content over and over again until they reach mastery of the topic .
To do this, sometimes you need to do old-fashioned repetition of tasks. Take, for example, algebra. Students will need to repeat the process over and over again so that they will instinctively know how to complete the task when they sit their standardized test.
Of course, the teacher needs to teach and reinforce these foundational skills at school before independent homework practice takes place.
8. Homework helps motivated students to get ahead
Many students who have set themselves the goal of coming first in their class want to do homework to get an advantage over their peers.
Students who want to excel should not be stopped from doing this. If they enjoy homework and it makes them smarter or better at a task, then they should be allowed to do this.
9. Homework gives parents and children time together
When a parent helps their child with homework (by educating and quizzing them, not cheating!), they get a chance to bond.
Working together to complete a task can be good for the relationship between the parent and the child. The parents can also feel good that they’re supporting the child to become more educated.
10. Homework improves parent-teacher relationships
Parents get an inside look at what’s happening at school to improve their trust with the teacher, while also helping the teacher do their job.
Trust between parents and teachers is very important. Parents want to know the teacher is working hard to support students and help them learn. By looking at their children’s homework, they get a good idea of what’s going on in the classroom.
The parent can also feel good about helping the teacher’s mission by sitting with the child during homework and helping to reinforce what’s been learned at school.
11. Homework helps teachers get through the crowded curriculum
Teachers are increasingly asked to teach more and more content each year. Homework can be helpful in making sure it all gets done.
Decades ago, teachers had time to dedicate lessons to repeating and practicing content learned. Today, they’re under pressure to teach one thing then quickly move onto the next. We call this phenomenon the “crowded curriculum”.
Today, teachers may need to teach the core skills in class then ask students to go home and practice what’s been taught to fast-track learning.
12. Homework provides spaced repetition for long-term memorization
Spaced repetition is a strategy that involves quizzing students intermittently on things learned in previous weeks and months.
For example, if students learned division in January, they may forget about it by June. But if the teacher provides division questions for homework in January, March, and May, then the students always keep that knowledge of how to do division in their mind.
Spaced repetition theory states that regularly requiring students to recall information that’s been pushed to the back of their mind can help, over time, commit that information to their long-term memory and prevent long-term forgetting.
13. Homework supports a flipped learning model to make the most of time with the teacher
Flipped learning is a model of education where students do preparation before class so they get to class prepared to learn.
Examples of flipped learning include pre-teaching vocabulary (e.g. giving children new words to learn for homework that they will use in a future in-class lesson), and asking students to watch preparatory videos before class.
This model of homework isn’t about reinforcing things learned in class, but learning things before class to be more prepared for lessons.
14. Homework improves student achievement
An influential review of the literature on homework by Mazano and Pickering (2007) found that homework does improve student achievement.
Another review of the literature by Cooper, Robinson and Patall (2006) similarly found that homework improves achievement. In this review, the authors highlighted that homework appeared more beneficial for high school students’ grades than elementary school students’ grades.
Several progressive education critics , especially Alfie Kohn , have claimed that homework does not help student grades. We have not found the critics’ evidence to be as compelling.
15. Homework helps the education system keep up with other countries’ systems
All nations are competing with one another to have the best education system (measured by standardized tests ). If other countries are assigning homework and your country isn’t, your country will be at a disadvantage.
The main way education systems are compared is the OECD ranking of education systems. This ranking compared standardized test scores on major subjects.
Western nations have been slipping behind Asian nations for several decades. Many Asian education systems have a culture of assigning a lot of homework. To keep up, America may also need to assign homework and encourage their kids to do more homework.
See Also: Homework Statistics List
Cons of Homework
1. homework interferes with play time.
Play-based learning is some of the best learning that can possibly occurs. When children go home from school, the play they do before sunset is hugely beneficial for their development.
Homework can prevent children from playing. Instead, they’re stuck inside repeating tasks on standardized homework sheets.
Of course, if there is no homework, parents would have to make sure children are engaging in beneficial play as well, rather than simply watching TV.
2. Homework interferes with extracurricular activities
After school, many children want to participate in extracurricular activities like sporting and community events.
However, if too much homework is assigned to learners, their parents may not be able to sign them up to co-curricular activities in the school or extracurricular activities outside of the school. This can prevent students from having well-rounded holistic development.
3. Homework discourages students from going outside and getting exercise
Homework is usually an indoors activity. Usually, teachers will assign spelling, math, or science tasks to be repeated through the week on paper or a computer.
But children need time to go outside and get exercise. The CDC recommends children ages 6 to 17 need 60 minutes of moderate to intense exercise per day.
Unfortunately, being stuck indoors may prevent children from getting that much needed exercise for well-rounded development.
4. Homework leads to unsupervised and unsupportive learning
When students get stuck on a task at school, the teacher is there to help. But when students are stuck on a homework task, no support is available.
This leads to a situation where students’ learning and development is harmed. Furthermore, those students who do understand the task can go ahead and get more homework practice done while struggling students can’t progress because the teacher isn’t there to help them through their hurdles.
Often, it’s down to parents to pick up the challenge of teaching their children during homework time. Unfortunately, not all students have parents nearby to help them during homework time.
5. Homework can encourage cheating
When children study without supervision, they have the opportunity to cheat without suffering consequences.
They could, for example, copy their sibling’s homework or use the internet to find answers.
Worse, some parents may help their child to cheat or do the homework for the child. In these cases, homework has no benefit of the child but may teach them bad and unethical habits.
6. Homework contributes to a culture of poor work-life balance
Homework instils a corporate attitude that prioritizes work above everything else. It prepares students for a social norm where you do work for your job even when you’re off the clock.
Students will grow up thinking it’s normal to clock off from their job, go home, and continue to check emails and complete work they didn’t get done during the day.
This sort of culture is bad for society. It interferes with family and recreation time and encourages bosses to behave like they’re in charge of your whole life.
7. Homework discourages children from taking up hobbies
There is an argument to be made that children need spare time so they can learn about what they like and don’t like.
If students have spare time after school, they could fill it up with hobbies. The student can think about what they enjoy (playing with dolls, riding bikes, singing, writing stories).
Downtime encourages people to develop hobbies. Students need this downtime, and homework can interfere with this.
8. Homework creates unfairness between children with parents helping and those who don’t
At school, students generally have a level playing field. They are all in the same classroom with the same resources and the same teacher. At home, it’s a different story.
Some children have parents, siblings, and internet to rely upon. Meanwhile, others have nothing but themselves and a pen.
Those children who are lucky enough to have parents helping out can get a significant advantage over their peers, causing unfairness and inequalities that are not of their own making.
9. Homework causes stress and anxiety
In a study by Galloway, Connor and Pope (2013), they found that 56% of students identified homework as the greatest cause of stress in their lives.
Stress among young people can impact their happiness and mental health. Furthermore, there is an argument to “let kids be kids”. We have a whole life of work and pressure ahead of us. Childhood is a time to be enjoyed without the pressures of life.
10. Homework is often poor-quality work
Teachers will often assign homework that is the less important work and doesn’t have a clear goal.
Good teachers know that a lesson needs to be planned-out with a beginning, middle and end. There usually should be formative assessment as well, which is assessment of students as they learn (rather than just at the end).
But homework doesn’t have the structure of a good lesson. It’s repetition of information already learned, which is a behaviorist learning model that is now outdated for many tasks.
11. Homework is solitary learning
Most education theorists today believe that the best learning occurs in social situations.
Sociocultural learning requires students to express their thoughts and opinions and listen to other people’s ideas. This helps them improve and refine their own thinking through dialogue.
But homework usually takes place alone at the kitchen table. Students don’t have anyone to talk with about what they’re doing, meaning their learning is limited.
12. Homework widens social inequality
Homework can advantage wealthier students and disadvantage poorer students.
In Kralovec and Buell’s (2000) book The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning , the authors argue that poorer students are less likely to have the resources to complete their homework properly.
For example, they might not have the pens, paper, and drawing implements to complete a paper task. Similarly, they might not have the computer, internet connection, or even books to do appropriate research at home.
Parents in poorer households also often work shift work and multiple jobs meaning they have less time to help their children with their homework.
Homework can be both good and bad – there are both advantages and disadvantages of homework. In general, it’s often the case that it depends on the type of homewor k that is assigned. Well-planned homework used in moderation and agreed upon by teachers, parents and students can be helpful. But other homework can cause serious stress, inequality, and lifestyle imbalance for students.
Chris Drew (PhD)
Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education.
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The Pros and Cons of Homework
The dreaded word for students across the country—homework.
Homework has long been a source of debate, with parents, educators, and education specialists debating the advantages of at-home study. There are many pros and cons of homework. We’ve examined a few significant points to provide you with a summary of the benefits and disadvantages of homework.
Check Out The Pros and Cons of Homework
Pro 1: Homework Helps to Improve Student Achievement
Homework teaches students various beneficial skills that they will carry with them throughout their academic and professional life, from time management and organization to self-motivation and autonomous learning.
Homework helps students of all ages build critical study abilities that help them throughout their academic careers. Learning at home also encourages the development of good research habits while encouraging students to take ownership of their tasks.
If you’re finding that homework is becoming an issue at home, check out this article to learn how to tackle them before they get out of hand.
Con 1: Too Much Homework Can Negatively Affect Students
You’ll often hear from students that they’re stressed out by schoolwork. Stress becomes even more apparent as students get into higher grade levels.
A study conducted on high school student’s experiences found that high-achieving students found that too much homework leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as:
- Weight loss
- Stomach problems
More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies.
It’s been shown that excessive homework can lead to cheating. With too much homework, students end up copying off one another in an attempt to finish all their assignments.
Pro 2: Homework Helps to Reinforce Classroom Learning
Homework is most effective when it allows students to revise what they learn in class. Did you know that students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide in class?
Students need to apply that information to learn it.
Homework also helps students develop key skills that they’ll use throughout their lives:
- Accountability
- Time management
- Self-direction
- Critical thinking
- Independent problem-solving
The skills learned in homework can then be applied to other subjects and practical situations in students’ daily lives.
Con 2: Takes Away From Students Leisure Time
Children need free time. This free time allows children to relax and explore the world that they are living in. This free time also gives them valuable skills they wouldn’t learn in a classroom, such as riding a bike, reading a book, or socializing with friends and family.
Having leisure time teaches kids valuable skills that cannot be acquired when doing their homework at a computer.
Plus, students need to get enough exercise. Getting exercise can improve cognitive function, which might be hindered by sedentary activities such as homework.
Pro 3: Homework Gets Parents Involved with Children’s Learning
Homework helps parents track what their children are learning in school.
Also allows parents to see what their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses are. Homework can alert parents to any learning difficulties that their children might have, enabling them to provide assistance and modify their child’s learning approach as necessary.
Parents who help their children with homework will lead to higher academic performance, better social skills and behaviour, and greater self-confidence in their children.
Con 3: Homework Is Not Always Effective
Numerous researchers have attempted to evaluate the importance of homework and how it enhances academic performance. According to a study , homework in primary schools has a minimal effect since students pursue unrelated assignments instead of solidifying what they have already learned.
Mental health experts agree heavy homework loads have the capacity to do more harm than good for students. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether. So, unfortunately for students, homework is here to stay.
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College life is an amazing period when most people find their soulmates, meet friends, obtain knowledge, study favorite subjects, and decide on the career path. Don’t you agree?
However, homework has always been the main stumbling block for most students who choose to keep a balance between studies, work, and personal life. While some teachers and parents agree that homework assignments help to improve knowledge and train theoretical skills. However, when kids have no experience in doing assignments out-of-class or school students who get many assignments , they spent hours of homework which led to stress, headache, and burnout. Obviously, parents see these negative effects and start thinking about whether the government should ban homework.
Since students want to enjoy their youth, it’s no wonder that more and more people ask themselves: should students have homework ?
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The debate over banning homework isn’t new, but it has gained in popularity over the last few years. Today, more and more schools and colleges in the USA and Canada implement the ‘no-homework’ policy.
In this article, we’re going to find out whether homework should be banned.
First things first: let’s find out why homework is bad . Here comes the list of the pros of banning homework.
1. Stay Interested in Subjects
It’s no secret that students spend at least five days a week at colleges, but when they come back home, they still have to work on their homework which also takes a lot of time. Since most teachers assign too much homework, students waste many days working on assignments, so they lack sleep and feel stressed. Why? They are afraid of completing their tasks on a bad level, and therefore getting bad marks. While kids study hard to be skilled and well-rounded, they waste a lot of time online and these factors lead to stress and mental health problems, so students are losing interest in subjects.
2. Keep a College-Life Balance
The college life is not just about attending lectures, hitting the books, and doing your homework. It’s an amazing period of life that most young people love as it helps them meet new friends and decide on their career paths if they keep a college-life balance. With the growing amount of homework assignments, it’s getting harder for responsible students to manage their time wisely. Not only do students spend much time working on their tasks and projects, but also teachers assign too much homework.
More and more famous people support the idea of a homework ban as they believe that working too much on homework assignments doesn’t allow kids to keep a college-life balance. Here’s a popular Tweet from Gary Lineker , for example:
Having a balance in life is crucial for every person, but when it comes to the youth, it’s even more important as it affects their productivity, performance, and overall well-being. To get great grades, students do their best to complete tasks on a good level, but they have to spend many days to complete their workload, so they can’t keep a balance.
3. Improve Mental Health
When students have to work on difficult assignments, they may get stress, headaches, and exhaustion. When kids have too much homework, it can result in lack of sleep and healthy relationships with peers and family. No matter how much they love various subjects, homework can negatively affect mental health which can lead to serious problems. The ‘no-homework’ movement helps to protect children from getting too much homework which also helps to improve mental health over the long haul.
Having too much homework is bad, but having no homework at all – is it good? Although more and more people want to implement the no-homework policy and discuss whether should homework be banned, working on assignments after classes is still a great way to obtain knowledge and improve skills. Let’s find out the cons of banning homework.
1. Have Poor Time Management Skills
Students get too much homework. At first blush, it seems to be a problem. However, it has a positive effect on their time management skills. With a desire to get great grades for their assignments without sacrificing personal life, most students find a homework routine that works best for them. In other words, this means they learn how to prioritize tasks, stay focused on their duties, and therefore improve time management skills which can help them in every aspect of life.
2. Increase Screen Time
The popularity of technologies has both advantages and disadvantages. While adults can make the most out of gadgets, younger people may have some problems using their smartphones/tablets. As specified in Common Sense Report , 59% of parents believe that their children are addicted to their devices. Since kids love gadgets so much, they always choose to get through the days playing video games or browsing social media networks unless they start working on homework assignments.
Gadgets have become a common problem most children face, so parents seek out alternative ways to occupy their kids . Believe it or not, homework reduces the amount of time the youth spends scrolling Facebook feeds or texting with peers. There’s a correlation between the amount of time people spend on education and screen time. The sum up? More education means less screen time:
Simply put, if you choose to ban homework, it may lead to serious problems caused by phone addiction. Thus, it’s a negative aspect of a homework ban that can become a global problem in the short term.
3. Damage Children-Parents Relationships
When it comes to homework, every student has asked their parents for help at least once in a lifetime. Since students seek out assignment help, it’s no wonder they turn to their parents. In most cases, parents do their best to help children get their questions answered. It’s psychologically proven that working together with parents on difficult tasks leads to better relationships, but when there’s no homework, students (especially teenagers) are less likely to contact their parents. In other words, this means a lack of communication between children and parents, which negatively affects their overall relationships.
Homework has both pros and cons, so it’s hard to say whether it should be banned or not. However, it’s obvious that teachers should take into account the amount of homework students get weekly and how many days they work on these tasks. Once teachers assign fewer tasks and students stop procrastinating on their homework, working on assignments at home will be more beneficial for everyone in the educational process.
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Homework: Pros And Cons
- Topics: Homework
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The education system seems to be always trying to improve upon itself for the benefit of the millions of students and teachers. Whether it be developing new and more efficient ways of teaching or simply just updating the old curriculum to better the learning experience for both the students and the teachers. However, it may be time to question one of the most common practices that has been engrained throughout the education system which is homework. This being necessary due to the many negatives that have been observed to be caused by homework and more specifically to much homework, in addition to the overall effectiveness of it in certain age groups. Homework does offer many positives such as reinforcing what you have learned, help develop good studious habits, and improve student’s academic achievement it all depends on the way a teacher utilizes homework. This essay will go in depth about why the education system needs to change the way they go about homework in order to balance the positives and negatives effects that homework causes students.
Many people do not realize all the negative impact that homework can have on a student. One thing homework has shown to have an effect on a student’s level of engagement with non academic activities. We can see an example of this in this quotation “In general, students’ experiences with homework tend to be negative and emotionally charged. Students often experience lower levels of engagement while doing homework than engaging in other out-of-school activities”(Galloway 493). This research shows that many students are not nearly engaged in their homework as they should be, whether it be because of the homework being uninteresting, or maybe it being overly repetitive. Not only is homework in general unengaging for students, but it also takes time away from students doing activities that they want to do. Shannon, senior science writer for Stat, brings up a good point in her argument ‘Homework should be an opportunity to engage in creative, exploratory activity–doing an oral history of your family or determining the ecological effects of a neighborhood business.’ Rather than memorizing names, dates and battles of the Civil War, students might write fictional letters from a Northerner to a Southerner, expressing their feelings about the issues dividing the nation”(Begley 1). One key change that the education system could take away from this, is to make homework a more enjoyable and engaging experience, making it feel like less of a hassle for the student to accomplish.
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Another detrimental effect that research has shown to have on students is stress. One study that used data to find out the relations among homework, a student’s health, and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing schools found that “As expected, many students in our study reported experiencing stress, compromised health, or lack of balance. Most experienced distress and/or lacked time to engage in important life tasks outside of school. The majority (72%) reported being often or always stressed over schoolwork and many reported that they experienced physical symptoms due to stress with 82% reported experiencing at least one physical symptom in the past month, and 44% of the sample experiencing three or more symptoms”(Wilde 498) This study shows that the vast majority of students in his survey were constantly stressed and even more experienced physical symptoms caused by their stress. Now it is clear that everyone has to go through stress throughout their life and you could argue that this stress will prepare the students for adulthood. Why this is true so many students already have experience so much stress, whether it be from a bad home life or trying to help provide for their family. So, to me if the education system could help manage or reduce the amount of stress that students have to go through, why not do it. Some of the suggested actions that have have concluded from my research are as simple as reducing homework to a useful and helpful level. In addition to “home work should also be crucial to the next day’s classwork, to emphasize to students that homework matters and isn’t just a plot to make them miserable”(Begley 1).This would allow students more time to do extracurricular activities and would allow the relationship between student and homework to be positive or at least a useful resource instead of a nuisance. If the education system were to take these actions I believe that the amount of stress students go through to be reduced.
The last thing that I am going to go into is the effectiveness of homework. Homework has been shown to be a great asset in middle school forward and is an essential part of learning, as long as it follows the suggestions above. However, many studies have shown that homework before middle school is ineffective. We see an example of this in this research “For the new study he will present there, Cooper collected data on 709 students in grades two through four and six through 12. In lower grades, ‘there was a significant negative relationship between the amount of homework assigned and student attitudes,’ Cooper says, reflecting the not-surprising fact that kids resent the stuff. But in grades six and up, the more homework students completed, the higher their achievement. (Begley 1) All this research shows that all the homework given to students younger than six grade, is not helpful and possibly harmful to the young students. Another somewhat alarming trend that has been going on that correlates with this is the increase of homework for younger students. According to Brian Gill, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation, “One homework fact that educators do agree upon is that the young child today is doing more homework than ever before… There has been some increase in homework for the kids in kindergarten, first grade and second grade” (Wilde 2). This increase in homework just leads to young students having a negative cognition with it. In addition, not all kids have the same learning style, for example for me I am a quick learner and do not need a lot of problems of homework in order to comprehend a topic. This is why teachers should adapt for each student or try their best to do so, maybe making homework optional as long as you can prove on the tests that they have learned the subject. By not forcing young students to do homework that does not even help them, I think this would help mediate the hate that many kids develop for homework at this young age.
All in all, it is clear that homework is a very complicated topic that has so many positives that it can offer a student, but with these positives come all the negatives. These include its cause of stress, takes away from a students’ engagement in school and outside, as long with it not being useful to all. The challenge lies with finding how to balance these effects, for the homework to be truly a useful tool for students to utilize.
Bibliography
- Begley, Sharon. “Homework Doesn’t Help. (Cover Story).” Newsweek, vol. 131, no. 13, Mar. 1998,p.50.EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=386599&site=ehost-live&scope=sie.
- Galloway, Mollie, et al. “Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools.” Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 81, no. 4, Oct. 2013, pp. 490–510. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00220973.2012.745469.
- Wilde, Marian. “Do Our Kids Have Too Much Homework?” Parenting, www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/homework-is-too-much/.
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We do not agree with the position of the Department of Education (DepEd) that a “no homework” policy, prohibiting teachers from assigning academic work to be completed by students outside of regular school hours, is beneficial to Filipino students. As a student, I disagree about the no homework policy because for me homework is important because it allows me to practice the things I am learning at school and it may be responsible for many things such as doing homework...
Homework is a set task that is given to students to be solved at home and submitted at school for examination. There are usually homework tasks set from most or all subject categories for submittal at different or clashing target dates. Failure to carry out these tasks on or before target times often carries penalties on the student concerned. It has become the norm for students to be under the pressure of homework and now seems to be one of...
Homework should not give during weekends for the students because they can’t spend more time for their parents, also they can’t enjoy their 2 days of their rest because there are always remembering all the papers works that they need to pass. Homework is a class issue. In school everyone is equal, but at home some people have advantages because of their family background. Middle class families with books and computers will be able to help their children much more...
All of us is a dreamer, we want everything to be perfect. When we were a kid we just wanted a big toy but when we start to attend at school our principle and perception in life has changed. Yes, were still a dreamer, and our first dream is to finished our study so that those elegant dream like car, 3 storey house, cafe business and 6 digit salary a month will become achieved. They said that youth is the...
Nothing compares to the sigh of relief from students when one’s teacher says, “No homework tonight.” The immediate satisfaction from hearing those simple words is just the beginning of a widely controversial topic. Students are given an obtuse amount of homework that sets limitations on their possibilities to be more than just students. The clear burden homework places on children can be seen through the lack of mental and physical health children are partaking. Several arguments have arisen in recent...
I have always wondered about homework and why it is necessary. I chose homework as my research project and read a book, a website, created a poll and survey, as well as conducted a personal interview with a fellow student at my school. Throughout my search I learned that it is not only teachers who do not understand the circumstances of a student, but also the curriculum and their given time to teach it. There has to be a understanding...
An Overview As described by Wikipedia (n.d), homework, or a homework assignment, is a set of tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside the class. Common homework assignments may include required reading, writing or typing project, mathematical exercises to be completed, information to be reviewed before a test, or other skills to be practiced. Ramos (2018) narrated that homeworks started in Venice, Italy in 1095. It was first introduced by a strict teacher whose name is...
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12 Pros and Cons of Homework
Last Updated on March 11, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev
Homework is defined as tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours. Homework is designed to reinforce what students have already learned. Homework is a word that most students dread hearing.
Table of Contents
Pros and Cons of Homework
Purpose of homework, should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice, 2. keep track of the progress, 3. improved academic outcome, 4. teaches time management, 5. parents are involved in the learning process, 6. creates communication bridge, 7. provides more learning time, 1. encourages a sedentary lifestyle, 2. causes unnecessary stress, 3. eats up free time, 4. not always effective, 5. discourages creative endeavours.
The teachers assign homework to the students as they believe that homework will help the students to recollect the topics that were covered in the class. There are some lessons that are perfect for the classroom environment, but there are also some things that children can learn better at home. So homework helps to maintain the balance between them.
Generally, homework includes reading, writing, or completion of a certain problem which will improve the overall performance of the student. This means that kids who do homework are more committed to doing well in school.
The most common purpose of homework is to have students practice material already presented in class so as to reinforce learning and facilitate mastery of specific skills. It is found that appropriate homework in the right amounts can enhance younger students’ learning and prepare them for a routine of studying as they get older.
Homework impacts students’ academic achievement—test scores. Homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness, and independent problem-solving skills.
Preparation assignments introduce the material that will be presented in future lessons which helps students obtain the maximum benefit when the new material is covered in class.
The type and amount of homework given to students have been debated for over a century. For years, teachers and parents thought that homework was a necessary tool when educating children. But studies about the effectiveness of homework have been conflicting and inconclusive.
Proponents of homework say that it improves student achievement and allows for independent learning of classroom and life skills. Also, homework allows parents to monitor their child’s learning. Opponents of homework say that too much may be harmful to students as it can increase stress, reduce leisure and sleep time, lead to cheating, and is not proven to be beneficial for younger.
According to Harris Cooper, a professor at Duke University, there is a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school.
As a general rule, the maximum amount of time that a student should spend each day on lessons outside of school is 10 minutes per each grade level. This means a first grader should spend 10 minutes daily on his homework while a senior high school kid should spend about 2 hours.
Should students have homework or not? Let’s discuss some of the key pros and cons of the homework.
Pros of Homework
One of the positive effects of homework is that it helps to encourage the discipline of practice. Repetition is necessary to get better at skills. Practising the same problem over and over helps to reinforce the discipline of practice. Homework helps make concepts more clear and helps to build a career in the future.
Homework allows teachers to track students’ progress, meaning that homework helps to find out the academic strengths and weaknesses of children. Homework can also help clue teachers into the existence of any learning disabilities their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed.
Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs.
It has also found that students who regularly do homework have scored better in standardized tests than other students who didn’t do homework at all.
When homework is assigned to the students, students are able to manage their time and make effective study plans. Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks but also teaches time management skills.
It helps to manage study time by completing all assignments on time. Time management is a necessary skill that a student must have which is very useful not only in school life but also in the future.
Parents need to know what their children are learning in school. Homework helps parents to track down what their children are learning at school and their class performance. By sending homework from the school, it allows the entire family to encounter the assignments that their kids are doing when they are in school during the day. A study shows that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance.
Homework helps to create a communication network between student, teacher, school, and parents. Teachers are unaware of the lives of the students at home and the parents are unaware of their lives at school. Communication helps to understand each other in a better way, as teachers get to know the needs of students and parents about their children’s strengths and weaknesses.
School hours aren’t always enough for students to grasp the core knowledge. Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. Setting homework allows students to revise content learned during the day and also helps to get things thoroughly because there is sufficient time for research and also there is less disturbance in the home.
Cons of Homework
As the students get long assignments/homework, hence require much time to complete it. If students are given more homework, then they get less amount of time for extracurricular activities and also affect social development. A sedentary lifestyle can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity.
With a large workload and difficult tasks, homework causes students to feel anxious and stressed. Unnecessary stress causes demotivation. In some cases, homework may even be assigned over term breaks or the summer holidays.
This causes severe stress for some children, leading to issues such as sleep deprivation. This causes behavioural changes in students and also ingraining homework as a negative aspect of school life.
Free time allows children to not only relax but also discover the world. Childs spend hours completing the assignment which eats up the valuable time kids have to spend with their family, attend extracurricular activities, and catch up with friends. During that time kids can learn many things like riding a bike, reading novels, attending social activities, attending family functions, etc.
A study found that homework creates a negative attitude towards schooling and the education system. Research by John Hattie, Professor of Education at the University of Melbourne, has found that homework in primary school has a negligible effect on students’ academic growth, as students are completing separate and unrelated projects rather than reinforcing learned knowledge. Homework doesn’t necessarily help to improve students’ academic performance rather it puts a burden on students.
As we know homework eats up the leisure time because students spend hours completing their assignments. During that time students might like to do creative works that they are interested in such as, painting, singing, playing games, learning an instrument, etc . There might be a case where a student is much interested in doing creative work rather than spending hours on homework.
Concluding the article, both the pros and cons of homework are valid. Teachers and parents find homework as a necessary task for the children’s academic success while students find it as a burden or headache. The main purpose of homework is to bridge the gap between children’s learning at school and at home.
On the one hand, homework is an effective way to reinforce the concepts that were learned at school which helps to improve the academic outcome of the students. On the other hand, homework puts a burden on the student and the time that homework demands would be better spent with meaningful activity.
Thus, a good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements. If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.
- https://www.goodschools.com.au/insights/parental-advice/pros-and-cons-of-homework
- https://www.goodschools.com.au/insights/parental-advice/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-homework
- https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-homework/
- https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/should-students-have-homework1808.html
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Pros and Cons of Homework
“Not until you finish your homework.”
“I want you to finish your dinner and get right to work on your homework.”
“Is your homework done? Then, no, you get up those stairs and finish first.”
We’ve all heard something similar from our mom, dad, or caretaker. Homework is a big staple of the American school scene, just like lockers, the school bell, and big yellow buses. Portrayed in media from the Brady Bunch to Cocomelon, homework has been an academic given for decades.
Despite its popularity, this after-school activity has been under scrutiny for over a century. Britannica explains , “In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal , decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores.”
Regardless of opposition, homework persevered, and millions of American students still spend long hours completing bookwork in their bedrooms after school.
What are the modern objections to homework? What if the opposition is right? Is there merit to the concerns, or is homework a helpful tool for a well-rounded and comprehensive education? If you’d like to find out, now’s the time to keep reading!
How Much Time?
When analysts crunch the numbers, children spend far more time doing homework than many believe necessary. According to One Class, elementary school students spend an average of 42 minutes a day on homework. Some parents and educators argue that five additional hours of schoolwork per week is too much for elementary students.
High schoolers spend even more time on after-school assignments. Pew Research published a 2019 article in which they explained , “Overall, teens (ages 15 to 17) spend an hour a day, on average, doing homework during the school year, up from 44 minutes a day about a decade ago and 30 minutes in the mid-1990s.”
Globally, the U.S. ranks 15th for the average amount of time spent on homework by high school students. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conducted a worldwide study on 15-year-old students to evaluate the homework load for high schoolers worldwide.
Among the countries included in the study, China ranked first, with students spending an average of 13.8 hours a week on homework. The Netherlands ranked the lowest, with their students studying after school for an average of 5.8 hours a week. American students spent an average of 6.1 hours per week completing their homework.
What Students Think
Homework has become a point of significant stress for American students.
One Stanford study found that 56% of students who participated in the survey stated that homework was a primary source of stress. Another study found that the decline in adequate teenage sleep may be partly due to homework. In yet another study, 82% of students interviewed admitted that they were “often or always stressed by schoolwork.”
It’s not just the students who object to frequent homework. Parents have begun to voice their displeasure as well. One mother in Canada went viral on social media when she announced that she and her husband were done watching their ten-year-old daughter stress over her homework every night. They decided that homework wasn’t a useful educational tool for their child.
Another mother in Kansas expressed how frustrating it is when her daughter has homework that she as a mother is unsure how to help with. “I feel bad for emailing a teacher in the evenings. I’m slightly annoyed at homework in general because I don’t know what the teacher taught.”
What Teachers Think
Educators debate whether or not homework is a positive educational tool. One Duke University professor recommends homework, believing there is a correlation between homework and academic success for older students. He recommends implementing the “10 Minute Rule.” Essentially, students receive 10 minutes of homework per day for each grade. (For instance, 1st graders would receive 10 minutes of homework, 5th graders 50 minutes, 12th graders 120 minutes.)
A Texas teacher informed the parents of her 2nd-grade students that she would not be assigning homework anymore. Instead, she asked that the children participate in real-life activities that encourage growth and success. These activities included outdoor play, family meals, and reading with parents. As her plan evolved, she acknowledged that some students actually enjoyed homework and missed the challenge. Other students received extra work here and there on an as-needed basis.
Defining the Need
One question that desperately needs to be asked is, “What’s the purpose of homework?”
The answer to this question can provide parameters, determine whether or not homework achieves the goal(s), and establish if it should continue to be a staple in the American education system.
Psychology Today wonders the same thing , without any clear-cut resolution. “I started the blog with a question ‘What’s the purpose of homework?’ I’ll end with the same question. If a teacher who is assigning the homework can’t provide a clear rationale behind this question, then maybe the homework shouldn’t be assigned.”
However, Honest Pros and Cons makes a case for homework in more detail. Their reasoning for homework includes :
- Practicing what they learn in the classroom
- Improving study habits
- Developing self-discipline
- Enhancing independent problem-solving skills
McRel International notes that many factors play into whether or not homework is an effective strategy for students. They acknowledge that after-school assignments have pros and cons and state that the research is by no means definitive.
Proponents of homework present several positives:
- It improves student achievement – “Students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework on both standardized tests and grades.” – Britannica ProCon
While the data is not conclusive, numerous studies have shown a correlation between academic success and the use of homework.
- It involves parents – “Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.” – US News
Homework encourages parents and children to spend time together problem-solving and working toward a goal. It also gives parents a window into what their child is learning and the progress they are making.
- It encourages time management – “Homework is an effective tool when teaching your child about time management. This means that time management should extend beyond the classroom and into your home. ” – Edugage
American students spend roughly six hours a day at school. This schedule doesn’t leave much flexibility for sports, a social life, and a healthy amount of free time on top of homework. Kids have to learn time management if they want a life outside of their education.
- It tracks progress – “Homework allows teachers to track students’ progress, meaning that homework helps to find out the academic strengths and weaknesses of children.” – Honest Pros and Cons
Homework gives teachers a chance to see what the student can achieve independently. Students must put into practice what they learned in the schoolroom in a different environment and without their teacher present.
- It develops working memory – “Revising the key skills learned in the classroom during homework increases the likelihood of a student remembering and being able to use those skills in a variety of situations in the future, contributing to their overall education.” – The Guardian
Environment can play an active part in memory. Biologically, our brains more easily recall memories and facts when we’re immersed in the same surroundings in which we created that memory or learned those facts. Homework removes the environmental factor, forcing students to strengthen their working memory.
Concerned about the effects of homework on students, opponents note these objections:
- The science isn’t settled – “There is no conclusive evidence that homework increases student achievement across the board.” – Reading Rockets
As we’ve noted before, the data isn’t conclusive despite the numerous studies conducted. To many, the negatives suggested by various studies outweigh the proposed positives.
- It adds stress – “Researchers have found that students who spend too much time on homework experience more levels of stress and physical health problems.” – Psychology Today
Studies have concluded that too much homework creates undue stress on developing minds and bodies. This translates into mental, emotional, and physical issues for many students. This stress also affects their sleep , both the amount of sleep and the quality of that sleep.
- It impacts other interests/pursuits – “Homework prevents self-discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system.” – University of the People
Critics of homework fear that, in addition to time spent on school grounds, after-school assignments stunt students’ abilities to experience life outside academia. Students who struggle with completing work at home are even more susceptible to a lifestyle void of other interests.
- It expands the gap – “One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it ‘potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.’” – Britannica ProCon
Homework often involves a computer and/or an internet connection. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 30% of students didn’t have the necessary technology at home to effectively participate in distance learning, raising questions about inequality affecting homework that relies on at-home technology.
- It creates family tension – “Assigning homework forces a person to take on added disciplinary responsibilities.” – Front Range Christian School
While homework can bring children and parents together, it can also drive a wedge between them. Students who feel overwhelmed or who need a break from focusing on academics often buck their homework requirements, leaving parents to enforce education standards that the teachers created. Parents and students alike can end up frustrated, with little progress made.
A World of Unknowns
While the homework debate rages on, researchers continue to work toward a conclusive answer. In the meantime, teachers, parents, schools, and communities can work together to find a solution that meets the needs of their students.
Without a doubt, homework has positive aspects that encourage students to advance through personal and academic growth. The trick is to nurture this positivity without stunting progress with adverse side effects.
It’s a double-edged sword that’s well worth considering to ensure the best for our kids.
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Homework Should Not Be Banned: The Pros and Cons
Sun Sep 18 2022 16:14
7 minutes Read
It's a debate that has been around for as long as homework itself: should it be banned? On one side, you have people who argue that homework is nothing more than a waste of time. On the other side, you have people who insist that homework is an important part of a student's education
Though homework has been banned in some schools, the majority of schools believe that it is an important part of a child’s education. There are both pros and cons to giving homework to students, and it is up to each individual school to decide what is best for their students. Here are the pros and cons of giving homework:
- Schools believe that homework is an important part of a child’s education because it helps students practice new skills.
- Homework also helps students prepare for tests, creates good study habits, and can help teachers assess how well students are learning the material.
- Some parents are against homework because they feel it interferes with family time or their child’s social life. However, parent involvement has been shown to have a positive impact on student achievement.
- Other benefits of homework include that it can teach responsibility and help students get better grades.
- Ultimately, it is up to each individual student and family to decide whether or not they want to ban homework based on the pros and cons.
Homework help students in learning new skills
The majority of schools believe that homework is an important part of a child’s overall educational process. One of the main reasons for this is that homework helps students practice new skills. When students are given homework assignments, it gives them an opportunity to apply what they have learned in class to a real-world situation. This can help them better understand the material and also improve their:
- Learning Experience.
- Modern Educational Experience
- Private Schooling Experience
Homework Can Help Students Prepare for Tests
One of the main benefits of homework is that it can help students prepare for tests. By practicing new skills and concepts at home, students can often improve their test scores. In addition, homework creates good study habits, which will be useful throughout their academic careers. Otherwise, they will feel more pressure during their exam preparation.
Homework Assignments Help students learn more in class
It's no secret that homework can be a pain. But new research suggests that it might be worth the hassle after all. A study by the University of Missouri found that students who did homework scored significantly higher on tests than those who didn't. Further research concludes that this is because homework helps students in their learning process. When they have to do some of the work at home, they are better able to focus in class and it will increase their grade level. So before banning homework, think about the benefits it provides!
Assigning homework helps teachers assess how well students are learning the material
Another benefit of homework assignment is that they can help teachers assess how well students are learning the material. By reviewing homework assignments and quizzes, grade school teachers can get a good idea of which concepts students are struggling with. In addition, homework can also help teachers identify which students need more help in specific subjects.
Homework can help students develop study skills
Homework can help students develop good study habits, which will be useful throughout their traditional schooling. In addition, homework can also help high school teachers identify which students need more help in a particular subject.
Homework can motivate students in the learning process
Many people believe that homework should not be banned because it motivates students to learn. On the one hand, some students feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they have to do. On the other hand, getting rid of homework could mean less time for students to learn and practice new skills.
Homework can help parents be involved in their child’s education
Parent involvement has been shown to have a positive impact on student achievement. In fact, a study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that students whose parents were involved in their education scored higher on standardized tests than students whose parents were not involved.
In addition, parent involvement can help prevent students from dropping out of school. A study by the National Dropout Prevention Center found that students who had at least one parent who was involved in their education were less likely to drop out of school.
So what can parents do to get involved in their child’s education? Here are a few suggestions:
- Attend school meetings
- Volunteer in your child’s classroom
- Help your child with homework assignment
- Talk to your child about his or her day at school
- Stay up-to-date on your child’s progress report and grades
- Make sure your child is enrolled in extracurricular activities
- Encourage your child to apply for college
- Find a top homework helper for their child so that their understanding for a particular topic can be improved.
Homework can teach responsibility
Another benefit of homework is that it can help students learn responsibility. By completing their homework on time, students learn to be responsible and organized. In addition, homework can also help students develop good study habits, which will be useful throughout their academic careers.
Some students need homework to keep them on track
While some students feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they have to do, others feel that they need homework to keep them on track. Homework provides an opportunity for students to review the material they learned in class and helps them practice new skills. In addition, homework can help students develop good study habits, which results in better academic outcomes.
Homework can help students get better grades
Most students believe that homework is just a waste of time and it doesn’t help them get better grades. However, research has shown that homework can actually help students improve their grades. In fact, a study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that students whose parents were involved in their educational process scored higher on standardized tests than students whose parents were not involved.
Homework can help students learn time management skills
One of the benefits of homework is that it can help students learn time management. By completing their homework on time, students learn to be responsible and organized. In addition, homework can also help students develop good study habits, which will be useful throughout their academic careers.
Now let's think about what would happen if we got rid of homework.
It's no secret that students around the world are struggling with homework. Some feel overwhelmed by the amount they have to do, while others simply don't have enough time to get it all done. So is it time to ban too much homework? Let's take a look at the benefits of doing away with this age-old tradition.
Students feel overwhelmed by too much homework they have to do
Many students feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they have to do. In some cases, students may feel so overwhelmed that they begin to feel homework-related stress and anxiety. This can lead to more pressure in other areas of their lives, such as school and social life.
Homework can interfere with family time
One of the main arguments against homework assignments is that it interferes with family time.
When younger students are given a lot of homework, they often have to sacrifice time spent with their families in order to get it all done. This can be frustrating for both parents and children.
In addition, when grade school students spend too much time on homework, it can lead to sleep deprivation, which can also have negative effects on their academic performance.
Some students don’t have enough time to complete their homework
Another argument against homework is that some students don't have enough time to complete it. When students are given a lot of homework, they often have to sacrifice time spent with their families in order to get it all done. Homework quantity can be frustrating for both parents and children. In addition, when students spend too much time on homework, it can lead to sleep deprivation, which can also have negative effects on their academic performance and healthy routines.
Homework can be stressful for students
Homework can be a source of stress for students. The homework stress for students can feel insurmountable at times, and this can lead to problems in other areas of their lives. In addition, when college students spend too much time on homework, it can lead to sleep deprivation, which can also have negative effects on their academic performance.
There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. On one hand, Some students find themselves feeling anxious when they have a lot of homework. On the other hand, getting rid of homework could mean less time for students to learn and practice new skills.
So what's the right answer?
Ultimately, it is up to each individual student and family to decide whether or not they want to ban homework. Some students understand that limited homework helps them get better grades, while others find that it interferes with family time. In addition, some students don’t have enough time to complete their homework. What matters most is that students are given a reasonable amount of homework and that they have enough time to complete it without feeling overwhelmed or stressed out.
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Top 5 Pros And Cons Of Homework
By: Author Jennifer Johnson
Posted on February 28, 2023
Categories Articles , Frequently Asked Questions , School
Homework has been a part of the education system for a long time. It is an academic task assigned to students outside of regular class time to reinforce learning and help them develop skills such as time management, self-discipline, and independent thinking.
However, there has been an ongoing debate about whether homework is necessary or detrimental to a student’s academic and personal development.
Should students have homework? In this article, we will examine the pros and cons of homework to help you decide for yourself.
The Pros And Cons Of Homework
1. improved knowledge retention, 2. improved academic achievement, 2. establish good study habits, 3. helps prepare for exams, 4. time management, 5. provides an opportunity for parent support, 1. increased stress and anxiety, 2. not enough free time, 3. physical consequences, 4. widens inequality gap, 5. not always effective, the debate over homework, the role of parents and teachers in homework, conclusion .
To provide you with a summary of the benefits and drawbacks of homework, we have examined some key arguments.
Let’s start by taking a closer look at the potential benefits that assignments can provide for students.
The Benefits of Homework
As students, we have all groaned at the thought of homework, but did you know that homework can actually be beneficial? There are many reasons why homework assignments can be good for you. Let’s take a closer look at homework’s pros and why it benefits students.
One of the main benefits of homework is increased knowledge retention. When students review and practice what they have learned in class, it helps to solidify the information in their minds.
Homework allows a student to delve into a topic by going back and referring to what was taught in class and doing additional research by themselves, leading to a deeper understanding of a topic. This can be especially important for subjects that build upon previous knowledge, such as math or science.
There’s not always enough time for students in the school day to fully comprehend core concepts, but homework can counteract those effects, helping students in the long run, even if they can’t see it immediately.
By completing homework assignments, students can reinforce their understanding of the material and improve their overall comprehension.
Homework has been shown to improve student achievement in terms of grades, test scores, and college acceptance rates. According to a professor at Duke University, there is a correlation between homework and academic success for older students.
A study published in the High School Journal found that students who spend between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.”
In a study conducted by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), boys who had more homework had higher GPAs and a higher likelihood of attending college. The average high school boy who attended college did more than three hours of extra homework a week.
Homework can also help to improve study habits. Students can develop a routine and establish good study habits by setting aside time each day to complete tasks. This can be especially helpful for students who struggle with time management or procrastination. By getting into the habit of completing homework assignments regularly, students can develop a sense of discipline and responsibility.
The discipline of practice and commitment that goes into doing unsupervised homework and independent learning leads to improved study skills and habits. In the long run, the ability to study and do research by yourself makes it possible for you to learn how to be more creative and find ways to apply your understanding of class work.
A student’s homework can also be a valuable way to prepare for exams. As a result of completing practice problems and reviewing material on their own, students can gain a better understanding of the material and be prepared for exams.
The study habits developed when doing homework come in handy when revising for exams. The skills and methods you acquire can be applied when preparing for exams. In addition to improving test scores, this can also reduce test anxiety.
Furthermore, homework can teach students essential life skills such as time management, organization, and responsibility. By completing assignments independently, students can learn how to manage their time effectively and prioritize their tasks.
These skills can be applied not only in school but also in their future careers and personal lives. Proper time management skills are needed to do an assignment on time and to complete it while juggling other things like chores and extra-curricular activities.
Being able to manage time well is a key skill that students carry with them and use even after school. The ability to study by yourself requires one to be a hard worker, focused, and able to select and decipher information relevant to specific topics.
Homework can also be beneficial for students because it provides an opportunity for parents to be involved in their child’s education. As a result of take-home assignments, parents can keep track of what their children are learning at school and their academic strengths and weaknesses.
When parents help their children with homework, it can create a sense of collaboration and support. This can be especially important for students who struggle with certain subjects or who need extra help. By working together, parents and students can achieve academic success.
The Drawbacks Of Homework
Many students dread doing homework every night, and it’s not hard to see why. Homework has numerous disadvantages, from increased stress levels to lost free time.
One of the most significant cons of homework is the impact it can have on students’ mental health. The pressure to complete assignments and perform well on tests can be overwhelming, leading to increased stress levels and anxiety. This can be especially true for students who have extra-curricular activities, family obligations, or other responsibilities outside of school.
Students who have too much homework may lose motivation and interest in their studies. When they feel overwhelmed and overworked, they may disengage from their coursework and become unable to focus during class.
The overwhelmed student starts to get frustrated and will most likely develop a negative attitude towards school or even dislike certain subjects. This kind of attitude overrides the key purpose of going to school: learning and gaining knowledge.
🎓 Suggested reading: Coping Skills For Teens With Anxiety, Depression & Anger
Another negative effect of homework is the loss of free time. When students spend hours each night completing assignments, they have less time to pursue other interests and hobbies, spend time with friends and family, or simply relax and recharge. This can lead to feelings of frustration and resentment towards schoolwork, which can ultimately impact students’ academic performance.
It should not take longer than an hour a day on homework or an hour and a half to finish, especially for young children in primary or elementary school students. Their attention span is usually 80-90 minutes, ideal for homework per day; after this, they zone off, and the strain to focus becomes too hard. Sectioning off one hour or thirty minutes of homework leaves them time to engage in physical activity and hobbies, which are equally important.
🎓 Suggested reading: How Many Days Of School Can You Miss?
Moreover, homework can also have physical consequences. Sitting for extended periods, staring at a screen, and holding awkward positions can lead to eye strain, headaches, and other health issues. Students who are not getting enough sleep due to excessive homework may also experience a range of physical health problems, including fatigue and weakened immune systems.
🎓 Suggested reading: 6 Reasons Why Teens Stay Up Late
Finally, homework can widen the achievement gap between students. For those who have supportive families and access to resources, completing homework assignments may be easy and stress-free. However, for students who lack access to these resources or face challenges outside of school, homework can become an added burden that hinders their academic progress.
Tasks and assignments that need to be completed at home, are not effective if they are completely seperate and unrelated to school work. Only learning tasks that ask students to revise taught information that they have already covered in class, then to have a positive impact.
It is therefore extrememly important that teachers only assign tasks when revision is needed, to avoid unncessary stress or take time away from other, equally important activities.
🎓 Suggested reading: What Happens If You Fail A Class In High School?
For years, there has been a debate raging over the effectiveness of homework. Some people believe that it’s essential to student success, while others argue that it’s unnecessary and even counterproductive.
Watch these teachers and students discuss the homework debate:
Proponents of homework argue that it helps students reinforce concepts learned in class. They believe that homework is a necessary part of the learning process and that students who complete their homework assignments are more likely to succeed academically.
Homework opponents, however, argue that it puts unnecessary stress on students and can harm their mental health. Also, they argue that homework only sometimes leads to better academic performance and that it can be a waste of time for both students and teachers.
One of the main arguments for homework is that it helps students develop time management and organizational skills. By giving students homework assignments, they learn to prioritize their workload and manage their time effectively. This can be an important skill for students to develop, especially as they move on to higher education and the workforce.
Another argument for homework is that these assignments can provide valuable feedback to both students and teachers about what concepts need further clarification or practice.
However, opponents of homework argue that it can have negative effects on students’ mental health. A study conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Education found that excessive homework can lead to sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, and increased stress levels. This can have serious implications for students, both in terms of their academic performance and overall well-being.
Moreover, some argue that homework can be a waste of time for both students and teachers. Teachers spend a significant amount of time grading homework assignments, which takes away from the time they could be spending developing lesson plans or working with students one-on-one. For students, homework can be a tedious and time-consuming task that might do more harm than good.
So, what’s the verdict? Is homework essential to student success, or is it an outdated and counterproductive practice?
For some students, homework may be a necessary part of their learning process. They may thrive on the structure and routine of completing homework assignments, and it may help them develop important skills like time management and organization.
Even though there are some disadvantages of homework and it is seen as a burden, sometimes it helps develop a personal work ethic in addition to knowledge development. Involvement in homework can and is meant to teach a student the aspect of determination and working on stuff even when you don’t want to.
After-school work assignments also teach responsibility and develop problem-solving skills and critical thinking because a student is expected to work on something unsupervised, which is an important life skill. Doing homework helps students get more organized with their coursework, participate, and apply themselves more in class.
However, it seems that there is a limit to homework effectiveness. A study by Denise Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can be counterproductive and diminish its effectiveness. Based on prior research, they suggest that high school students should not spend more than 90 minutes to two and a half hours on homework each night.
The generally agreed rule of homework is that students should spend no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level – from 10 minutes in first grade to two hours of homework in high school.
Homework is an essential part of a student’s academic life, and it has been proven to be a valuable tool in enhancing learning and academic success. It allows students to reinforce what they have learned in the classroom and to develop critical thinking skills. However, the role of parents and teachers in homework is crucial for its success.
So how can parents and teachers play a significant role in helping students achieve their academic goals?
Parents play a critical role in their child’s education, and positive involvement in their child’s homework is vital. Research has shown that parental involvement in homework positively affects academic achievement. When parents take an active interest in their child’s homework, it shows the child that education is essential, and it sets a positive tone for learning.
However, parents should resist the urge to do assignments on behalf of their children. One way parents can help students is by creating a schedule that accommodates after-school activities and allows time to work on projects.
Parents can also help their children with homework by creating a designated study area, setting a regular homework schedule, and providing necessary materials such as pencils, paper, and calculators. They can also review their child’s completed homework and offer constructive feedback and praise.
🎓 Suggested reading: Things You Should Stop Doing For Your Teenager
Teachers also play a crucial role in their student’s academic success. Homework is an excellent way for teachers to assess students’ understanding of the material and identify areas where students may need additional help. A teacher should gauge students’ understanding of a topic before giving homework.
They are responsible for assigning homework that is relevant to the material covered in class and challenging enough to help students develop critical thinking skills. Teachers can support students by providing quality homework assignments, giving clear and concise instructions for homework assignments, giving feedback and grading promptly, and answering questions or offering additional support as needed.
However, teachers must also be mindful of the amount of homework they assign. Studies have shown that excessive homework can have negative effects on students, such as an increased source of stress, decreased motivation, and decreased academic achievement. Therefore, teachers must strike a balance between homework that is challenging but not overwhelming.
Teachers should also keep in mind that students are given homework for each class and be mindful that they don’t overburden them with assignment deadlines that overlap with other subjects.
It is also important for teachers and parents to collaborate to support students with their homework. Communication between parents and teachers can help identify any difficulties a student is experiencing with homework and develop strategies to overcome them.
It is also important for parents to inform teachers if their child has any challenges at home, such as illness or family problems, that might interfere with their ability to complete their homework.
There are both benefits and drawbacks to homework, and its usefulness in the educational system is still debated. Despite the positive effects of homework on a student’s mental health, too much homework can potentially harm a student’s mental health. Therefore, educators must strike a balance between assigning homework and allowing students time after school for other important activities.
Teachers can support students by providing clear instructions, grading promptly, and striking a balance between challenging but not overwhelming homework assignments.
Parents can help their children with homework by providing support, creating a designated study area, and reviewing completed homework.
Collaboration between parents and teachers is also essential in supporting students’ homework and addressing any challenges they may face. By working together, parents and teachers can help students achieve their academic goals and develop the skills necessary for future success.
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Pros And Cons Of No Homework Policy In High School
Homework has long been a contentious issue between students and educational establishments. Whilst some people think that homework should be abolished, others think it is an integral part of the educational experience. Ultimately, there are various pros and cons to setting students assignments to do outside of lesson time, with some of those listed below.
- Having more time free to do what you want
For students, a lack of assignments to do in their free time enables them to use any spare time to do things that they find more enjoyable. For example, rather than spending an evening working on an assignment, students can instead spent time socialising with friends, watching TV, playing sports, or do any number of other activities.
- Not having to worry about missing deadlines
Students may also be happy if there was a no homework policy as it means they do not have to worry about missing any crucial deadlines.
- Not feeling stressed out when you don’t what you’re doing
As well as not worrying about missing deadlines, another benefit is that some students can feel stressed out when having to complete the work at home, without the guidance of a teacher. As a result, students may feel more comfortable during their education, if they can get help from 123 Homework when they need it.
- Potentially having longer school days
By abolishing homework, it potentially means that the school day has to be increased, so as to accommodate the extra workload that is no longer being done at home by students. This is not only something that students may feel aggrieved about, but teachers may also be unpleased that they have to work longer.
- Not learning the subject as well as you might have done
By completing work at home, it teaches research and organisational skills, as well as helping to reinforce anything that was learned during the day. Therefore, a lack of homework can ultimately mean that students do not learn as much as they otherwise could, and may have a weaker understanding about key areas of their education.
- Being less likely to find out how you are progressing
One final drawback is that it can mean that students are less likely to be aware of exactly how they are progressing, as a result of not being able to see what marks they would otherwise have got for any assignments that they did. Essentially, assignments are great way of pointing out someone strengths and weaknesses.
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Pros and Cons of Homework: The Great Homework Debate
1) enforcing discipline, 2) increased learning, 1) prevents outside growth, 2) causing stress, the bottom line, alternatives.
There are many pros and cons of homework. If you remember back to your childhood, one of the most annoying parts of school might have been homework. Many of dreaded having to get home, because instead of doing something fun, we had to whip out the textbook and start doing some problems – not a great way to have to spend the afternoon. We didn’t understand the importance of homework, we saw it as a chore. The same is true of children today.
Homework has been heavily debated for years, with popular opinion shifting in and out of favor over the generations. As both a teacher and a mother, I have mixed feelings on the issue. On one hand, I know the importance of skill practice. However, I also know how crucial it is for children to have time for play and exploring interests outside of school.
Thankfully, I think there is a way to settle the ‘great homework debate’ by finding better alternatives.
Pros and Cons of Homework: The Good
The most influential part of homework is the habits it instills in students. In class, students are not often challenged to study and learn on their own; they are instead guided. With homework, students must force themselves to get the work done on their own time, instilling discipline and habits of work.
Discipline is especially relevant when these students start to work and, eventually, consider college. If they lack important studying habits, they will struggle in the self-lead world of college. But homework isn’t the only way teachers and parents can help children be more disciplined.
There are many other ways to strengthen this ability as well. One being providing structure and two, teaching problem-solving skills.
Believe it or not, homework does help the student to learn the subject faster and with higher accuracy. In fact, scientific research shows there is no ‘math gene’ that makes people good at math. Instead, it takes practice.
When students approach high school, the amount of work assigned per night slowly rises. Additionally, the amount of work a student can handle with positive results raises over time as well. A high school student and an elementary schooler can’t handle the same amount of homework, which is why it is assigned in different quantities.
The benefits of homework start to degrade after two hours for high schoolers, an hour and a half for grades 7-9, 45 minutes for grades 3-6, and 15 minutes for grade k-2. So instead of getting rid of homework altogether, teachers can focus on assigning a reasonable amount of what really matters.
Pros and Cons of Homework: The Bad
Excessive amounts of homework can take away from a student’s free time to engage in other activities. My middle schooler has struggled with this as tons of homework got in the way of doing what she loves, singing.
From sports to work to hobbies and clubs, there is a variety of things outside of homework that’s worth a student’s time. Finding balance is key. This can often be accomplished through schedule and routine.
Along with preventing outside growth, homework can lead to not just a full schedule, but a packed one. It is no secret this generation’s children are pressured more than any in the past to excel. From travel sports for elementary schoolers to thousand-dollar tutoring sessions to endless college visits – the stress is mounting.
Add homework on top of all this work, and the student is going to feel stressed out. The key is helping them feel successful while not overworking them at such a young age. I’ve found that a great way to do this is by making studying fun! If your child is one that hates math or doesn’t see the importance of reading , using interactive alternatives to study time is important.
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I know you may be thinking, I don’t assign the homework, I don’t have control. But most teachers are flexible and will work with you if you explained how other practice alternatives are helping your child.
I think the proper way to go about handling the issue of homework is not full support or a complete ban, but a middle-ground approach.
Most of the cons of homework come from an excess of it, while most pros are from homework in moderation. It is clear homework helps, at least to an extent, and too much is indeed a bad thing. We can’t coddle our kids forever, but it’s irresponsible to force a 45+ hour work week on students.
If we want students to succeed, we need to add in extra work when they need it. We also need to include it in a personalized manner to work their weak spots and hold their interest.
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Homework is boring, we all know it, so why not look for a better option? Sometimes, students do need an extra push of outside learning to succeed; homework alone might not just be enough. ArgoPrep’s new K-8 math program might be the solution you need. Keep extra work useful, and with purpose, that’s why ArgoPrep’s service is such a great addition, it adds in what you need when you need it.
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Pro and Con: Homework
To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether homework is beneficial, go to ProCon.org .
From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century.
While we are unsure who invented homework , we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars.
In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann, who encountered the idea in Prussia.
In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal, decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores.
Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War. And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool.
A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework.
Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home . Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool.
- Homework improves student achievement.
- Homework helps to reinforce learning and develop good study habits and life skills.
- Homework allows parents to be involved with their child's learning.
- Too much homework can be harmful.
- Homework disadvantages low-income students.
- There is a lack of evidence that homework helps younger children.
This article was published on February 25, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.
A Lot Of Homework: Pros And Cons
Students have been complaining of having too much homework since the dawn of times, but the 2014 Stanford University study showed that having too much to do can really take a toll on students. It can lead to not only lack of time and negative effect on family and personal relationships, but also problems with communication, losing the balance between life and study, and immense stress, which has a variety of bad consequences on the person’s physical and mental health.
But how much homework exactly can be viewed as too much? According to the 2014 Stanford study, even two hours of homework every day after studying at the institution can lead to all of the above-mentioned negative consequences. Sadly, colleges and universities are in no rush to decrease your amount of homework, but we still know the way to spend less time on doing homework and getting better grades. Simply order your homework from a reputable writing service and enjoy the student life to the full!
When Is It Too Much?
We all know what the famous song lyrics say – “Too much is never enough”. It may not be true for some things, but it also works perfectly for things like reading, traveling, learning about the world, and, of course, studying. Many teachers understand the risk of giving too much homework in limited time, but they also have no other choice, since it’s the only way to give the students the knowledge they crave.
In order to understand what kind of toll your homework takes on your wellbeing, you need to closely monitor the time you spend on completing the tasks. 30 minutes or a an hour of homework are fine, but homework that takes more than 2 hours to complete is not a good thing for your health. Plus, additional tasks like formatting your work take a lot of time but are rarely calculated into the overall amount of homework.
What do parents think?
Having too much homework is often not an issue for parents, who want their children to receive as much knowledge as possible. The life of an average school or college students consists of much more than just studies and homework. After spending hours at school, a typical student has a whole range of activities, from book and drama clubs to sports and hanging out with friends.
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What is a good amount of homework?
Schools are so worried about students not getting enough knowledge that they are going for different solutions. Some students limit the summer vacation time, since they believe students manage to forget most of the things they learned during the year over the summer. Others simply increase the workload on a daily basis.
Luckily, not everyone agrees with those methods. Multiple scholars have presented studies on how to find the ideal amount of homework. For example, Dennis Pope, the author of the “Journal of Experimental Education”, offered three criteria for determining the effect of homework on students:
- Behavioral engagement
- Homework perception
- Wellbeing of the students
After selecting ten California schools and narrowing down their focus group to 4,317 students, Pope and his co-authors gave the students and their families a questionnaire with open-ended questions. The survey showed that the average family has the household income of $90,000; 93% of the children in those families went to college; and the average time spent by a student doing homework is 3.1 hours every day.
Every other parent agrees that this amount of homework is too much, and right now it seems like the only solution for bringing to homework volume back to normal is for the parents to unite and work together for a change.
What can we do about it?
Spending over 3 hours every day doing homework assignments is no way to live life. That way children won’t see anything but their desk. Limiting the homework to two hours a day will have a positive effect on the student’s body and mind, but it’s not always possible in today’s reality. The solution here is to entrust part of the assignments to professional academic writers, who can give you high-quality homework writing services for a more than adequate price!
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9+ Pros And Cons Of Homework You Must Know (2023)
Nowadays homework is an important part of the education system and has been used for many years to help students practice and solidify concepts.
Teachers also use this to measure students’ understanding and progress. Many students like homework because it helps them to develop their critical thinking skills. It also helps them to develop good study habits and to learn how to manage their time effectively.
It is also a good way for teachers to measure student understanding of the material and identify areas where students may need additional support.
But, there are also some disadvantages of homework. For example, some students may find it difficult to complete homework due to a lack of resources, time, or support at home.
This can lead to stress, frustration, and even poor academic performance. So, in this blog, I will know some pros and cons of homework so, let’s have a look at some pros and cons of homework.
Pros of Homework
Table of Contents
Homework Encourages Practice
Homework always leads to practice. Because when you do your homework, you automatically practice what you have learned during your class sessions. Homework is a boring activity as well as time-consuming activity.
But it is the repetition activity that helps you to get good command over a certain skill. It helps you to clear the concepts more easily.
When the student solves the equations or answers the question by writing it down on paper or typing it into the computer, the student gets a better chance of getting good command over the concepts given in the homework.
Homework Gets Parents Involved
Nowadays, students don’t have enough time to get connected with their parents. But homework helps to bridge the gap between the students and their parents.
In most of the homework, the students need to take help from their parents, especially in elementary school students.
It creates a healthy environment for the students to finish their homework with the help of their parents.
If the parents help the students, then the students get more chances of academic success.
Homework Teaches Time Management
Time management is quite important for the students’ life. Because the students need to accomplish plenty of tasks within a single day, that is why the students have better time management to help the students accomplish all the tasks within the given deadline.
If the students get plenty of homework to be accomplished within the same deadline, it teaches them and helps them develop their time management skills.
In this way, the students prioritize the task and do all their homework on time. Apart from that, it also helps the students to develop problem-solving skills.
Some of the students also turn into independent thinkers all because of homework.
Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication
Homework works a lot better when it comes to bridging the communication gap between the students, the teachers, the fellow students, and the parents.
With the help of homework, the students get to know more about their teacher by asking them for help.
They come to know about their classmates as well as the school also comes to know where their students are facing problems with homework.
And what topic excites the students towards studies. In this way, the school can examine the students’ performance and create a study plan for the students.
It Provides More Learning Process.
Students are not learning a single subject in a day. That is the reason the students get only a few hours or minutes to study a particular subject.
That is why the study doesn’t get enough time to learn the topic of the subject effectively. Especially elementary school students get less than an hour to study the subject daily.
Therefore they struggle with a lack of time to get good command over the concepts. Homework is one of the best solutions to this problem.
The homework contains almost everything that the students learned in their classrooms.
So that the students can clear their concepts while doing their homework. It offers the best learning process to the students.
Cons Of Homework
Speaking directly to the point if you are a student or a person who believes the cons of homework are bigger than the pros just fill the online homework services form and chat with an expert without wasting valuable time.
Eliminate Children Benefit From Playing.
The study is good for the mental development of the students. But what about physical development?
The students need to play on the playground for their physical development. If the students get too much homework, they get out of time playing on the playground.
It affects the physical as well as social development of the students.
Lower physical development also leads to lower academics performance, lower social skills, lower safety awareness, less character development, and lots more.
No Evidence Of Improvements By Homework
It has not been proven that homework is beneficial for students. There are lots of surveys conducted to determine the impact of the homework on the students.
But all the time, the results indicate the negative impact of homework on the students. Homework doesn’t work at a high level of achievement on the national scale.
It only helps those students who are facing problems with the concepts of a particular subject.
But if the students already have good command over the subject, then homework is just a time waste for them.
It Discourages Creativity
Creativity needs time, and patience. But if the students spend all their time finishing their homework every day.
Then how can the students be creative enough to explore and learn something new? We have already mentioned that if the students already have a good command over the subject, then the homework is a waste of time.
It means that the students are spending their time doing the things that won’t work for them.
The students may not be able to develop their hobby of painting, photography, learning musical instruments, etc. because of the homework.
It May Encourage Cheating On Multiple Levels.
The professor or the teacher gives the homework to the students to do it without cheating and try to solve the question on their own which helps the students clear the concepts of the homework.
But most of the students try to finish their homework within their classroom with the help of copy and paste with their classmates or over the internet resources instead of solving the question with their efforts.
Because they don’t want to do their homework at home, apart from that, the students also help the intelligent guy do their homework within the classroom. Thus the homework turns the students into a cheater
Beyond The Parent’s Knowledge.
The syllabus of the schools and colleges changes according to the changes in technology and trends.
That is the reason the school and colleges upgrade their syllabus and rules of homework.
Therefore the parents are not able to take part in finishing their child’s homework.
They know the different rules as compared with the latest rules enforced by the schools.
If the parents are not able to help their children, then the students also lose their confidence in their parents.
In this way, homework also ruins the child’s and parents’ relationship.
We would also like to say that the pros and cons of homework also depend on the students’ perspective.
Some students might not get satisfied with the pros and cons of a homework list. But some might get satisfied.
It depends on you whether you enjoy the homework or find it a useless task.
If you need any homework writing help service with any subject.
Then our experts are here to provide you a 360-degree solution to your problem.
Was homework ever a punishment?
Roberto Nevilis invented the concept of homework in 1905. But his purpose was to be used as a punishment for students who were lazy in class.
Why do students dislike homework?
Because they think that homework should only be used as additional practice for students who need it.
Is homework harmful or hurtful?
Well, it’s true that homework can help students connect to their learning and improve their in-class performance. But if they get too much homework in their classes, then it can have damaging effects.
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AI Essay Generators: The Pros and Cons of Using Them for Academic Writing
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer in many industries, and now it’s made its way into academic writing. Enter AI essay generators, or as they’re also known, AI essay writers.
These nifty tools are becoming increasingly popular among students and writers alike, providing a quick and easy way to churn out essays without the hassle of hours of research and writing.
But like any new tech, AI essay generators have their pros and cons. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the benefits and drawbacks of using these tools, and explore some of the most popular ones available today.
How to Write an Essay on Any Topic Using AI
Ai systems, like jasper ai, can write essays on any topic, just with one click- you don’t need to be an expert in….
becominghuman.ai
What is AI Essay Generators?
AI essay generators are computer programs that leverage the power of artificial intelligence algorithms to generate high-quality essays on any topic.
Essentially, these tools are designed to mimic the style and language of human writing and can produce content that ranges from a few paragraphs to multiple pages in length.
Some of these essay generators use natural language processing (NLP) to analyze and understand the topic, while others rely on pre-existing templates and fill-in-the-blank structures to create the essay.
Regardless of the approach, the end result is an essay that can be used for a variety of purposes, from school assignments to professional writing tasks.
How to Use AI to Write Creative Stories in Seconds (Case Study)
The use of ai to write creative stories is increasing in popularity., popular ai essay generators.
There are plenty to choose from! Here are some of the best ones:
- Jasper AI : This AI essay generator is widely regarded as one of the best in the business . Its algorithms are designed to produce high-quality, coherent essays that are tailored to your specific needs. Plus, it’s super easy to use, making it a favorite among students and writers alike.
- EssayBot : This AI-powered writing assistant offers a wide range of features, including a topic suggestion tool, a citation generator, and a built-in plagiarism checker. While it’s not perfect, EssayBot can be a helpful tool for writers who need a little extra help.
- Article Forge : This AI essay generator uses cutting-edge technology to produce articles that are both informative and engaging. Its advanced algorithms can generate articles on a wide range of topics, making it a great option for writers who need to produce a lot of content quickly.
- AI Writer : This AI essay generator uses natural language processing to produce essays that are both grammatically correct and relevant to the topic at hand. It also offers a range of customization options, allowing you to tailor the essay to your specific needs.
And of course, let’s not forget about ChatGPT ! As a language model trained by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a powerful tool for generating high-quality text on a wide range of topics.
While it may not be designed specifically for essay writing, it can still be a valuable resource for writers who need a little extra help.
How to Make an Essay Longer
Ps: this article was written in less than 5 minutes by an advanced ai writing tool to demonstrate just what’s possible…, the pros of using ai essay generators.
In this section, we’ll dive into some of the benefits of using these tools.
Let’s start with the most obvious one: time-saving . Imagine being able to generate a high-quality essay within minutes, with just a few clicks of a button.
That’s the magic of AI essay generators! By using these tools, you can save a lot of time that you can spend on other assignments or activities.
But wait, there’s more! AI essay generators can also provide a fresh perspective on a topic , bringing in ideas that you may not have thought of on your own.
This can be a game-changer if you’re struggling with a creative block or if you’re looking for a new angle to approach a topic.
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Another great benefit of using AI essay generators is overcoming writer’s block . Sometimes, starting a new writing piece can be daunting, but AI essay generators can provide a starting point and structure for the essay, giving you a place to begin.
Consistency is key when it comes to writing, and AI essay generators can help with that. These tools can maintain consistency in writing style, tone, and language use .
This can be especially useful for large projects or assignments that require a consistent voice throughout.
They use algorithms that are designed to produce accurate and relevant content, reducing the risk of errors or misinformation in the essay.
One of the best parts about AI essay generators is that they can be affordable, with some being available for free . This makes them a great option for students or writers on a tight budget.
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Ps: this entire article was written by an ai story generator: jasper ai., the cons of using ai essay generators.
Using AI essay generators can have some drawbacks that are important to consider before using them.
Here are some of the main cons:
- Lack of quality: Although AI essay generators can produce essays quickly, the quality of the content may not always meet expectations. The generated essays may lack coherence, relevance to the topic, or depth of analysis, which can be a problem for academic writing.
- Limited creativity: AI essay generators are designed to follow specific rules and templates, which can limit their creativity and ability to produce original content. This can be a disadvantage if you need to produce unique and creative essays.
- Inability to customize: AI essay generators may not be able to accommodate specific requirements or preferences for the essay, such as formatting, tone, or citation style. This can be a problem if your assignment has strict guidelines or if you want to convey a specific message or tone.
- Dependence on technology: Using AI essay generators can make you dependent on technology to produce your writing, which can be a disadvantage if you want to develop your own writing skills or if the technology fails to produce satisfactory results.
- Inaccuracy: Although AI essay generators are designed to produce accurate content, they may not always be able to capture the nuances or complexities of a topic, which can lead to errors or inaccuracies in the essay.
So, while AI essay generators can be a useful tool for saving time and providing a starting point for your writing, they may not always produce the highest quality content and may not be suitable for every situation.
Weigh the pros and cons before using them and make sure they meet the specific requirements of your assignment.
How to Write an Essay Fast with AI
It’s no secret that writing an essay can be a daunting task. but what if you could write it fast — and still get great…, the future of ai essay generators.
Let’s talk about the future of AI essay generators.
As we all know, technology is advancing at a rapid pace and it’s safe to say that AI essay generators will become even more advanced in the future.
With the use of machine learning algorithms, AI essay generators will be able to analyze and understand text in a more nuanced way, allowing for more sophisticated and complex writing .
Remember though, AI essay generators should never be seen as a replacement for human writing skills and critical thinking . While these programs can be helpful for generating ideas and starting a piece of writing, use them in conjunction with your own creativity and expertise.
Additionally, they should never be relied on solely for academic writing, as they may lack the nuance and depth of understanding that comes with human research and analysis.
In the future, we can expect to see more advanced and user-friendly AI essays generators, such as Jasper AI and ChatGPT.
These programs will likely offer more features and customization options, allowing for a more personalized writing experience .
Nonetheless, remember that the writer’s own voice and creativity should never be lost in the process.
Rewrite Your Essays and Make Them Better Using AI (Different Language Samples!)
It’s no secret that essay rewriters are becoming more and more popular in the essay writing world., what are ai essay generators.
AI essay generators are computer programs that use artificial intelligence algorithms to generate essays on any topic.
How do AI essay generators work?
AI essay generators use algorithms to analyze and understand the topic at hand before generating an essay. Some programs use natural language processing, while others rely on pre-existing templates.
What are the advantages of using AI essay generators?
AI essay generators save time, provide a fresh perspective, help overcome writer’s block, maintain consistency, ensure accuracy, and are affordable.
What are the disadvantages of using AI essay generators?
The quality of the essays may not always be high, and the language used may not be sophisticated enough for academic writing.
What are some popular AI essay generators?
Some popular AI essay generators include EssayBot, Article Forge, AI Writer, Jasper AI, and ChatGPT.
Are AI essay generators a substitute for human writing and critical thinking skills?
No, AI essay generators should never be relied on solely for academic writing. They should be seen as useful tools for generating ideas and getting started on a piece of writing.
What is the future of AI essay generators?
As AI technology continues to advance, AI essay generators will likely become even more sophisticated and nuanced.
Are AI essay generators free to use?
Some AI essay generators are available for free, while others require a subscription or payment.
Can AI essay generators write academic papers?
AI essay generators can be helpful in generating ideas and providing a starting point for academic papers, but they should never be relied on solely for academic writing.
Are essays generated by AI essay generators of high quality?
The quality of essays generated by AI essay generators varies, with some being of high quality and others lacking coherence and relevance to the topic.
Can AI essay generators save time?
Yes, AI essay generators can save time by generating high-quality essays within minutes, freeing up time to focus on other assignments or activities.
Do AI essay generators maintain consistency in writing style?
Yes, AI essay generators can help maintain consistency in writing style, tone, and language use, which can be particularly useful for large projects or assignments that require a consistent voice throughout.
Can AI essay generators provide a fresh perspective on a topic?
Yes, AI essay generators can provide a new perspective on a topic, bringing in fresh ideas that you may not have thought of on your own.
PS: If you enjoyed this article and found it helpful, consider buying me a coffee to support my work. Your support means a lot!
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The Week Independent Schools Guide, Spring/Summer 2023
Our experts choose the best of the best in a prep school special.
Children playing in the woodland at Elstree School
With spring on the way at last, we proudly present the latest issue of The Week Independent Schools Guide. As always, we’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country to find the most inspiring stories about the world of education.
- The Week Independent Schools Guide, Autumn/Winter 2022
University life in the UK and US compared
This time round we’ve been finding out about forest schools, vocational qualifications and the links between music and adolescent brain power.
We also take an in-depth look at schools’ determination to put kindness at the heart of everything they do, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. From kindness committees to “keep smiling” posters, the schools we spoke to are doing their utmost to increase kindness, empathy and tolerance. As Tom Rogerson, headmaster of Cottesmore School in West Sussex, told us: “Children love the thought of being kind and people being kind to them. It’s an inevitable consequence of talking about kindness that you get more kindness.”
Our regular school debate focuses on university choices – in particular, the pros and cons of going to university in the UK or heading to the US. Two leading lights in education, Wellington College master James Dahl and Lady Eleanor Holles School deputy head David James, offer their wisdom and advice for sixth formers and parents.
We’re passionate about highlighting the joy of reading so we’ve asked heads, teachers and librarians to recommend biographies and memoirs for readers of all ages. Some of their suggestions feature household names but others put the spotlight on people who aren’t quite so well known, like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three female mathematicians at NASA who overcame discrimination and segregation to play a vital role in the space race. My own pick would be the stunning Little People, Big Dreams picture books, which tell the life stories of everyone from Amelia Earhart to Marcus Rashford.
Continuing the literary theme, don’t miss our Back to School interview with Robin Stevens, the multi-talented author of the bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series (her stories have been described as “Agatha Christie for children”). She fondly remembers her days at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, her two inspirational English teachers and the school’s nooks and crannies that feature in her books.
“I’ve redrawn some things to fit the stories,” she says, “but it’s so similar that adults who have been there will be reading the books with their kids and will say, ‘this seems a lot like Cheltenham Ladies’ College’.”
Last, but not least, we’re delighted to reveal our exclusive annual guide to the best prep and junior schools in the UK. Do let us know what you think – and we hope you enjoy the issue.
Emma Lee-Potter is the editor of The Week’s Independent Schools Guide.
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Research by the City University of New York noted that "students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework," such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, "are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes." [ 18]
One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.
Banning homework would help to reduce these risks as well. 6. It increases the amount of socialization time that students receive. People who are only spending time in school and then going home to do more work are at a higher risk of experiencing loneliness and isolation.
Cons of Homework Bans 1. Homework Fosters Study Skills and Independent Learning Proponents of keeping homework in schools say that the practice is about more than just reviewing academic...
"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."
Homework Reduces Screen Time Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren't in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV.
Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good...
The pros and cons of homework are admittedly all over the map. Many parents and teachers follow their personal perspectives and create learning environments around them. When parents and teachers clash on homework, the student is often left in the middle of that tug of war.
Cons of Homework 1. Homework interferes with play time Play-based learning is some of the best learning that can possibly occurs. When children go home from school, the play they do before sunset is hugely beneficial for their development. Homework can prevent children from playing.
Check Out The Pros and Cons of Homework Pro 1: Homework Helps to Improve Student Achievement. Homework teaches students various beneficial skills that they will carry with them throughout their academic and professional life, from time management and organization to self-motivation and autonomous learning.
Here comes the list of the pros of banning homework. 1. Stay Interested in Subjects. It's no secret that students spend at least five days a week at colleges, but when they come back home, they still have to work on their homework which also takes a lot of time. Since most teachers assign too much homework, students waste many days working on ...
Recommendations from the Pros Harris Cooper recommends that children get 10 minutes of homework each night as they progress from grade to grade. For example, first-graders could receive about 10 minutes of homework each night, while fifth-graders could do up to 50 minutes a night.
One thing homework has shown to have an effect on a student's level of engagement with non academic activities. We can see an example of this in this quotation "In general, students' experiences with homework tend to be negative and emotionally charged. Students often experience lower levels of engagement while doing homework than ...
Pros of Homework 1. Homework Encourages Practice 2. Keep Track of the Progress 3. Improved Academic Outcome 4. Teaches Time Management 5. Parents are Involved in the Learning Process 6. Creates Communication Bridge 7. Provides More Learning Time Cons of Homework 1. Encourages a Sedentary Lifestyle 2. Causes Unnecessary Stress 3. Eats up Free Time
It tracks progress - "Homework allows teachers to track students' progress, meaning that homework helps to find out the academic strengths and weaknesses of children.". - Honest Pros and Cons. Homework gives teachers a chance to see what the student can achieve independently.
Homework can motivate students in the learning process. Many people believe that homework should not be banned because it motivates students to learn. On the one hand, some students feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they have to do. On the other hand, getting rid of homework could mean less time for students to learn and practice new ...
The Pros And Cons Of Homework The Benefits of Homework 1. Improved Knowledge Retention 2. Improved Academic Achievement 2. Establish Good Study Habits 3. Helps Prepare For Exams 4. Time Management 5. Provides An Opportunity For Parent Support The Drawbacks Of Homework 1. Increased Stress And Anxiety 2. Not Enough Free Time 3. Physical Consequences
A Stanford researcher concluded that excess homework increases kids' stress and sleep deprivation. She emphasized that homework shouldn't be assigned simply as a routine practice; it should have a concrete purpose and benefit.
Potentially having longer school days By abolishing homework, it potentially means that the school day has to be increased, so as to accommodate the extra workload that is no longer being done at home by students. This is not only something that students may feel aggrieved about, but teachers may also be unpleased that they have to work longer.
The benefits of homework start to degrade after two hours for high schoolers, an hour and a half for grades 7-9, 45 minutes for grades 3-6, and 15 minutes for grade k-2. So instead of getting rid of homework altogether, teachers can focus on assigning a reasonable amount of what really matters. Pros and Cons of Homework: The Bad
A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework ...
A Lot Of Homework: Pros And Cons. 21 July 2018. Students have been complaining of having too much homework since the dawn of times, but the 2014 Stanford University study showed that having too much to do can really take a toll on students. It can lead to not only lack of time and negative effect on family and personal relationships, but also ...
Cons Of Homework. Speaking directly to the point if you are a student or a person who believes the cons of homework are bigger than the pros just fill the online homework services form and chat with an expert without wasting valuable time. Eliminate Children Benefit From Playing. The study is good for the mental development of the students.
The Pros of Using AI Essay Generators. In this section, we'll dive into some of the benefits of using these tools. Let's start with the most obvious one: time-saving.Imagine being able to ...
Emma Lee-Potter. 3 Mar 2023. Children playing in the woodland at Elstree School. With spring on the way at last, we proudly present the latest issue of The Week Independent Schools Guide. As ...