Homework: Harming Education
Homework is the modern deceitful necessity in schools around the world, but it actually causes more harm than good, and therefore it should be banned. Many parents have become accustomed to their children lamenting about how much homework they get at school, but do they really know how bad the workload is? Actually, many parents make assumptions that homework must mean that their kids are learning.
Also, homework can be so extreme as to make kids start to hate or even drop out of school. Furthermore, homework has never been proved to be good, and is quite obviously bad. Overall, kids are receiving exorbitant amounts, and it has to be stopped before it becomes too extreme (Schnurmacher). Many parents think homework is good, but it is just the opposite. First, the parents that like homework often make teachers feel pressured to assign it. For example, parents of students often see homework as a sign that their children are actually learning something in school, but learning is the whole point of school.
It is difficult to go to school for a day and learn nothing. Homework is becoming an attempt by teachers to impress parents by the amount of work being assigned each night. Parents see lots of homework and are impressed; teachers get approval, but what about the kids? They are being forced into unpaid labor just for the contentedness of parents. Second, homework can cause stress for parents too, not just the student. For instance, when asked to help with a challenging subject for many kids such as geometry, many parents oblige. Often, these parent helpers only slow the kids work by making the child explain what they are doing.
Also, when the parent and student don’t understand the work, they usually end up arguing with their child and becoming very stressed. Having parents help with homework also makes the work inaccurate because it shows what the parent knows not what the student knows. Third, many parents think that homework produces better students. For example, studies done about homework aren’t clear. Many studies have been conducted, but in all of them it is unclear if homework makes students better, or if good students do their homework. There is no way to scientifically prove that homework is making kids better students.
Actually, the only thing we can prove scientifically about homework is that it gives kids more stress (Schnurmacher). In conclusion, parents are often mislead about homework, but homework harms education more than it helps in the first place (Buell). Homework is also more harmful than helpful. First, as kids grow older and move into middle school and high school, the work load and homework loads tremendously increase. For example, since 2001 the amount of homework being assigned to older students has been increasing by 40% every few years (Buell). This trend is still occurring today, and is harming our students.
Many high school students spend about seven hours a day at school, working hard to keep on pace with their teachers and the enormous load of information being given to them. In addition, these hard working students are given an average of two to three hours of homework a night. If you include their time traveling to and from school, that’s almost a ten or eleven hour day and about fifty hours of working per week! Most adults rarely work more than eight or nine hours a day and usually have less than forty hours of work per week (Buell). All this work doesn’t give time for kids to relax and rest their already full brains. It is not right that kids have more work to deal with than adults, when they should really be having fun growing up.
Second, homework takes away from students free time. For instance, it doesn’t allow kids to be social and outgoing, keeping them from developing creatively and emotionally. Homework is the reason for the stereotype that all present day teenagers are antisocial. Many people blame this antisocialist behavior on technology, but the true cause is disproportionate amounts of homework keeping them locked in their room working when they could be outside. Third, inordinate amounts of homework often lead to students dropping out of school.
For example, in a study executed by the Maine Department of Education, when dropout students gave a reason for quitting school most said they left was because they couldn’t keep up with the ridiculous amounts of homework (Buell). In conclusion, homework is harmful to students, and can even force them to drop out. Overall, homework is considered good, but it is genuinely harmful and should be banned. Homework is denying children of their childhoods, causing unnecessary stress for students and parents, and is actually harming students learning. If the student obviously understands the work at school, why force them to do more of it after school? If the student doesn’t understand the work, why force them to repeat their mistakes or stress their parents out by asking for help? Kids have enough stress on their shoulders already, how is stressing them out more by giving them homework helpful? The only solution is to ban homework.
