Homework: Essential or Detrimental?
It’s given by the teachers. It is done by the students.
It uses different amounts of time and comes in many sizes. Homework is included in the process of learning in modern-day schools. It is used to reinforce the skills that are already acquired and, in some cases, to learn new material so the student shall be prepared for the following lesson. Homework isn’t anything beneficial towards students today. Most students take out time from other classes during the day to complete their homework. It’s the last thing students want to do.
Students should not have a substantial amount of homework to worry about after being in an educational facility for over 6 hours for 5 days a week. There are many negative effects of homework upon students that many people don’t really think about. The workload is overwhelming for a student to take, which often leads to frustration or exhaustion. In addition to these effects, loss of motivation can arise, which is a main factor that causes students to drop out of school. According to Van Thompson of GlobalPost, a study showed that the amount of homework has increased by 51% since 1981.
This increase leads students take away time from other important activities such as exercise, social lives, meals in a day, and occasionally sleep. Homework, at times, brings out the worst in people and may also be the reason why it bring them out of school. Homework can also be seen as a bad thing because of the how the teachers put it upon the students. Sometimes teachers give homework so the students will be prepared for the following lesson. After talking to Atinder Singh of Townsend Harris High School, he said “I’ve done this so far for AP United States History so far and I honestly do not think it prepares us for the next lesson because you don’t know how much you should write down or know especially when it comes to outlining. It is better to learn from the lesson than it is from the homework.
” Timing is also an issue for teachers at Townsend Harris. The newly implemented homework rule is in effect but not in effect for the lives of the students. Teachers are only allowed to give a maximum of 30 minutes of homework and must not give homework on one designated day of the week. I talked to Asif Chowdhury of Townsend Harris and he said “In half of my classes, I barely get homework. In the other half of my classes, I get a lot of homework that go way over 30 minutes, especially outlines.
” Some teachers may give homeworks out of punishment because of something the students have caused the teacher’s frustration. In my freshman year at Townsend Harris, I was given extra homework because most of the class did not participate on a lesson based on our reading from the previous night. Our punishment was that we had to reread those pages from the previous night as well as 20 pages for that night’s homework and be prepared to answer any questions at random selection in class the following day. Homework should be a teaching method, not a punishment tool, and should have its limits. Homework, in many ways, is very ineffective.
The hardest some students work on their homework these days is by googling it. The internet has proven to be the answer key to homeworks from all subjects, but untrustworthy in some circumstances. In addition, some students at Townsend Harris just get their answers straight from another student’s homework. Talwinder Singh says “Townsend Harris has smart kids but I guess they’re not trying by just not doing their homework the right way. Everyday I walk into the cafeteria to see binders open with homeworks being copied and its just a repetitive process.
” Alfie Kohn had recently published a book, The Homework Myth, which tries to show that homework has no proven benefits. Kohn talks about homework and why it is detrimental to our education. He describes the problems to be coming from the teachers, but he also talks about how the parents need to change if they want to see a change. Furthermore, Kohn describes homework as “a lack of respect for research, a lack of respect for children (implicit in a determination to keep them busy after school) and a lack of understanding about the nature of learning (implicit in the emphasis on practicing skills and the assertion that homework “reinforces” school lessons).” Homework is basically all pain and no gain.
Homework is being given to students but has an absence of its value in today’s education. It needs to be reduced to a level to where the students are able to complete it and may also learn the essentials form it. If homework is given and includes irrelevant things, it shouldn’t be taken under consideration when a grade is being formulated. I agree with Alfie Kohn on his article “Down with Homework” on Scholastic when he says “Teachers ought to be able to exercise their judgment in determining how they want to deal with homework, taking account of the needs and preferences of the specific children in their classrooms, rather than having to conform to a fixed policy that has been imposed on them.” Teachers, students, and even parents should collectively make a compromise about homework which makes it worth their time, beneficial, and effective.
