We should get rid of homework because it overwhelms us to much. When we get home, we should be able to relax after 8 hours of excessive learning, we need to give our brain time to relax and also, some people have activities after school so they cannot get the homework done and that will lower our grade.
Homework is bad because home should be a place where students can relax and regenerate lost brain cells and comprehend the things they learned
Homework should only consist of reading, studying for tests, and the occasional essay. Once home, kids should be focusing on playing, extra curricular, and family. Excessive homework breeds workaholics with no personality. Kids are learning who they are. Most children do not get home until 4 or 5pm. Younger children go to sleep at 8-9pm. Older ones typically go to sleep between 9-10pm. This gives kids an average of 5 hours to spend on their family and hobbies. Also consider that this time is also needed for eating, showering, and chores. Assume 1 hour for dinner, 30 minutes for a shower, and 30 minutes for chores. Kids are left with 3 hours of "free-time." Do we really want to make them use this time for more academics?
I believe we should get rid of homework because we already work hard enough at school. Why do we have to spend our free time on homework? There are also people who have after school programs and work. Students need rest and be able to care for themselves. It's not so easy when you have school and then things after and then you have to stay up late doing homework when you should be resting.
@Aubryanna Garcia yes we should
i think all school work should be done during school hours and we shouldnt have extra work to do outside of school.
i think we should get rid of hw because we have other things to do outside of school like work taking care of family and... i think all school work should be done during school hours and we shouldnt have extra work to do outside of school.
I do think that we should get rid of homework because many kids don't have time to do it at home and may be in after school activities. We are already in school for 7 hours a day, so I think the only reason kids should have homework is because they did not finish their class work with the time they had during the school day. Grading the homework too, it's more work for the teachers so I think we should all just get somewhat of a break when we get home from the school day.
Homework should not be implemented. Students on an average school day spend around 8 hours at school. That is not including the many hours spent at afterschool sports. Once you get home students most of the time are extremely exhausted and the last thing that they want to do is spend another 2 hours on school work that has been assigned for homework. If the class work is not finished In class it should be kept and finished the next day in class and let the student go home and rest and prepare for the next day.
@Conner I agree because after school sports really do have a big impact on how much time kids have for homework.
@Conner i do think that sports impact the time kids have for homewrok
i dont think there should be homework because we also have other things outside of school and sometimes its stressful to be able to make time to do it. i think all school work should only be given in school and done in school
Homework should be removed due to overwork on the brain. Homework is pointless, it just adds more stress to your day, students already have 6 hours of school they have to go through, by adding homework, it makes students way too stressed. According to a teacher, she says that her assignments that she was handing out had no academic value. Not only that homework has no academic value but it just crushes students in stress due to pointless school activities. Although homework is alot of work to do at home, homework may be helpful due to how it can be used to practice the things in your class and help get the material you learn in class to be stored in your brain for longer than other people it certainly isnt the best tool for a lot of modern day students in this generation. Just look at school like building muscles. Working out your muscles help them grow just like school grows your brain; but, when you overwork your muscles, they do not grow at all but instead decrease in size, this goes for school too. When you workout your mind or in this instance, homework, it is overload to the brain and you feel so well with all this overwhelming load of homework.
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Schools should not get rid of homework. Schools shouldn't get rid of homework because it helps students understand what they are learning. It exercises your brain and helps you think. I don't like homework but when you really think about it it helps us in the long run understanding the subject. When we are doing homework we practice what's going to potentially be on the test. Homework helps you get ready for the quizzes and the unit test so in the long run it's going to help you.
I think we should get rid of homework because homework can overwork the brain and end up making you more stressed. Homework does help the brain learn at a faster rate but being stressed all time does not help me and many others. So many people can agree that being stressed sucks.
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@Amelia I agree with you that homework can stress you out but I think homework is good. There's a lot of coins we can name at the top of our head but there's some pros too. Homework helps you practice what your teacher is teaching you and the more times you do it the more it stays in your head. Homework helps you with tests too and it's very beneficial.
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If I had to decide, I would say no, we shouldn't get rid of homework completely. Homework helps reinforce what we learn in class and allows us to practice and apply our knowledge. It also helps build discipline and time management skills. However, I do think there should be a balance and homework shouldn't be overwhelming. The effectiveness of homework could vary depending on different factors like the amount and types of assignments given. It is very important to find a balance.
Yes I think we should get rid of homework and instead Focus on the quality of in-class teaching that can potentially reduce the need for excessive homework. As well as that reducing homework can encourage students to explore their interests and engage in creative activities.
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Yes i think we should get rid of homework because i feel there wouldn’t be a need for homework if we just Focused on the quality of in-class teaching that can potentially reduce the need for excessive homework.
@luis chavez That is a valid point, but when we get homework we are able to reinforce what we learned and we are able to have more memory of that subject by spending more time with it.It is harder for some people than others depending on what they have going on, but it is beneficial.
My initial thought about homework was that it was a nuisance, but now that I’m re-reading this article, my perspective has changed. Former teacher and current writer of Opinion and NYT magazine, Jay Caspian Kang, uses his article “The Movement to End Homework is Wrong '' to explain why homework is actually useful to students. Though the matter at hand is very controversial, he does see both sides of the argument.
As for people who are against homework, he sites Jessica McCrory Calarco, Ilana Horn and Grace Chen who write in their article that “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”. On the other hand, Kang argues that practicing skills that were learned in class, helps students master the material. I can infer that as a parent, he would rather have his kids spend their time not completing homework, but as a former teacher understands that it will benefit them in the long run. PT 1
My initial thought about homework was that it was a nuisance, but now that I’m re-reading this article, my perspective has changed. Former teacher and current writer of Opinion and NYT magazine, Jay Caspian Kang, uses his article “The Movement to End Homework is Wrong '' to explain why homework is actually useful to students. Though the matter at hand is very controversial, he does see both sides of the argument.
As for people who are against homework, he sites Jessica McCrory Calarco, Ilana Horn and Grace Chen who write in their article that “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”. On the other hand, Kang argues that practicing skills that were learned in class, helps students master the material. I can infer that as a parent, he would rather have his kids spend their time not completing homework, but as a former teacher understands that it will benefit them in the long run. PT1
Thinking about the matter right now, I would say homework is good. I’m not saying that I enjoy completing it, but it is useful to practice material that I learned in class. If I didn’t have homework, I wouldn’t be writing this comment which eventually improves my writing skills. But also, if I didn’t have homework, I would be able to enjoy hobbies for longer. I can understand both sides. Homework will always be a topic which people bicker about, I think people just don’t realize how it can aid them. PT 2
In the article “Should We Get Rid of Homework?” Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but still serves an important purpose in school. For example, the author states that given a certain amount of homework is a good amount. But when you are given way too much it causes many people to get very stressed out. Also it makes many people feel very overwhelmed when given a lot of homework.
Personally I would have to agree with what Jay is saying about how we should have homework. But on the other hand there are some teachers out there who provide us students with so much homework we can’t even keep up with it. For instance while I’m at school some teachers tell us that if we don’t finish work that was supposed to be completed in class, and that it is for homework now. I totally agree with that statement. But on the other hand one of my teachers provides us with so much work I can’t even keep up with it. It causes me to stay up very late trying to catch up on work while I could be sleeping instead.
Should We Get Rid of Homework?
I think teachers should stop giving out homework. One reason, It can stack up if you have four teachers giving you homework. A second reason is you have to work hard at school. Students usually look forward to going home and relaxing, not having to do more school work. I think if we aren't allowed to sleep in class we shouldn't have to do school work at home.
@taylor
I agree with what you are saying about not having homework. But on the other hand I feel that we should have optional homework if some students don't want homework.
I comedy agree with the statement of getting rid of homework being a good idea. Although, I have noticed that teachers don't really give out homework anymore. Back then, I remember coming home from school with a pile of more work I had to complete before the next day. Now, you are only required to do what you did not finish during class time as homework. To me, this seems really fair. Homework, in my opinion, is such a bad thing. Why would you give more work to someone who has already received and learned knowledge for the past 7 hours? Students have life's too outside of school and should prioritize them.
@Saul Martinez It's true that the approach to homework has evolved over the years, and some schools have moved towards a more balanced approach, where homework is limited to what couldn't be completed in class. It's essential to strike a balance between academics and personal life, as students do have other responsibilities and interests outside of school.
Yes and no I think teachers shouldnt assign and homework for after school because i have practice form 4 to 6 which is draining but I see that teachers half to get there education into student learning and developing rubrics so I think if you don't finish your work that is assigned for class time do it for homework.
I do think that we should get rid of homework because it's added work. Students already spend an entire day in school and having to go home and do more work is so tiring. Not only that it's tiring but some students have jobs after school and sometimes dont have the time to do their homework because they get out of work late or are tired and have no energy. Sometimes some teachers also assign long assignments that aren't finished and are also counted as homework and that's just too much work and it gets overwhelming and tiring.
@Natalia I agree with you because student should be able to just have a break and ot have to worry about the extra stress when they already learn enough at school.
Me personally I do think we should get rid of homework because we go to school and use half of our day learning in class I feel there is no point in having homework if we are already doing work in classes. I just feel its sometimes useless because were doing all of it already in class so we should keep it in school we shouldn't have to spend the rest of our day after school to keep learning when we spend 7 hours learning already but that's my opinion and it wont change.
I believe that we should get rid of homework. Everyday we go to school for more than 7 hours a day. I feel like we should give students more free time. Especially if students already have responsibilities outside of school. In our low income area young students have no choice but work and still have to worry about getting a school project done on time. So that is why i believe we should get rid of homework.
@Jasi I agree with you our lives shouldnt depend on school work and we should be able to have the rest of our day hanging out with family, friends, and whoever else we shouldnt have to worry about getting homework done if we are already learning it in class.
I think that school is already stressful enough with students. I think homework puts more stress on students. For example, if a student is needing to study for an upcoming test and they have homework then they will just get overwhelmed. I think that homework has good intentions to make sure that students are caught up and keep their grades balanced. But there can be real reasons why students cannot do their homework other than saying “i just forgot”. The average student goes to school for around 6-7 hours and then they have to worry about more school work already because they could need to catch up on classwork or need to study, but homework adds a burden. I feel like homework drains students and sometimes students just don't have the energy to do the work so they just search up the answers and don't learn anything from it anyway.
There should not be homework for school. Unless there was an assignment you didn't finish that would be considered your homework and that would be fine because you didn't finish it in class. Giving classwork and homework could be a lot for a student to handle because what if it wasn't just for one class it was for all classes that would become very stressful. Being a student-athlete you have to put the student part first but sometimes it is too much due to school work, practice, games, and life. You have to be able to handle both and it is very hard to do so if there was more homework on top of all that the student would start to give up pushing assignments back.
@Destiny I agree with you destiny this can be all hard to handle on a kids brain. We are all still considered children to the government. We can not handle all of the responsibilties at certain times. I understand there are times we need to step up but we should not be staying up til 1 trying to get a project done.
Let's take a look at my daily schedule.
First I wake up and do all the usual things. Then I go to school, sit through a long day of work, then go home. After that I will do my homework. Then it’s dinner time, I chill for an hour or so, then go to sleep, and then the process repeats. As I type this, this is for homework and It is almost dinner time.
If school doesn’t take up enough of your life, you have to bring work home. I strongly believe homework shouldn’t be a thing.
I would like somebody to tell me the benefits of homework because there are no benefits. After I submit this article, I have to do lots more grueling work and I have barely even started. Homework hurts students mentally. It is the thing that piles in people's minds and if they don’t do it , they almost feel ashamed. I know writing this will not change the way homework is but its worth a shot.
They should not give out homework because yes it is practice a lot of the time students dont do them and you cant learn much from them either because of what if you missed a day of school and you have to do hat work but you cant understand that you cant just ask a teacher how to solve it even if you use online sometimes the teachers want it a specific way
I understand the concept of homework and that it is to better students education,but if I was a teacher i would definitely keep homework assignments to a minimum. The reasons as to why are because student's have about 7 other classes giving them homework and more often then not they might have many things and will not do it,they'll find the responses online or through a mutual classmate. I think assigning work during the 2 hours of class time is enough time to educate student in a effective manner instead of assigning anther 2 hours worth of homework.
i agree fully with this if we have homework from all of our classes it could also dampen our creativity and our work ethics the next day but i think we should only give it if is unfinished classwork not classwork and then homework on top of that.
I wish we could get rid of homework but we have to think about it and well if we did it will impact the education system in a negative way. Even though I hate doing homework it actually helps me understand and practice to improve my skills in that area. But I feel like some teachers just give a bit too much homework and they should just minimize the amount of homework they give out to students. The reason why I think we should limit the amount is because we all have multiple teachers and a lot of work can burn out a kid and we already have to go to school for 8 hours so many students will just want to relax after school. So that why I think we should minimize the amount of work so the kids can have the break they need and be able to still enjoy and learn from school.
@Alexander I agree that we should minimize the use of homework. Going to school for 8 hours is already tiring for a student sometimes. Adding on homework for every single class can really burn out a kid. Say the student plays sports and usually they have practice after school for two hours that adds to 10 hours at school not including going home and doing school work. The reduce of homework would help students a lot most kids wouldn't struggle to fail.
@Destiny yes I agree big time because going to school is like a job for teens and it just as draning espessialy if we have chores at home.
Removing homework will likely have devastating effects on our education. Although I share the opinion that homework feels like an ineffective, tedious chore that hardly serves a purpose and benefits neither students nor teachers, I’m also an easily distracted, unorganized student who would prefer to spend all day lazing around on the couch and watching television instead of doing something productive. It’s hard to see past the lingering feeling of dread in my head and aching pain in my wrists whenever I sit down and haphazardly throw sentences together, each word mutating until my writing looks less like English and more like Egyptian hieroglyphs.
It’s so incredibly hard to silence the inner child in the back of my mind, connecting every single thought related to homework with negativity and cynicism as I recount all those wasted hours spent revising some paper when I could have been huddled under my blanket, sleeping soundly and fantasizing about a life way beyond me. The fact that I can move past those thoughts proves that I’ve grown up. I can see how homework has helped me become more responsible as a person and more like an adult each passing day. It contributes to my independence, time management, and problem solving skills as well as helping me learn how to trudge through things I don’t ever want to do. (1/2)
@Sherry Block 1 Mr. Kang says the painful truth we often shy away from, “a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless.” Regardless of what we personally want, we’ll always encounter seemingly pointless work wherever we go. Even without the existence of homework, we’ll still have to sit through things that bore us to no end. At least we have homework to practice this essential skill on, because then it’s not just about preparing for exams or future assignments, but for the real world. (2/2)
I think that we should get rid of homework or at least the amount of homework we have. We are already in school for 8 hours so why should we do more work outside of school. If the teacher can't teach it in the 90 minute class time then it's too much work. I understand having homework if you didn't finish something in class is the students fault for not finishing but assigning new worksheets and expecting students to have time after an 8 hour day of working is unrealistic. Teachers encourage extracurricular activities and then expect us to do 2 hours worth of homework after all that. Then complain when kids sleep in class but they are probably sleeping because they were up late with homework. So I do think we should get rid of homework because it takes a mental toll on students.
@Rylie I completely agree with what you are saying. School can be very stressful for some. By the end of those 7 hours of constantly working, we get so exhausted. We go home to finally put a break on ourselves and not to continue working. You don't expect adults to continue their work when they arrive home. Why should a student's life completely depend on their studying? Learning is important but it should not be taking time away from being you.
Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?
Yes, we need to get rid of homework at the Highschool level and lower. We have an hour and a half in class, sometimes even more every day and some teachers assign 30 minutes to an hour of homework at night. We are working hard in school for 7 hours and right when we get home we just have to do more school.
For me it is just a waste of time. It feels like busy work. Whenever I do not understand something in class, doing 15,25,30 questions on it by myself is not going to help me learn it. There have been a lot of times where I have had to stay up very late and lose a good bit of sleep just for homework. Then that makes my performance during the next school day even worse.
It also hurts test scores. There were times last semester where I was trying to do work and study for a test in one class and then in another I had homework. When that happens I do not have enough time to study well for my test because of the homework so I get a worse test grade. The only homework students should have is work they did not finish in class or work they missed because of an absence. That is on the student so it makes sense if they have to do it at home.
Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?
Yes, get rid of homework. My reasoning is that students have to attend school on a daily basis where we are constantly working hard in every class. Having to go to school 7 hours a day can already be draining. Also the fact that I have to dedicate a lot of time towards homework from almost every class. Especially for people like me who are in sports, it's much more difficult for me to have time to do homework. I wanna be able to go home and rest or hang out with friends while not having to worry about continuing school work. When it's time for bed, I haven't had a single break all day, the last thing that I want to do is sit and complete homework. My mom is even a teacher and once she saw how much the homework was impacting me, her and her whole grade level stopped assigning homework. So while I agree that education is important and some things take practice, sometimes it's not worth assigning.
Homework is a nuisance. Honestly, if I don’t understand something in class, “practicing” it at home with assignments isn’t going to help, I end up stressing about it. It drains me, and after a long, tiring day, it’s the last thing I want to do. The only homework that should be “assigned” is work that was not completed during class.
Another point, if I have an upcoming exam, having to study as well as complete homework becomes a lot. Although I am not a procrastinator, I have friends that are and stay up late completing missing assignments. They don’t receive enough sleep at night and then can’t focus in the classroom when the actual material is being taught. Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone to learn the material and then participate/work in class? Instead of assigning homework, teachers should give out optional work for the students that genuinely want to review and practice, maybe creating extra credit. The students that really don’t try, they get to finish classwork at home.
I think that it is the responsibility of the child to finish their work in their classes. My teachers never really assign homework, as long as we finish everything in class then we don't get assigned homework. It is our own responsibility to make sure that we get that work done and if we decided not to do it in class that day then it's also our time that we are taking out of our night to finish that work. As a person who is in an extracurricular class, there are some days that I am not getting home until 6:30 and having to go home and do homework is even more tiring, but as long as I work really hard that day in class then I won't have to worry about the homework.
Although to the teachers that do assign homework I think it should stop. Because of people who are in EC or even have a busy home life. Some kids need that boost of help from their teachers in order to do their work, so if they are at home without their teacher they aren't going to get the help that they need and deserve. Their grades start to fall and the teacher would start putting pressure on the child to finish their homework, even though they just needed help but were too scared to ask. Homework should be something that gets the child's mind interested in what they are learning in school or even just have a break from all the school work and make the assignment a coloring page or a fun little activity. I think homework is something that shouldn't be an obligation of a child's everyday life.
@Nevaeh G I completely agree,if students finish their work in class that is enough,adding extra assignments and pressure only adds to their stress. Finding a balance with school work is hard if every teacher decides to start giving homework
I think that it is the responsibility of the child to finish their work in their classes. My teachers never really assign homework, as long as we finish everything in class then we dont get assigned homework. It is our own responsibility to make sure that we get that work done and if we decided not to do it in class that day then its also our time that we are taking out of our night to finish that work. As a person who is in an extra curricular there are some days that I am not getting home until 6:30 and having to go home and do homework is even more tiring, but as long as I work really hard that day in class then I wont have to worry about the homework.
Although to the teachers that do assign homework I think it should stop. Because of people who are in EC or even have a busy home life. Some kids need that boost of help from their teachers in order to do their work, so if they are at home without their teacher they arent going to get the help that they need and deserve. Their grades start to fall and the teacher would start putting pressure on the child to finsih their homework, even though they just needed help but were to scared to ask. Homework should be something that gets the childs mind interested in what thy are learning in school or even just have a break from all the school work and make the assignment a coloring page or a fun little activity. I think homework is something that shouldn't be an obligation of a childs everyday life.
I think we should get rid of homework. First reason being that us students have to attend school on a daily basis where we are constantly working. Having to go to school 7 hours a day for 5 days a week can already be draining and we wanna be able to go home and take time for ourselves. It makes it more difficult to do simple things at home because we have to dedicate a lot of time towards homework from several classes. Especially for students who are in sports, it's harder for them to have time to do homework. Another reason being is that some students might have a lot of responsibilities after school such as having to take care of younger siblings or having to go to work. Having to balance that and homework is difficult because of how time consuming homework is.
@Dennise R, I totally agree. Attending school all day is stressful in itself, I am constantly counting down the minutes to go home. But it doesn't even end there, once home, I immediately start my homework and usually directly after I have an extra curricular. All of this together becomes overwhelming. Balancing everything is a huge challenge, of course I can beat it, but what do I gain? Nearly nothing. Homework needs to stop.
@Dennise R I found every part of this relatable. I feel I don't even have a life out of school due to the homework, It is just extremely time consuming and blocks us from things that matter most like family.
There are a lot of different opinions when it comes to homework. Should it be banned? Should it be enforced more heavily? Should it be optional? As a busy high school student with many honors classes and extra curriculars, I believe that homework should be optional. While you are at school, it is a teachers job to teach you the material, and make sure you know what you need to know for the test. When you are at home I believe that you should not be forced to do anything when it comes to homework, which essentially is practice material for the test. Beyond that, it should be optional if students want to take the extra time to study for their test, or not take much or no time at all to study. At the end of the day the homework doesn’t do anything for the teachers sake, it is all on the students behalf based on how good they would like to do on that specific unit exam.
@Ainslie Bobroff I agree with you because teachers are giving us the material that we need to know, if we dont understand that topic then the homework is useful but if we do understand it then the work is something that feels repetative and in the way of our time.
I think we should get rid of homework, it serves no actual purpose other than wasting time for students, teachers, and parents. While I'm sure teachers assign homework with the intention of us practicing some new skill or whatever else, in reality it's really just stressing students because of all the work, they don't have the time for it, or any other reason. I know that the last thing I want to do when I get home is do more work, as if I hadn't already spent a whole day doing just that. Many students have after school activities: sports, jobs, clubs, etc. so many of us don't even have time to be doing all of this extra unnecessary work, and when we do have the time, we are tired. It also takes away from personal time used to wind down, so yes sometimes we just lay on our beds on our phones, but after a long day at school and a sport/job sometimes all we want to do is lay in bed and rest, but instead we have to worry about homework. and many times by the time were done, it's time for bed, and you haven't had a single break all day. So while yes I think education is important, it's not worth students mental/physical health.
@Miranda I agree. I am constantly counting down the minutes to go home. But it doesn't even end there. Attending school all day and I still have work to do when I get home. Once school is over I immediately go to practice until 5:45. Then when I get home I start my homework. Getting everything done takes so much work. Homework needs to stop.
@Miranda I agree with you, homework is honestly just so much added work that is useless in a way. I don't think that having homework is beneficial. If teachers want us to remember topics they can always reteach them and it's a win-win solution for everyone.
I believe we should get rid of homework because it can really affect kids in a bad way. Many kids have extracurricular activities and dont get home till late and do their other daily needs. Students may lose sleep and get behind in classes because they're tired. Home life should be about spending time with family and relaxing. Instead they're still working on their class.
Getting rid of homework will only decrease the educational system. Having to do your homework when you get home reinforces responsibility as a trait, perseverance and willingness. I know tons of reading a day can be stressful and unpleasant sometimes, but that doesn’t make it ineffective. Homework is the opportunity to realise how much have you learned and, if you can complete your assignments, you can confirm that the content is now part of your knowledge. Also, along with doing homework, the teacher can evaluate how you work by yourself.
Homework definitely has educational value. Another positive aspect of HW is to rethink the contents discussed in class to be ready for term exams. If the lessons are too short to go through the entire matter, asking students to prepare a topic at home is a great way to make the most of the classes and keep going further.
When I get home, I do just enough to go to class and be able to participate. But it is because I’m too tired of my job and it’s hard to concentrate. However, I do think that homework is a big part of my learning experience. Sometimes I might get a bit annoyed by studying, but when I finish my duties, I feel I’ve learned a lot and that it was a good use of time. I’m writing this as a homework assignment for the library I tend to visit at least three times a week and I’m proud of it.
@Ludmila I agree. I think that if we get rid of homework it'll decrease the education system and how it has its benefits to our education. Plus it's a good way to build discipline so the students are well prepared from the work study that they want to work at in the near future.
Getting rid of homework will only decrease the educational system. Having to do your homework when you get home reinforces responsibility as a trait, perseverance and willingness. I know tons of reading a day can be stressful and unpleasant sometimes, but that doesn’t make it ineffective. Homework is the opportunity to realise how much have you learned and, if you can complete your assignments, you can confirm that the content is now part of your knowledge. Also, along with doing homework, the teacher can evaluate how you work by yourself.
Homework definitely has educational value. Another positive aspect of HW is to rethink the contents discussed in class to be ready for term exams. If the lessons are too short to go through the entire matter, asking students to prepare a topic at home is a great way to make the most of the classes and keep going further.
When I get home, I do just enough to go to class and be able to participate. But it is because I’m too tired of my job and it’s hard to concentrate. However, I do think that homework is a big part of my learning experience. Sometimes I might get a bit annoyed by studying, but when I finish my duties, I feel I’ve learned a lot and that it was a good use of time. I’m writing this as a homework assignment for the library I tend to visit at least three times a week and I’m proud of it.
Yes, we should get rid of homework. My reasoning in saying this is because of the amount of students that have extra curricular activities after school, the whole point in going home for the day after school is to be done and relax and get away from school for the day, but how is that possible with homework? I do agree that homework has educational value, and could be useful but that practice time could be done during school hours. The only time students should receive homework is when work is incompleted in class.
@Aliah I completely agree with you. I do also think that homework should only be received when work isn't completed during class.
I believe we should get rid of homework, well at least in the case where it is just assigned we should get rid of it. Homework should only be a punishment and that's it as Robert Nevelis said so himself. Homework overall has not helped me or shaped me in any positive way at all. Out of everything in my adolescent life, homework is the number 1 thing that has taken a heavy toll on my mental health. I feel constrained to looking at a screen or sheet of lines for hours every day and not be able to see my family just because of homework makes me really sad. So it is within in my opinion to say that homework should be banned
I think that we should get rid of homework because I think that school and our life at home should be separated. I don't think that we should be doing school work all day long because kids need breaks too and this mainly is the reason many students burn out and become unmotivated in school.
I think that homework shouldn't be assigned to students. However, it is okay if a student doesn't finish an in-class assignment and needs to take it home to finish it. I've never gotten any value out of homework because all it is is an extra assignment that has to be done at home. Another argument is how many students have little to no time with sports, hobbies, and work. I have to go to work right after school almost every day and don't get home until 10 or even 11 p.m. sometimes. Not only am I just drained and do not want to do the homework I also need to stay up later which impacts how productive I am the next day.
If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?
If I were a teacher i would never assign homework. I wouldnt assign homework because I understand the way kids feel when they get home from school just to do more work again. Especially for kids with jobs or other hobbies after school all the work they get assigned just accumulates and becomes too much to handle. I wouldnt want my students staying up late just to finish an assignment. I think all work should just be done in school, since that's what school is for. Having homework is what makes students fail since most just don't have the time to do it.
I think yes because when we get out of school we are really tired and there is not a lot of time left of the day since we spent it all at school. Also some of us have jobs right after so we get home because it's too late to start on homework and too tired to do it also. Even too there might be something happening at home or places people got to be after school.
@Ethan Escamilla I totally agree, students shouldn't have homework especially now that we leave school later. We barely even have time to enjoy our hobbies or just certain things after school. Having homework is something that just makes students fail due to not having enough time to do it and i think we should just get rid of it.
Homework should be completely removed from schools. I feel like every time homework pops up it's more of a nuisance than it is beneficial. It starts becoming even more of a problem as students reach High school a lot of the time this is where people start joining clubs, doing sports and getting jobs. Also not to mention Mr. Kang´s flawed argument that ¨Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day¨ which once again students get used to ritualized tasks everyday, school itself is a ritualized task. If students are in sports it teaches them to get used to hard work and dedication everyday. So no students should not have to have homework as it disrupts growth in ones individual self.
@CJ Armijo @CJ Armijo I agree to this comment his proves very good points why it should be removed
@CJ Armijo I absolutely agree with you CJ as homework can serve as disruption to a childs growth and that it should be removed.
If I were a teacher I would not give homework for various reasons. First off students and staff spend a vast majority of their time at school, roughly 8 hours Monday through Friday. And that’s not including the students or staff that are in clubs or sports. The way that I see it is that we spend enough time in school learning, using our brain throughout the day for each class, so I see no reason to add more work especially for the students who have jobs, take care of their siblings, or simply just don't have enough time to take school work home. Homework isn't just an extra task for students, it also adds on to the teachers because they have to spend their own time grading everyone's work, which usually is done after school hours that they don't get paid for. I believe instead of giving everyone homework i think that we should only give students who are struggling homework or offer them tutoring lessons at school so they can better understand the work if needed. Homework takes away time from family and doesn't give anyone a mental break, which in fact is very important because it leads to students and teachers feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. School is a place of learning but home should be a place of comfort and relaxation.
@Tiffany I agree, many after-school activities including jobs last extremely late into the night especially after the time change. Students need time to rest and not have to go home to do more work after that's all they've done for the entire day already
@Tiffany I agree with you, we already hardly have time for ourselves, much less more school work. This can only lead to burnout.
I think we should get rid of homework. There are some benefits of having homework, for example, memorizing the work that can help us on tests, and it can help us learn how to deal with our time management, etc. But, teenagers already have so much pressure, some teenagers have jobs and it is hard to manage school and a job. Other Students have extracurricular activities such as sports. for example, I work at a fast food restaurant and it is really draining doing two things and then having to go home and still do more work, then the next day wake up early and go to school.
@Kimberly Lara I agree, there definitely are some benefits to having homework. For me homework helps me to remember the work so I can pass the tests. I also agree that the pressure on teenagers can be overwhelming.
Think that we should get rid of homework, yes it can be helpful as a way of practicing but no one wants to do homework because most teenagers procrastinate and do it in the middle of the night or completely forget to do it until a few minutes before its due. My problem is that if a teacher wants to assign homework then they should do it as extra credit or not assign it as a grade. Homework is just a dreadful thing that no one wants to do, so why assign it, its just extra work for the teacher to grade and give low grades to anyway. I understand that the work you don't finish in class can be done as homework but don't assign work at the end of class and not give us any time to it the next day.
It depends. I think homework should not completely go but be less commonly given. I think homework is good sometimes based on the subject. I believe it is good sometimes because it will keep student minds focused and linger based on the subject. I also believe that homework every week is not an efficient way for kids to learn. Students work hard all day long in school and learn things ,sending them home with even more to do will drain the student and become a factor of uncompleted work. Homework is good for a once and a while thing to re jog student memory or retention of the things they learned. Students should never see homework as a punishment but only as an opportunity to learn more. I also believe that if a student is confident with what they learned and feel the need to not do the homework they should not be forced to.
@Corizma Sierra Right! No one wants to do homework and especially if they have a busy schedule like doing sports, clubs, or working. Kids just want to chill after 8 hours or more at school. Homework can be helpful and should be done in moderation.
@Corizma Sierra I disagree, homework should be removed completely it is redundant and in some studies is even shown to be less beneficial. While it does keep the subject fresh in a students mind if a student really wanted to keep their mind on it they could go into study groups, everyone learns different. This isn't even mentioning student athletes who come home from practice and are stuck pent up in their room with homework all night, sometimes resulting in sleep deprivation.
Yes, homework needs to go. Effective immediately. Homework does nothing but drain students’ energy and destroy their motivation for academic success. Hours upon hours of homework is not only unnecessary but harmful to the student’s mental wellbeing. Time that could be spent on things like eating and sleeping go to solving formulas and cooking up sentences to meet a word count by 11:59. Most of the time students are too tired to even try to do the work and end up looking for the answers online. In my experience as a high school student, I haven’t been given one homework assignment that couldn't have been completed in a class period. I’m sure any student will agree with me when I say that our academic drive depletes with every homework assignment. If teachers want us to try harder and start applying ourselves, they should stop giving us reasons not to, such as homework. I understand that we need to apply what we learned in order to comprehend it properly, but teachers also need to understand that we have lives outside of school. Homework cuts into said lives and limits opportunities to experience the few teenage years we’re given. I have lost count of how many times I have said the phrase, “I can’t, I have homework” and then missed out on some of the coolest experiences a teenager could have. Homework does more harm than good and is beneficial to no one; even teachers hate grading it.
@Kayla PaceI I completely agree with you. Homework should go, it in fact does do more harm than good. Us as humans have limited time in life, and our youth is taken away from the responsibilities of homework. Like you had mentioned, all of the unnecessary hours being used on homework is time being taken away from things like sleeping or eating. Besides sleeping and eating it is important to spend time with family because as everyone knows no one is around for ever and we have limited time with each other. Just like you I find myself saying “I can’t, I have homework” But I believe that we spend enough time at school that it is definitely unnecessary that while we are home for only 2 days we have to worry about our homework being done before the school week starts again this leaves a lot of people mentally drained and left with no motivation or energy to complete homework tasks. Aside from this I have also been in situations where homework is the reason I can not focus in school because I am exhausted and mentally drained, there has been nights that I have had to stay up countless hours doing homework so my grade wouldn't drop, this effected me because then the following day I could not focus in school.
Homework is a well known event in the day to day life of every student, in school, middle school, high school and even college. We all know what homework is and most of us don’t want to complete it. Recently it became more obvious that homework assignments are redundant and are not as helpful as people once believed therefore I believe we should get rid of homework.
However some people like Mr. Kang may argue that homework is important as it teaches students how to practice and study. but the opposite may be true as studies have shown that homework causes students to behave like robots and just complete the tasks they are given and stride to complete more assignments, meaning students don’t learn to perfect but just complete the assignment regardless of quality.
In accordance with the removal of homework, studies and articles such as the one presented “You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities.” show that homework creates an unequal environment, unlike the classroom where for the most part every student works depends purely on his abilities, the quality and consistency of homework will depend on help arriving from the family and the proficiency of their parents in the subject.
Part 1
Furthermore most students do not have any free time at home to complete homework, since studies have shown, most students have close to no free time as they are expected to participate in plenty of extra curricula, such as the scouts and volunteer hours. In addition, depending on the year students also need to find time to prepare for tests, as a result students have barely any free time left and they have to spend it on homework resulting in many students having social problems or suffering from poor grades.
In conclusion, homework creates a large strain on students through lack of social availability and more in addition to emphasizing the lack of equality in social life while having no real benefits, therefore the only reasonable conclusion is: We should remove homework.
Part 2
I totally agree.
We should get rid of homework. The reason is it simply just sucks.
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i think children shouldn't have homework
I think maybe limiting it to where there’s like only a few pieces of homework at a time.
I feel like sometimes homework can be harmful to certain kids that may have trouble understanding something and may reach out for help. At this point I feel like it’s just work for the sake of work. Although it does help with tests and quizzes, other times I just don’t see a point in doing homework.
I do see how it can help with other things like tests and can help some students understand a topic more that they haven’t understood before.
When I come home, I sometimes only do two sets of homework, but there’s been times where I also had to do almost 3-4 times as much homework. I feel like working on projects at home could be a good learning experience as most kids would be learning how to make things on their own, whether that be good or bad, technically they’re still learning. Sometimes I feel like some certain projects can be a waste of time, but others not.
Some younger kids might have more trouble doing homework then older kids as they would probably have a much harder time doing it. I feel like maybe reducing some amount of homework so some kids could maybe do it better and have a better chance of learning without having to waste time doing tens amount of homework that probably won’t help them in the future. I would assign some paper homework and let the kids answer a few questions about a certain topic and see what they would have to say.
Homework is often seen as an extra “chore” with a negative connotation, as it can be extremely boring, hard, and just another task to get done. Has it come to the point where schools should get rid of homework though?
Many students fill their day after school with extracurricular activities, jobs, chores, etc., and hours of homework piled onto a seven-eight-hour school day can be exhausting. Students report that the workload gives them anxiety and leads to extra stress and even sleep deprivation as they stay up the whole night trying to get work done. Some students may not have resources or support from home either, making it hard to complete assignments. This creates inequality between different families, which is debated whether or not homework should be mandatory for all students.
On the other hand, as the common saying goes, practice makes perfect. Homework reinforces what students learn in class in order to develop and maintain new skills. It prepares them for quizzes, tests, finals, and even college. It also helps create responsibility, life skills, and independence for the real world. Depending on the subject, teacher, and workload, limiting homework would be beneficial for students so they don’t have to be trapped studying for hours in their high school career but actually go out and be with family, try new activities, and hang out with friends before they’re sent off to college.
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I think schools should get rid of homework. In my opinion, homework harms students more than benefits them. I say this because homework is one of the leading stress causes in every teens life. Homework can be helpful but a good amount of time its work that can be assigned in class. With an 8 hour school day, it should be plenty of time to cover everything.
When I get home, I usually like to spend time with my family, go to the gym, walk my dog, etc.. These activities help me relax and I also have a right to do these things since I spent the rest of my day in school. However, when I’ve had lots of homework I haven't been able to do these things. Last semester, I remember one day I got multiple assignments for all of my classes. I felt really overwhelmed and overall some of these assignments were longer than they needed to be. I have read and heard of other students who stay up all night finishing homework. Not only is this terrible but it's also unhealthy. the article, even Mr. Kang says that sometimes he will assign homework with no academic value.
I understand that sometimes teachers need to assign homework. Sometimes there are a lot of things to cover and little time, but teachers should try their hardest to not assign homework. While homework may benefit students sometimes, it is still a major stress factor in their life. With 8 hours of school, it is unreasonable to have homework.
Debating on whether or not we should get rid of homework is a very controversial topic. Sure homework can be beneficial in teaching teens new skills to help with their curriculums, but it can also cause an increased level of stress for teens & even sleep deprivation. When it comes to my opinion on if we should keep homework, my solution is simply to modify the workload. If teachers assign homework maybe once or twice a week, teens will be able to keep their mental health intact and will continue to have a propitious future.
Yes, get rid of homework, home work very bad
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I agree with this article & I believe that homework is hard but it sure helps with our brains and makes our brains stronger.
@Sharoon I can agree with that, but we also need to think about other people who have sports or jobs.
As a high school junior, I believe that homework reinforces what we learn in class and develops new skills. However, some homework assignments can be confusing. It would be beneficial if teachers created more engaging assignments and provided additional support when we struggle with concepts. In the end, homework should serve as a tool for learning rather than a source of stress.
@Raul Lopez
I completely agree with you! i believe you are right when you say that school work/homework should be a tool for learning and not a punishment.It should be considered an opportunity for student to learn extra things or grasp the concept of whats being learned in class. so yes its a tool and opportunity not a punishment or and extra chore for students. Homework should not be something that drains students.
I think we should get rid of homework. We sit in a classroom all day doing work and learning so why do we need to do more work when we get home. Some people have jobs or do sports after school and they cant do homework because by the time they get home its late and they need to go to sleep. I think teachers need to assign all of the work for the day during class and whatever we don't get to we do the next day. In conclusion all school work should be done in school not at home.
I think homework should be removed. Having to sit in a classroom and do work and notes for hours on end, just to come home and do more contributes to most teenagers' stress and burnout they are experiencing at this age. When I get home from school, I usually have a minimum of 2 hours of homework a night. This leaves me barely any time to do extracurricular activities such as sports and things that I love.
I agree with the author of this paper, who believes that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students' home circumstances. The author explains that inequalities in students' homework production can be linked to differences in students' home lives and in the support students' families can provide for them.
I think homework should be optional, and if students aren’t getting the information they need in class then they can take it upon themselves to practice extra at home. This can be a great tool for the kids that enjoy taking extra time to gain a deeper understanding on a topic, without forcing all the kids to be doing hours of somewhat pointless work every night.
@Evy Renneker I agree we sit in a classroom and do work and notes for hours on end, and we should not have to do more work when we get home.
@Evy Renneker
I agree that homework should be removed since we already have such a long school day. It is a significant stress factor and most of the time, isn't even helpful.
You make a very smart point in saying that homework should be optional. If a student needs more help then they can practice more on their own.
With an 8-hour school day, we shouldn't have to get home and keep on doing schoolwork. You shouldn't be able to get graded on things that you do outside of school.
I think that homework is good and bad good to help you become smarter bad because it takes away time to talk to friends and socialize.
@E334lol11 I agree with you because homework is a big thing that gets in the way of us being able to socialize with the little time that we do have free.
For me, homework only fuels my anxiety and stress when it comes to school. We go to school for 7 hours five days of the week, only to have piles of homework dumped on us to complete within a short time frame at home. I’m a cheerleader and sometimes I have multiple games a week where I don’t get home until 9 pm. When I do finally get home, I can’t just shower and go to bed, instead my night is taken over by school as if seven hours a day isn’t enough. The article says “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?”. While that is true, it saddens me that this is the type of mentality within some teachers and the school system. The author, who was a teacher, even admitted that some of the homework she gave out had little to no academic value within it. If even the teacher can admit it, you know there is a problem. Mr. Kang argues that “Kids need to practice things”. I agree that kids do need to practice things and occasionally assigning homework to do so can be beneficial.
Mr. Kang says that homework is the only ritualized thing that many kids have to do every day which in my opinion, is very much an incorrect statement. Is he unaware of how many kids are involved in after school sports and activities, that in many cases kids attend practices for every day? Homework simply is not the only way for kids to have a ritualized system of practicing something, to say that would be disregarding how much hard work and time go
@Caroline, Block 2 Part 2:
goes into sports and after school activities. In the article they mention, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”. Lots of students don’t have a good enough support system to encourage them to complete their homework or even help them if needed. It’s not fair to the students who don’t have a support system at home to expect them to handle absurd amounts of homework when they don’t have people to help them or encourage them to complete it.
@Caroline, BIock 2 I agree with your response. I too have the same problem with homework. I have sports practice until late at night and instead of getting the recommended hours of sleep for a teenager I have to stay up very late just to complete my homework. I think homework brings a lot of unnecessary stress that we already get from the school day. I also think that Mr.Kang makes some good points just like how he said "Kids need to practice things", but overall I do not agree with him saying homework is the only ritualized thing kids have to do. The school day in itself is enough of a routine. Also, most kids either go to the gym, or sports practice, or do something nightly which is very much ritualized. I believe that after school hours should be for kids to do what they want whether that be schoolwork, or sports, or working out, or spending time with friends. 7 hours a day, 5 days a week is enough time to be getting plenty of information and practice, at school.
Homework has always been stressful for me. I play lacrosse and for travel, my practices go late, only to come home and have to stay up to work. If you go to school for 7 hours a day, learn a lot and do work in school, what is the real point of homework? A ton of kids who go to school also have jobs, that go late, as well as athletes. On one hand, Mr. Kang argues that homework is important as it values practice. "Kids need to learn how to practice things" is what he states in his argument. On the other hand, many other people, including myself, say that homework should not be a thing, and is a significant cause of stress for many students. Homework is a way to put extra work into the students lives and some people do not have any time to do it, at most only a little. I believe that homework has no real value in students lives because we are already working and learning nonstop at school everyday, so what is the point of just going home to do more work? Students deserve a break when off of school because of all the hark work they put into their daily learning.
Homework is a cause of stress to most students due to having to wake up early for school and having to stay up late working. Homework does not allow students to enjoy the time after school and have a social life and hobbies if they want to. There is also a lot of homework that is just given as busywork and has no real value. If you are just giving work to give work then what's the point? The biggest problem with homework is the fact that students can have up to 7 or 8 classes depending on the school. If every teacher gives an hour of homework, which isn't a lot on its own, students who get home at 4 will be up until 11 working which leaves no time for sports or after school activities. With all that being said, I do not think that homework should be completely gotten rid of and instead should be optional. I think that if a student wants to practice and improve their skills outside of school then that should be a choice that they make and should be counted as either just practice or maybe extra credit. Out of school work should be used for children struggling with a topic or want to make sure they don't fall behind. Most likely if a child does not pay attention in class then they will not do the homework even if it is required. Homework should give points to the kids that have the time and dedication to do it without taking points away from those who want to enjoy childhood out of school and don't care about getting the best grades in class.
Yes I think we should get rid of homework because of the amount of stress and work it puts on students. Nobody wants to go to school for 8 hours straight then go home and be able to relax but have to do more work. It also can be very mentally draining for students who do sports and work and don’t get home until later and still have to shower and eat.
Overall it just makes kids end up losing sleep because they have to get it done which can lead to a lot of mental problems and stress that nobody should have to deal with.
It can also make you fall more behind in the class because if you just are really busy and prefer sleep over staying up exhausted doing work, and you don't do your homework then some teachers that won't take late work or will take points off can make your grade go down even if you know what you're learning but just don't have the time or energy to do it, which I think is very unfair because you would be getting a lower grade even if you learn and pay attention in class. If I had to say overall I think homework has negatively affected me more than helping me and leaving a positive impact.
If I don't completely understand something and I get homework on it then It would just make me stress out more when I get confused on a problem and need help. I would like to just ask my teacher for extra help on understanding it instead of more work that could further confuse me.
Everyone's mental state is different and you don't know what someone could be going through.
@Kylie Chienyuen
PT2- Some teachers don't understand the things kids go through or what their life is out of school. For me after school I go right to practice until 5:30 and right after practice most days I work from 6-10:30. By the time I get home, shower and eat it's about 11:30. If I had homework everyday in all of my classes I would never get it done and get a good night's sleep. Getting good sleep should be prioritized over doing homework, it's just more work of what you learned in class and I think 8 hours of school is plenty of time to learn and do what we need.
I'm lucky that most of my teachers don’t give out homework this semester because if they did I would be so mentally drained and tired, and I know a lot of other people would be as well. That’s why I think adding extra work and stress is unnecessary and most times ineffective.
@Kylie Chienyuen I agree with your statement regarding people's mental state and how you never know that someone is going through, homework may only worsen someones metal state. Homework should not be interfering with anyone's sleep schedule but in most cases, it does. If you finish eating and showering by 11:30 pm, you should only be worried about getting sleep because it is already incredibly late at that point. Most cases, I suffer from sleep deprivation as well, one week, I had so much work that the entire school week I didn't go to sleep before 1 am the whole week. That can lead to mental and physical health issues and sometimes it is unavoidable with homework.
I totally agree! It is just extra stress on students who already have things that they are stressing about in their personal lives. Students should have that time at home for themselves and their personal lives with their friends and family, doing what they want not regarding school. I do think the practice of homework could be a good thing, but I agree about the stress it puts on students resulting in poor performance during school hours because they are so burnt out on school since that is what the majority of their time consists of.
homework was originally made to be a form of punishment for those who were lazy, disobedient, or rude in class. The fact that it was normalized for everyone is inconvenient and disappointing. I believe homework should be given out occasionally, but not regularly. I feel this way because too much is overwhelming and stressful for students, but learning how to do assignments away from an assigned place is a good skill to learn. children in the US normally attend 6-7 hours of school a day, normally involved in a sport or extra curricular activity, and need free time, that gives very little time for homework, especially if it's to write an essay.
@Alexa I agree. Sometimes the teacher gives too much homework and it causes unnecessary stress. But homework can help you. Sometimes I try to spread out my homework or maybe try to most of it during the ride home and doing at home. That's just my opinion. :)
@Alexa I agree that homework could be beneficial if given out occasionally to give students extra practice so that they can really understand the subject but I think teachers who give out homework everyday that takes hours just really don't understand or have sympathy for their students even if their students are telling them that they just don't have enough time to do it and the teacher most often replies with "well make time".
In the article even the teacher said that he knows some homework he gives out has little to no academic value, why would teachers want to put extra work and stress on students and especially students who have sports and work after school.
You never know what could be going on in a students personal life and it could just make the problem worse. The fact that schools have normalized homework and its seen as a good beneficial thing is sad because I think it adds more stress then it takes away.
I still wish there was no homework cause it caused me so much unnecessary stress.
Maybe you should confer to your teacher about less homework or more time. Or maybe try to spread your out your homework... :)
I think teachers should assign homework. It helps you with your fluency with math and other subjects. With homework, you will be a FAILURE! Therefore, I think teachers should assign homework. :) :) :) :) :) :)
@??? OOPS! I mean without homework, you will be a FAILURE! Not the other way around. I totally messed up.
Homework is the worst and should not be used.
As a student the homework topic comes up a lot. I for one think homework is useless. Homework has never helped me study or has helped me learn things I don't know. I am one of those kids that doesn’t do homework.
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Homework is the worst.
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Homework should be gotten rid of because it doesn’t prove to be beneficial to students or help students complete work. In the article, Should We Get Rid of Homework, Jay Caspian Kang, a former teacher, argues that homework teaches students to complete assignments even if the homework is pointless. Kang said, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” This argument sounds ridiculous. Why do a pointless task instead of doing something else more useful? Homework is one of those pointless tasks he is talking about because it's more work students have to do piled onto any work students didn’t complete at school. When teachers assign assignments during school and a student doesn't finish it, that's like homework in itself because that student might use their time at home to get the work done. Homework doesn’t do anything more than pile more work onto students. Homework doesn’t teach students anything new because it's all based on what they do in school. Kang also argues that homework teaches kids to practice things and give students a routine. However, going to school does the same thing. Students have to get up at a certain time, leave at a certain time, get to class on time, sit in a seat for however long, raise their hand, be quiet, leave for another class; all of it is routine. Homework doesn’t do anything different from what students do at school other than add stress, making it pointless.
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@Sally I agree with you on how the part in Kang's argument about getting used to the work is pointless. If the work is pointless, then why do it? I think that you should spend your time doing things that will be useful and more importantly, beneficial to your time than just busy work. I like how you compare his point of using homework to teach kids to practice things to how we already do that in school. I completely agree. We do so much learning and practicing already in school, why do we need to take time out of our day at home to practice more than we already do? Homework is just a cause of stress for students and we deserve to have relaxing time at home.
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I believe homework is essential, but it would be great to live in a world where you never got any. Students need homework to stay on track in school. You need outside knowledge and to study at home if you want to be successful in school. Realistically you can wish for minimal work so you can enjoy your life outside of school and still educate yourself.
As a current student homework is a touchy topic. I for one do not like homework as many other kids/students feel the same way. My beliefs are fairly simple, I think homework should be very minimal and more of a continuation of classwork like reading or something that helps with your general knowledge of the topic or subject. Before you know it you're going to be off to college preparing for a job in the world, but to say homework is useless would be a lie. It sucks because everyone wishes they didn't need homework while we do need it. I wish that homework wasn't pilled on and it was minimal every night so students could educate themselves while living their lives.
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I believe that homework is a different type of learning than being in the classroom. Work done at home develops good habits for studying and productivity, but the work has to be necessary. Many homework assignments only serve a purpose to fill a slot in the gradebook, and that useless extra work just takes up time more time in the evening. Having homework every night that is due the next day is bad because having little room to manage time can be very stressful. Assignments that take more time to work on, but have more time until a due date are much less stressful because managing time is easier, and I do not have to stay up late, I can do the work the next day. On days where I have homework as well as activities after school, I go from school, to an activity, to dinner, to homework and then to sleep, but when homework is due over a period of time, I can put in extra work on a day where I do not have an activity, and have more time on the days I do. It is always important to do work when you are home, but it becomes stressful when the homework does not flow between school time and home time.
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Homework is essential to the mastering of a concept. I believe that practice of certain subjects like math and science help solidify concepts and often times without the extra practice I don't believe someone can fully understand the concept. For example using a math equation once doesn't help me memorize it for the test. Instead I would have to put more effort into memorizing the formula, but if I were to do multiple practice problems that use the equation I am more likely to understand each part of the equation and memorize it just because I've used it so many times. Not only does homework help students in the understanding, it also helps students apply the concepts that they have learned. For example when learning about centrifugal forces in Physics, in class we had to learn what a centrifugal force was and the conceptual side of the subject which took up most of the class time and at the end of class there was only time to do 1 or 2 practice problems, but on the test there was a free response portion that was worth 50% of the test grade without the extra practice problems that we had to do for homework the only previous experience we had to those types of problems were the 1 or 2 we did in class. Homework exposes students to different types of wording and familiarizes them with the concepts and allows them to practice the application of what they have learned.
Homework more times than not causes unnecessary stress on students. The average school day is about 7 hours with each class being around 50 minutes. Most students go home and want to rest but they are faced with sometimes hours of homework. It is unrealistic for homework to be completely eradicated but some changes need to be made. Maybe a change could be giving a homework assignment that students could focus on throughout the week instead of having to do it in one night. When work adds up it is more likely for students to get a poor grade of that assignment because they just want to get it done. As much as most students wish homework could be completely gone that will most likely not happen because of how long homework has been a thing in the school system. Changes needs to be made in the school system and one being homework and how it is involved in students lives.
I think that schools should not get rid of homework. That is the term, "homework". I believe that teachers should continue to give out homework, but make it optional. Teachers should make the homework optional and for points so that if students want more points or a better grade in the class, they can do the optional assignment. Another change to homework given out by a teacher can be that it has material that will be on the unit test or material that can help you study for the test. Doing this would make students consider completing the homework and getting something out of it because the material will be similar to what will be on the test. The word, homework, to students, brings a negative feeling of stress and fatigue. Getting rid of homework, in general, would be bad for the students and their future because they need the extra work and studying in order to do well on tests and quizzes, and ultimately do better in the class with their grades. This is beneficial for the students and a simple trick that a teacher can do to convince their students.
It is often argued that homework is no longer necessary because it can create unnecessary stress and fatigue for students, especially when they are already balancing other commitments such as extracurricular activities and part-time jobs. Additionally, research has shown that there is a limited correlation between the amount of homework assigned and student achievement. Some educators argue that students can learn just as effectively through in-class activities and discussions, and that homework can actually interfere with important social and family time. Therefore, eliminating homework or significantly reducing its workload could potentially improve the overall well-being and academic performance of students. However, it is important to note that this is a controversial issue and there are also valid arguments in favor of assigning homework as a way to reinforce learning and promote academic discipline.
So I agree with the author that homework is an essential exercise for building memory of new material. It’s a nightly drill to solidify in class material. Further homework today is shared online anyway, for better or worse. Teachers can then spot who’s simply copying the same errors!
Getting rid of homework would be a big step backwards for many obvious reasons.
I feel that homework should either change or completely be taken out of the equation. Homework is a smart concept but in the end there is one fatal flaw to it, no one does it. No student unless they truly care about their academics actually does the homework without looking up the answers. If we were to change this and make it so that the students couldn't do that or make it that the parents care enough to stay with the child and watch them do their homework then homework would actually have value, but in this day and age kids will just use their phones and parents just don't care as much anymore. This either needs to be changed or be taken out so no teachers or students have to stress about turning in or giving that next assignment.
@Anthony Palma I feel like homework that is classwork as well as homework is perfect. Having room to manage time for an assignment takes a lot of stress away from school. The homework that is a problem is the work that is given for no reason, and is due the next day forcing me to stay up late to do it after I get the classwork done.
I think that we should have homework because it helps you practice what you learned in class. But if the homework isn't useful and it doesn't help the student then there shouldn't be homework. Homework can be stressful but it allows you to use what you know and improve, which can help on tests. While some teachers and parents might advocate “Homework makes you more responsible” it really doesn’t and just demotivates kids to do their work.
Grade level plays a big part in homework. After 10th grade homework is not really counted to your grade as much. Homework these days most students just look up there answer online. It is pointless to give homework because the student just getting the work done and not trying is not helping them learn. On the other hand homework is practice so it shouldn't be graded for right or wrong. More so graded on completion and if the student understands the work at hand.
@Twan I agree, and think that even if people end up doing their homework they really don't get anything out of it, besides their time wasted
There shouldn't be any homework because I personally feel like homework is a waste of time for students. Students have other things to do after school so, why should they be given work after being in school all day? Homework should be something optional for the students. Most of the time homework doesn't even count toward our grades so why should they assign it to students?
I think that we should have homework because it helps you practice what you learned in class. But if the homework isn't useful and it doesn't help the student then there shouldn't be homework. Homework can be stressful but it allows you to use what you know and improve, which can help on tests. Homework can also help you understand how to do something or different ways to do something. Every teacher may have a different opinion and I feel like you should have homework in only one or two of your classes so that you aren't flooded with work. But I also feel like some teachers rely on homework and they don't teach as much as they should.
There shouldn’t be any homework because the majority of homework that a student gets doesn’t contribute a lot to a student's education; instead homework can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. A quote that I found from the article “The Movement to End Homework is Wrong” says, “I also think there's a lot of value in saying, ‘Hey, a lot of work that you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” Students have so much going on in their lives such as clubs, sports, and jobs that it's not really fair for teachers to expect students to do homework that isn’t benefiting their grade and causing them stress because they can’t get the work done. I think that the subject of homework is very controversial because if it is work that was supposed to get done in class and the student was goofing off, then I understand that homework, but if it is homework that is about a topic that the class has talked a lot about, then I think it's a waste of time.
I think we should keep homework it's only a review at the end of a unit because I sometimes find that individual work by myself about a subject can help me understand the topic a little better. But units can last a month or even longer sometimes, and so I'll forget a lot of information by the end even if I did homework earlier in the unit. But usually the reviews help me the most because it's usually the most vital information, and that is what's going to be on the test. Especially with math, there's usually complicated formulas I have to remember, and then I forget them by the time the test is around. I do agree with Mr. Kang that repeating a skill or concept over and over is eventually going to improve that, and help me understand it better (Engle and Gonchar 2022). But with extracurriculars along with homework each night, kids will have no free time. But if the only homework, was review work at the end of the unit, it would be a lot less homework, but still is effective for learning.
The subject of homework has been around for so long and as schools and teachers are changing and making their decisions on the matter I think I have formed my own opinion. While some students believe no homework should be given whatsoever, others feel as though it is beneficial. I understand both sides of the matter and can see the benefits of both. I like meeting in the middle would be the best of both worlds for this ongoing homework battle. Many students find homework to be stressful and too time consuming. Sports and other activities often get in the way leaving for little time to do work after school. Sometimes teachers do not understand this and give more homework than students can handle. For example, "there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value." I personally have an after school activity and I have a job. Both of those take up a lot of my time. I often feel drained from school, like many other kids are. And sometimes the work load is too much. I think it would help a lot if work was optional after school. Another quote from the article, "I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign". Some students may need the extra help and others might not, or they might not have time. Another idea is that homework would be for some bonus points for the kids that are struggling and needing to get their grade up. I think there are many alternatives to this matter.
In discussions of homework, one controversial issue has been if homework should be given out. On the one hand, students argue that students shouldn’t get homework at all. On the other hand, others oppose the idea that students actually enjoy homework and what’s a better understanding of the work given to them. My own view is that we should get some homework just for practice and a better understanding.
Although I acknowledge that homework can be harmful because many people can get stressed out from doing homework, ultimately it is helpful because you can have a better understanding of the work and show up to school understanding the work unlike not understanding at all. Because “Homework gives students the opportunity to practice responsibility, which would pay off in the future” and will help a lot with scheduling things as well. The evidence points to students should be getting homework and getting more help if they don’t understand the math or assignments. In other words, it validates that students should get homework because it will help you with your future bills or jobs.
As a high school student, I believe that it would be an amazing idea to get rid of homework. I and some friends of mine have had the ability to enter honors classes but have been discouraged by the homework. Students also require time to themselves. If they want to excel or join clubs, they need to also be comfortable with the amount of homework. If we would be to get rid of homework, then extracurricular activities would be more populated. Students would also have extra time to study. I believe students with the extra time would study more, because there is this sense of pride people get when they do something by themselves without having to be told or made to do so.
When it comes to the topic of homework most of us will readily agree that we should have homework. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of should we have homework. While some are convinced that we should have homework because it’s important to educate ourselves, others believe that we should not have homework because it uses up energy. My opinion is that we should not have homework because it is time consuming and uses up a lot of energy.
Although I acknowledge that homework can be helpful because it can help you get good grades, ultimately it is harmful because it can cause stress and it can take up a lot of the day where you can be doing other things. In the article it says, “being burdened with hours of additional work to do after school unnecessarily robs them of time for play.” At its most straightforward, this evidence suggests kids should not have homework after school. Beyond that, it seems that kids need to have time on their own to do different things after school such as relaxing and hanging out with friends. They deserve to not do more work after already doing a whole day of work. The kids need to be able to relax and do their own thing after school.
In discussions of homework, one controversial issue has been that students and other people believe that we shouldn’t have to deal with homework for the reasons that it is just a great deal of stress added on top of other daily activities . On the one hand, teachers and students argue that there should be homework for the reason that it further helps us in our education . On the other hand, others are in the middle of this homework discussion and think there should or shouldn’t be homework . My own view is that I don’t think homework should be a thing where schools make you do it but only in good condition.
While I can recognize that homework can be helpful and useful for students, my own opinion is that homework should be a thing but very limited for students to be able to focus on other things in life.For example, you don’t need homework for education success. “Students who had hardly any homework, still became one of the top educational students in the world”. At its most straightforward, this evidence suggests that students get given too much homework. Beyond that, it seems that students should be using all the time I have to spend doing homework that is useless for many other activities. Students have jobs they have to worry and usually they have to go to work right after school so they have no time to get get homework that they might or might not need. Students should have less homework for students mental health and better education.
In discussions of homework, one controversial issue has been whether homework should be given. On the one hand, people argue that homework should be eliminated. On the other hand, others oppose the idea that we get rid of it, as it is beneficial. My own view is that too much homework can have a negative impact on a student's mental health, however students can resolve clusters of homework if they use their class time properly.
While I recognize that homework can be useful for educational value, my own view is that too much homework can have a negative impact on a student's mental health. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.” The evidence points to homework having a negative impact. In other words, it validates that teachers shouldn't assign homework as it shows negative impacts on students mentally.
I think that students shouldn’t be given homework because some students find homework useless and unnecessary and re-learn what they already know.Mr. Kang regards the demonstration of diligence and personal responsibility as an important raison d’être of homework. He sees schools as places where students can distinguish themselves and pursue upward mobility. But ranking students on homework production favors students with quiet places to go home to, good Wi-Fi, and access to tutors and parents who can provide help. In other words, it favors students of higher socioeconomic status.While I recognize that homework” It follows that making homework an important part of a student’s evaluation perpetuates both educational inequalities and the myth of meritocracy.” But my own view
The evidence points to the fact that you don’t need homework for education success. In other words, it validates that being burdened with hours of additional work to do after school unnecessarily robs them of time for play, introspection, creative thinking, relaxation and intellectual growth.
When it comes to the topic of giving students homework, most of us will readily agree that homework shouldn’t be given. This agreement usually ends, however, on the question of does homework help students get a better understanding of the content. While some are convinced that homework is a good and helpful topic, others believe that it’s honestly not worth it and not helpful. My opinion is that homework should stay necessary for students.
Although students believe that homework isn’t helping them they need to understand that feedback on their work is helpful. My own view on homework is that it helps you get a better understanding of the work.
According to students“Homework gives students the opportunity to practice responsibility, which arguably is an important “soft skill” that will pay off later in the workforce” . Although they feel that homework is too time consuming but they know the skills will help them in the future.At its most straightforward, this evidence suggests that students should just accept homework since it could benefit them.Students believe that homework takes up too much time but honestly I believe that if you just get it out the way and finish it, you’ll be set and wouldn’t have to work. Beyond that, it seems that the argument for not doing homework is worth it.
Educators should limit the amount of homework they give to their students, if any at all. With homework snagging our extra time we have after school, it causes students to have a lack of balance in their lives. Research shows that homework can lead to high stress levels from the mounting piles students accumulate throughout the days and weeks which can lead to it eating away from time we have for extracurriculars, sleeping, relaxing and so on. Stanford research shows how students can average with about 3.1 hours of homework a night, which ends up tearing these kids away from their family, friends and extracurriculars. Although many teachers assign homework to make sure the students are comprehending their lessons and materials, many academics also argue that assigning piles of worksheets does little to add to what a student is learning. Therefore, teachers should minimize the amount of homework they are assigning in order to let students enjoy their lives outside school.
I believe that we should get rid of homework. Homework is a waste of time and doesn't let you do the things that you want to in your free time. There are better ways to understand a particular concept rather than doing homework. There are a lot of negative outcomes when it comes to homework such as stress and less time to do the things you want. Instead of giving out homework, there can be optional assignments for the kids who actually want to learn. A positive out of not having homework is we have more time to study for tests. Quizzes and tests make up 70% of a student's overall grade whereas homework is the other 30%. Tests are more points and have a larger effect on your grades, tests are more important than homework. In conclusion, homework is a big waste of time having more negative effects than positive ones.
I do believe we should get rid of homework. I'm obviously a little bias but I feel like we get all we need learn and get work done in the classroom, I think there is more than enough time to do our work at school. students could get stressed because they are piled with homework from there classes and that can create a unhealthy life style. I don't believe homework has helped me to learn I think we learn the most in the classroom and watching the teacher teach it, possibly even taking notes. notes is all you really need and some examples of what you are learning. it cant teach responsibly when your always stressed to get all done and possibly not even finish it which than would lead to a bad grade.
I personally think that we should get rid of homework. Because students can have activities after school or couldn't find the time to at home. Students should be able to get a break after being at school all day. I think there are enough hours in the day to get the information that we need, and if needed they could take the work home and finish. There should be a few exceptions like projects and late work to get these things done in class with maybe an hour or two at home. If teachers did not give so much homework then students would have the time to relax and spend time with friends and family.
In my opinion, I think that teachers shouldn't give us homework. Well then again, it depends on how people define homework. If it's work that we had to do in class, and us not being able to finish on time. Then yes, it should be homework for us to do because it's our own responsibility. But if it's extra work that was given, I don't think that should be necessary. The reason to this is because we as students also have a life. We do school for at least 8 hours. Of course we have other things to do other than school. Let's say we go to school at 7:30-3:00. And let's say that homework takes us an hour or 2 to do. We go home at 3. Take a shower and everything. If we still have homework, that's another hour taken in our lives. I do think that homework can be useful for us. But our lives should also be for us to explore new things. Not just school.
If homework is defined as a task explicitly given to do at home or on our own time, we should eliminate it. We spend half the day at school and I don't think we should go home just to continue studying what we did at school. The time after school can be used to relax or learn something beyond what is taught at school. If we didn't finish our task at school, I think it's valid to have it as homework but if it was given specifically to do after school I don't support it. Having homework just gives us extra stress and people that have many activities after school will have a hard time. I feel that if the time we have at school was used effectively, we wouldn't need to have homework to excel.
I think homework should not be getting rid of. It really depends on what the purpose of the homework is. If the homework's purpose is to be finished at home because it is unfinished work that was supposed to be finished at school, I think that this would be necessary. However, if the homework given to the students is work that was planned to be made at home, I do not think that this type of homework would be ineffective except to the students that want to learn and improve on their own. This type of homework sometimes adds up stress and takes up a lot of time and everyone has other stuff to do in their own lives. So, I do not think that homework should be getting rid of however the whole purpose of homework should be changed.
In my opinion, I think that removing homework shouldn't happen because homework is useful for some subjects such as math. With homework, improving in math can happen better. Practicing over and over again will help the person improve. But sometimes homework can be a burden and stress some people, it can intervene with their personal life and make them stressed. Homework will also help people improve their focus and their ability for self-management skills.
I personally dislike homework. Though I know its benefits, I still am annoyed when I get it constantly mostly because of how little free time I have outside of school. I do agree that homework should only be given when a student does not finish a task at school and is given extra time at home. I do not think that it is justified to give homework when a student hasn't even started doing it. This adds pressure and makes the student even more paranoid and stressed throughout the day. This will also exhaust the student, due to activities outside of school which take up the students time as well.
But I do agree that homework is also useful to practice things that we may have not mastered yet. On top of that, homework can increase the productivity of the student and help the student be more responsible.
Homework in general should not be entirely removed. Instead, teachers and educators should work on a system to give homework to benefit learning in school instead of using it as a tool to learn additional concepts and information beyond school hours. Primarily, it should be used as a bridge to remove any gaps and mishaps in school when work has been left unfinished or incomplete. Homework also teaches students to be disciplined and responsible with their tasks since in the real world, we won't be able to work at hour work place and we will eventually have to learn at times even when we are located in a comfortable spot such as our home. Another significant benefit of doing homework is how it teaches our brain to process and understand information. When we absorbed the information and the content given in our homework correctly, it'll help us to nurture the skill of using and understanding information given to us. This will need a lot of work and planning for giving proper assignments and tasks to actually benefit students at home to use their critical thinking and to draw out their productiveness to prepare for their future.
I think it depends on the subject. If it's (for example) math, I think that homework is useful and helpful for us to do well in our upcoming exams or maybe just for our understanding. Getting homework from other subjects that are irrelevant would be slightly useless though. But overall I think homework is okay to give students.
I may have a bit of a biased opinion on homework but of course I think we should get rid of it. To me it is pointless and can do a lot of harm to students’ grades. In the article “The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong”, Jay Caspian Kang said that as a teacher, he would sometimes give out pointless work. Teenagers tend to have lots of other things going on in their lives besides school—not only physically but mentally—and they don’t always have time to incorporate homework with those things. Although, not having time to complete homework affects the grades of students and makes it harder to get them back up. To me it is an ineffective tool for learning for many reasons. One of those reasons is that students might not understand the concept that the homework is surrounding, and have no direct and fast way to get answers to their questions. Another reason is that there are a lot more distractions at home than there are at school, therefore making it harder to complete that work. I don’t agree with Kang when he says that homework still has educational value. I say this because if a teenager doesn’t understand what they're learning in class, they are expected to teach it to themselves at home and complete homework that makes no sense to them, which isn’t teaching them anything. The problem with homework can a lot of the time be blamed on laziness or procrastination but that’s not the case for most students.
We don't agree with the fact that homework should be abolished because although it might be stressful, having homework prepares you for adulthood and work. Another reason why homework shouldn't be abolished is that homework gives students opportunities to practice and dive deeper into the topic of what they're learning in school.
I, as a student myself, personally think we SHOULD in fact get rid of homework. We should get rid of homework because it causes stress amongst students and just creates more burdens for them. While I understand that homework helps train your brain to absorb all the information you are taught, it may end up backfiring and make students stressed from the overload of information.
There are several cases where students committee suicide due to the stress and pressure schools put on them. We students already study in school for half the day, so why should we be given more work? Why can’t we take a break and refresh ourselves? Not only that, some students may also take private lessons so they might not have time for themselves if more work is assigned to them. To conclude, I do not think it has any educational value, but just creates more burdens.
Perhaps homework would be more effective if it was classwork that students did not manage to finish during lessons, so that they can catch up and not fall behind.
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I think homework has some values but is ultimately useless, so I think we should get rid of it. In my opinion, homework is only useful for doing an assignments ourselves, and obtaining a habit of doing something we don't like every single day for the sake of responsibility, and those two skills can be earned through other activities like: doing regular class assignments, doing house chores everyday, etc. The time wasted not doing homework can be used to do things that are more productive or socialising with others.
The main benefit of homework is training and discipline. Just as the quote says, 'Practice Makes Perfect', continuous repetitions of knowledge will be more effective in planting it in the brain. One of the well-known study method, Leitner system, includes the fact in which an information is repeated over and over again until you get it right. It is proven effective in studying for exams. The same claim goes to homeworks. They are basically nearly repetitions of what you've learned in class, maybe slightly easier or tougher. With constantly repeating knowledge, it will be stored in the hippocampus, a part of the brain as a long term memory. This will be useful for the long-term knowledge in high school, college, etc when you recall the same topic
Homeworks also train your discipline as it is something that should be done in a given amount of time, and is your responsibility to fulfill those criterias. It trains you to become responsible, self-managed, organized and teaches you on how to divide your time between homeworks or between homework and leisure time. You know you have a task to accomplish, and you know the consequences if you don't. That is what drives us to be strict to ourselves and try our best to comp the future, no matter how many homeworks you have, you will get used to it.
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In my opinion is usfull to have homework. It's important to exercise on the knowlange that you learn on school. The problem is when the homework used to replace the school. All of us we have met teacher who they don't care about student's. They give you only exersise and yoy don;t understand anything. So the best solution is to have exersize but first of it yoy must participate on the lesson and you don't have questions. Moreover is necessary us a teacher to give homework on your student's that is interesting. For example video or pictures. Something that is not boring and of course homework that not need more that a hour.
When I get home from school, I refuse to do any homework. I see no value in it, we are at school for practically the whole day and I should go home just to do more school? No. If the homework is absolutely necessary, I will attempt to do it. I get easily distracted, bored and at the end of the day I am burnt out and e like to take naps. Honestly, I don’t get all that much homework, but when I do, I am extremely unmotivated to do so. It can be good to finish at home if necessary or to further and thoroughly work through but, other than that there should be a clear separation between school and home. I am not alone when I say, school is overwhelming. I’d rather forget about my school day once I walk into my home to alleviate some of the stress from that specific day, having homework to do after a stressful day is the least of my concern. While I understand I have responsibilities, my own mentality is also my responsibility and I would like to have some sanity.
I think that we should get rid of homework. As a student, I think homework is a very useless thing and it often makes students feel unhappy, many parents would judge whether they are serious in a class by their children's homework, but I think this behavior is very bad, it will make students full of stress all the time. I think homework is an outdated, ineffective, and meaningless learning tool, it exacerbates the inequality in students' family environments, I don’t agree that Mr. Kang's homework has real educational value, Because there are other ways to replace homework. I think that although there are fewer courses after going to college, there is a lot of homework, which makes me unable to use time effectively and wastes a lot of time on homework, I think homework should not be a teacher's basis for judging whether students are good students or bad students, I think the way to make homework effective is to make students no longer hate it, the amount of homework can be reduced or use games to interact with students. In this way, students would like homework anymore. If I were a teacher, I don't give homework to students, I would use online games to promote the lessons and make sure that students don't hate homework anymore.
Homework is not bad and should be assigned in certain cases, but it is taken advantage of. I am getting daily homework assignments in two of my classes, and at least two assignments per week in two other classes. As well as the extra assignment here and there. All this amounts to hours of work at home.
To begin, by assigning mass amounts of homework, yes we are taught to do things we might not want to do, but it is also teaching us to take our work home. The same school that is supposedly getting us ready for college and our future lives is also teaching us bad working habits.
Secondly, we are given long tasks and assignments and told to do them at home when we might not have the time. Each student has different circumstances and having our grades directly affected by the completion of homework is unfair to those who do not have time at home. Many have only survived thus far because of a study hall period, but some kids do not have that option to fall back on or are taking other electives.
Finally, homework causes so much stress to be put on our backs. Constant pressure to have something completed every singe night has led to poor coping habits, depression, anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders, etc (spoken from experience). It does not help that many parents are pressuring their kids to get straight A's as well.
Homework should not be something used so liberally. Weekly assignments here and there are fine but students are overworked and deserve more leeway.
No, as much as I don’t like to do it sometimes, I’m afraid it’s one important thing we shouldn’t get rid of. In my point of view, homework can be more than just practicing something you learn from school, homework can be something a student learn from themselves. As a student, if I don’t like the homework teacher gave me, despite trying to focus on the benefits, I’d see it as a lesson for having the responsibility to deal with it, but if I like the homework, sometimes I might even be inspired by the progress, or even make me want to learn more by myself. I do agree with Mr. Kang. I do think homework has educational value, but if teachers want to give students homework, it should always be meaningful and tailored.
I do not enjoy doing homework. I feel like it’s time-consuming and I have better things I could do with my time. We spend over seven hours of our day for five days at school, which is about 35 hours, and student-athletes have to be at school even longer. Many high school students have other responsibilities like a job, a sport, and even helping out with their siblings. I am not going to lie and say homework is completely useless because it has helped with understanding difficult topics, but assigning excess and unnecessary amounts of homework is not helpful. For example, my chemistry teacher once gave the class 9 homework assignments to complete in one night. I feel like most teachers don’t take into account the fact that we have homework for 3 or 4 other classes. Homework stresses me out 95% of the time. I feel like most of the time homework is just busy work, and I think homework can distract me from bigger, more important things in life. Overall, I do think we should still have homework though. In “The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong”, Mr. Kang argues “Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day”. To an extent, I do agree with Mr. Kang. Homework can be very helpful when it comes to practicing skills I might not be as sharp in, but doing extensive practicing can be very draining. Homework is useful—beneficial, honestly—but only sporadically.
Homework should not be assigned, but that doesn’t mean work cannot be done at home. Work should be assigned as classwork, and it’s up to the student whether they take advantage of their extra time at home to complete it. Completing classwork and homework for upwards of 4 intensive classes is extremely challenging, especially once you start taking more advanced courses and you leave the cushy comfort of late work and extensions. I’ve had many nights where I’ve been forced to stay up into the early hours of the morning to complete incomplete school work without even touching the extra mountain of homework I’ve been assigned. This constant cycle of school work and homework and extracurriculars and maintaining your sanity and whatever else there is going on in your life is exhausting for anyone, but is especially challenging for teenagers during such a stressful time.
@S, Block 4 I agree! Completing work from the class on top of getting more homework is super stressful. There is already a lot going on while one is a teenager. More and more stress piles on top and one is expected to push through like it’s no big deal. It’s hard, especially with extracurriculars and advanced classes. It can be tiring to attempt to keep up but once the work piles it becomes too heavy. For the agreeable reasons you provided, I agree, homework should not be assigned.
yes .why ? because it take your time away from having fun and enjoying life , and doing things you love to do . homework is very stressful and overwhelming , definitely when you have to stay up , hour from hour just to make your parents proud . its not good to focus yourself to stay up , its not good for you physically and mentally or emotionally .
I believe teachers should not overwhelm student with a lot of homework because student start to give up on homework and starts to not do it anymore, Because students have to go home they have to do other things to do besides homework.
In my opinion, teachers should not assign homework at all. I believe this because I think that there is a fine line between school and home.
Offspring reference warning:
You gotta “Keep em’ Separated!”
When a student is in school, they should be in an educational environment, where they learn academics and have access to mental health support. When the final bell rings, they are free as a bird, and those birds you cannot change.
Adding homework is doing just that, changing the birds. When a student arrives home, they should be able to live their life, whether that means watching TV, biking, ETC.
As a student, I usually get 2 math homework assignments per week, and I almost always finish them in class or at Recess. I am the GOAT of not procrastinating-ever.
Homework can also lower a student's grades. As they get older and go into middle and high school, and eventually college, they have less free time. They may have sports, clubs, jobs and more things that can take away homework time. The school day also is longer in high school than in elementary/middle school. If a student has all these activities, they may not be able to do all
(Or any) of their homework. Not doing homework will give you a bad grade.
Personally, I do not think we should get rid of homework, as it is the biggest way to learn independently. You may not realize it, but in class sometimes you rely on the teacher or your classmates for help so often that you do not know how to complete the material on your own. This would be a problem in the case of a test, where you cannot get any help on it. Homework also teaches responsibility and is an easy way for students to get their grade up. Most of the time, homework perfects your skills. However, if a student shows that they are proficient in their work and can do it on their own, they should not have as much homework as those who do not understand the concept. A lot of homework, especially math, is pointless in the way that you are repeatedly doing the same types of problems, even if you already mastered the subject. This is a waste of time and drains out students who do not need additional practice on a certain subject.
There are a lot of controversies when it comes to the topic of homework because people have different perspectives, and it affects people in different ways. In my opinion, homework is helpful to practice the skills being taught in the classroom for younger children. When students get older, they have to deal with more stress. In this case, homework is doing more harm than good. Doing homework that is close to pointless is a waste of time; they could be using that time for studying other subjects, being physically active, sleeping, and more. As a sophomore in high school, I spend about 2-3 hours on homework each night (on average). With sports, I already get home hours after school, and most of the time I also have other chores. Completing all of these tasks and going to sleep at a reasonable hour is very difficult, and it always leads to me being sleep-deprived. I think that this is an important issue to deal with because high schoolers are always tired, yet we get in trouble for sleeping in class. Studies have also shown that excessive amounts of homework can lead to students being mentally unwell. This includes developing depression and anxiety. Homework is also capable of making students physically ill. As a whole, homework has more of a negative impact than anything else.
I believe that we should get rid of homework. I have a biased view on this issue as I am currently a student myself. Being a university student, I have much more on the plate to complete than before. Other than school work, university students spend most of their time working on their extracurriculars like club activities, sports, and work. As the article stated, many teachers give out meaningless homework to students that do not have any academic benefits. There is no point to give homework that adds no value to their education. I accept the fact that with younger children, homework may be helpful to help them memorize concepts and practice math problems. But for us unies, homework should not exist.
I think that we should get rid of homework because of the problems it can cause with grades, for example, a student can do extremely well at a subject, even excel at it but still have a horrible grade because of them forgetting to turn in or do homework that was assigned. Teachers also forget that students have lives outside of school and don’t want to, or can’t afford to, sit around and do homework or study all day long after school is over. Some students have jobs, others have chores, some have before, after, or out of school clubs/activities, some people even have plans with family and friends that they either have to or want to go to, and end up pulling all-nighters in high school or sometimes even middle school to complete homework. Teachers also forget that students have other classes and assign what would be an ok workload if it was just that class, but when seven other teachers assign that same workload it becomes almost impossible to do it all in one night. Teachers often give busy work as homework and busy work often ends feeling boring and almost never actually helps with the subject, oftentimes actually stops the student from completing other teachers' homework assignments. One way that they might be able to avoid this is by making the school day slightly longer but not allow teachers to give homework, this gives students more time with the teachers to understand the subject better, but without the massive workload at the end of the day.
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I believe that we should get rid of homework entirely. Homework has become a major stressor in students lives. It creates worries about when the next assignment is due. This is especially true if you play a sport so you have to balance between sports and school and that amplifies the level of stress and leaves students with little free time. Free time is also a major part of why I want to get rid of homework. Students want to spend time with their friends which is good for mental health and making students do homework deteriorates them and drag them away from their friends to sit at a table for two hours to do meaningless work that they put zero effort into. I personally think that teachers should do more in class assignments that are more hands on and help us develop critical thinking skills than just writing in a notebook.
I personally believe we should get rid of homework. Homework commonly acts as a distraction to more important things in a student's life, such as enjoying time with family and friends. Although it can be worthwhile practice, assignments also come with the consequence of increased stress on students. To a degree, homework does help to reinforce topics that may need to be memorized. Especially in subjects like math and science, homework could be worthwhile. Unfortunately, teachers commonly assign busywork, essentially just wasting a tired and dreary student's valuable time. After a long day at school, why should students have to spend more time studying what they already learned? This seems not only pointless, but also adds unneeded strains to a student's already busy schedule. Unnecessary homework adds pressure to a student's busy lifestyle, distracts from more important extracurricular activities such as sports and clubs, and can even lead to emotional issues such as stress and depression. Too much homework can infringe on not only a student's lifestyle, but also have negative impacts upon their health. From personal experience, I can say that homework can distract from things more valuable to my health and development as a person, and even infringes on my sleep schedule. Overall, I believe that homework should be removed, as the drawbacks clearly outweigh the benefits.
(pt. 1) This kind of topic will always have debates entwined with it no matter what. I think obviously it will be biased when its coming from a student but if you[re actually thinking about it from a real life standpoint I think homework is sometimes necessary but most of the time it isn't and it does feel like teachers just give it out just for them to have something even though it clearly isn't needed at all. Homework can help in some cases like a study guide which they have to do themselves but other stuff where if you don't finish it in class you have to do it for homework is kind of cruel.
I get it “if you don't fool around in class you wouldn't have to do it” but sometimes it isn't like that which a teacher would give you a big packet of some sort and even though you were working the whole time and still couldn't finish it I think that should tell the teacher/s that they need more time so they could just finish it the next day instead of making it homework. In real life from my point of view there are things in life you can't finish in one day so you can do it the next day which is perfectly fine because after you get it done you can still get everything you wanted done.
@A, Block 3 (pt. 2)
“Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” This was said in the article and I really feel like they shouldn't be telling kids this because it could make them not want to even do anything in life if it's “pointless” you know? Some people could get past that and do it but others will just keep fooling around or whatever since everything is “pointless”. So instead of saying that, maybe try to encourage them more than anything.
Sullivan High School, Illinois
Homework has been a topic of debate for many years and it is still in place. If there was such a big problem with homework we, as a society, would have already moved to change that. In my opinion, homework should be a necessity. Homework doesn’t have to be 15 pages and two hours of work every night, it can simply be a small recap of the lesson to help the student apply what they have just learned. A “TIME” article writes about Harris Cooper, a Duke University psychology professor, who completed a study and results showed: students who completed their homework consistently scored better on exams in schools, as well as the older the students were (7th-12th grade), the stronger correlation between homework and performance were. In order to fully retain information, students can’t just stop thinking about the subject as soon as they walk out of the classroom. Unless we are all geniuses with 1600 SAT school, we have to put the work in to get things done. Even the students with those perfect test scores, put in hours upon hours of work. Simple psychology states that it takes repetition to allow information to fully enter our long term memory. Success doesn’t happen overnight, work has to be put into school through homework for good results to happen.
I believe that we should get rid of homework. I have a biased view on this issue as I am currently a student myself. Being a high school student, I have much more on the plate to complete than before. Other than school work, high school students spend most of their time working on their extracurriculars like club activities, sports, and work. As the article stated, many teachers give out meaningless homework to students that do not have any academic benefits. Students already spend 8 hours at school and at least 2 additional hours for their extracurricular activities, there is no point to give homework that adds no value to their education. I accept the fact that with younger children, homework may be helpful to help them memorize concepts and practice math problems. But with high schoolers, homework should not exist.
I personally think we should and shouldn’t , I believe the idea of homework is outdated, homework is both helpful and unnecessary, we shouldn’t have to go to school for 7 hours and then come home to do more school related work, now if a assignment was given in class and was unfinished then that should be homework, but there should not be specific homework assignments given.
I believe that homework should be optional; it should be up to the student whether they want to complete it or not. For example, if they feel they need more practice, they can complete it and receive feedback, but if they are aware of the material and what is being covered in class, they shouldn't be required to do it. They should be able to choose their homework and it shouldn't be a burden. The student shouldn't have to worry about schoolwork if they have an after-school activity because it can drain their mental energy. I don't know about college yet, but for high school, I believe it ought to be an option.
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@Arwah This comment right here is worded perfectly for the things I think about too when it comes to these types of topics. Life is difficult as it is so why add more stress to it you know?
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I believe that assigning homework does help but when it's the type of homework that teachers just assign with no educational value, I don't think it should be assigned. Having the right type of homework does help me learn and grow as a student. When the homework challeneges you and gets you better at the specific subject or lesson, homework helps a lot. I do believe when too much homework is given, students are more likely to rush through it or put it off because they have so much other work to do. Athletes especially, they have practice everyday and have a couple hours to eat and do homework. I feel like a certain amount of homework should be given and it should help further our learning.
The question I am going to be answering to is, “Should we get rid of homework?”. Well first off I want to start off by saying some homework assignments can be helpful to one, however a lot of homework assignments are just useless and not beneficial at all to help us get better at that specific thing. In some cases though, homework has helped me with a skill, which would be math. At times when I struggle with math or do not have the full understanding of what's going on in the class when we get homework assignments, it can be helpful to me. But even that's in certain cases. Math is about the only class where homework has kind off helped me. In most cases in the past where I've gotten homework, they weren't really helpful to me, and now that I think of it, I think they were assigned just to be assigned, but not to help the student. We can also see this said in the article, “The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value.” When teachers do assign such assignments, it can be very overwhelming to the student because some students have things to do after school, such as sports, work or babysitting and etc. So when they come home and have to do an assignment that adds no academic value to their education, it can come very overwhelming. With all of this being said, overall I think we should get rid of most homework because, in the end, it's not very beneficial to students.
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No one likes homework, even teachers. Practice does help me learn but when I am at home I rush through and don’t even think about it because why would I? Most teachers give completion grades anyway so it’s only a repetitive process. It does not help me with a single thing, even if you want to look at it as time management. I usually am doing my homework a couple of hours before class anyways because of how busy I am. So to answer the question, yes. School work should never have left school in the first place. The only reason I believe homework should happen is if it is on your own motive. After reading the article I do not agree with Mr. Kang. It holds no educational value and doesn’t make you truly learn anything. When I get home I usually have what I would say is a relative amount of homework compared to in the past. Grade level definitely does matter in terms of homework but not the way stated in the article. Teachers used to give home “assignments” that would make you want to learn. They would make you use your mind creatively, and help students develop thoughts on their own while mildly guiding them to leave room for them to discover on their own. A lot of the time teachers even hand out busy work, grade boosters, and “fun” homework that is not even on subject. I wouldn’t even describe homework as outdated because it should have never been here in the first place.
I remember from a young age the teachers giving us endless exercises for home without teaching us how to do it correctly. This resulted in the exercises becoming tedious, trying to learn something by a rote memory and all of this making you feel stupid. I think that we shouldn't get rid of homework because that way we don't improve, simply for a child to learn something the best way is to do it with the method of games or something.
Yes. i believe the schools should get ride of homework. It is mentally draining especially for highschool and collage students we have lifes outside of school some students work full time jobs to help theyre famiys and for theyre selfs they dont have time for homework. some stuents are athletes they have practice everyday. we spend about 8 hours in school and our expected to spend more endless hours of doing homwork after having 8 hours of school its draining. we should be injoying life as humans, young life not spedning our young lifes doing unless hours of homework after getting off 8 hours of school its draning. it cause mental issuses such as depression, anxiety, feeling mentaly drained, burt off, could cause lack of motivation. i strongly believe teachers should not assign homework most times i have homework it just makes me feel overwelled mostly to those teachers who asign projects and a lot of assignments just a week i have 7 classes teachers dont understand much that many other teachers give so much homework and projects and i have to worry about not just the many projeccts and assinments i have in one class byt 7 more classes that other teachers do that samething
I am both for the side of supporting homework and also somewhat against certain types of homework- mostly work that focuses on memorizing. Ask anybody what they learned the year before, most likely they can’t tell you most of what they learned. I can tell you a few extremely broad things I learned but beyond that, I forget. What people need to know and what they need to know is pretty self explanatory: life skills and things they will actually need to use in the future. I’d rather be taught how to prepare for daily life in the future, that could mean anything from how to cook, manage money, or managing mental health. That, i will actualkyneed t
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Just thinking about homework makes me drained. School is a great place to learn new things, but why should it extend even at home? Teachers, there is one key thing that you should know about students: we have lives outside of school that doesn’t revolve around homework. Some students participate in sports and don’t get home until 6:00pm, maybe later if they have games. Some students have jobs—jobs that give them money that supports their family or themselves. Homework is both unnecessarily a waste of time and a pointless way to help students learn more. In other words, homework is not helpful for students. It wastes time and does not help students understand a topic in any way. The only exception to after school homework is studying for quizzes or tests.
@Kelly Tran I totally understand where you are coming from! As an athlete I don't get home until 5:00 to 7:00 at night because of practice. I still have to eat and do homework as well. I managed to do it because it was one my priorities. I understand for those who have to work a job and can't get their homework done. I think homework is an important thing to help us further our learning and really understand a topic or subject. I don't think there should be an excessive amount of it but enough to help us be successful in life and as high school students.
In my opinion I don't learn much from doing homework unless it’s actually studying for a test. Therefore I believe there's no purpose for teachers to give out the “busy work” to students because most of the time when I get this work I just go through it to get it done and beyond that I don't really focus on what I'm trying to do. But on the other hand, when I have to actually study and know the material being taught in the class in order to pass a test/quiz the next day, I do benefit from having the “homework” of studying and reviewing topics in that class. So I don't think studying should ever go away, but the unnecessary busy work handed out by teachers is something I wouldn’t mind getting rid of. As throughout my highschool career I haven't ever found it beneficial to my learning.
I don’t like doing homework as well as many other students. I don’t think it has ever helped me in such ways, and when I don't finish my homework it can cause me to be behind in my classes and when I try to catch up, there’s always gonna be a point that I can’t cross.
Most students spend 8 hours in school and having homework in addition to 8 hours of school can be extremely stressful for the students. If planned correctly, 8 hours is sufficient time for students to learn all their necessary materials.
Also, Most of the students have other activities outside of school that they have passion for. It is very important for students to chase their passion, and this could be time consuming. However, if school assigns too much homework for those students, they might not have time to focus on their passions. Moreover, sometimes the students have to choose either between their passion or their school grade and most of the times they choose for the grades.
In the article Mr. Kang has said, “assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value.” This shows me that some assignments don't do anything to improve the students' work. I also know that some students doesn’t do their homework, this shows that they didn’t wanna do it maybe because it’s boring or maybe they know that it doesn’t help them in any way and it’s just a waste of time, so I don’t know why the teachers are still giving out homework and unnecessary assignments.
Homework, just that word sickens me. Homework given without any meaning. Homework that does nothing but ruin our afternoons. Homework in which we dread. Homework Is something I feel strongly about. As someone who has extra curricular activities from the moment I leave school until eight o'clock at night, it ruins my afternoons.
Many teachers lack understanding that we have stuff going on in our lives. We spend tireless hours doing homework. I'm not going to sit here and lie saying that homework doesn't have benefits, but when it's pushed to the extreme nothing good can come upon it. We are all normal people living normal lives. Why can't that be understood? Teachers think that all we do is get home and lay down on our bed taking naps. Some people have work, jobs, sports, some have to take care of family members, and some even themselves.
Imagine you're a student, you’ve been diagnosed with a sleeping disorder so you must go to bed at ten or you can't sleep. You come home just to leave for sports, driving for about thirty minutes, you have practice for around 3 hours then drive back. Four hours later it's probably around eight. Now you have to eat, shower, have some free time to yourself, and do homework for four classes. Also you can't stay up past 10 to do the extra work. It's just such a burden on so many people. It tramples over your social life and it almost feels disrespectful that the teachers think you do nothing.
@H, Block 2 Now you're stuck being stressed out because it's 8:30 and you have homework for every class. Each class takes about thirty minutes, so you automatically get a 0 in one of your classes and you have no free time left. How can this be ok, why do some teachers do this? Why do they trample over our lives after we have been in school for 8 hours straight? Who signs off on this and finds this ok?
Homework is dreadful. If any message comes across in my writing, I want it to be that. The Only thing homework has helped me with is how to procrastinate. If school is supposed to teach us about adulthood, why have homework? Adults only have to do work at home that they didn't finish during the day and sometimes not even then!
The parent/teacher in the first article mentions how even she –a parent– sometimes gives homework with no value. WHAT IS THE POINT THEN?! Students as well as teachers have lives, and teachers are taking away their students lives by assigning meaningless grueling work!
As a kid I was always told that homework contributed to 90% of my grade. I always thought that was a dumb way of showing a students involvement. Should I not be graded for how I do inside the classroom with the education I am given there and at that moment?
In my opinion I don't learn as much doing homework compared to the teacher teaching the information in front of the class. In my experience homework assignments have been less about the information the student will gain from doing it and rather the teacher making sure kids did it and giving them a 100% for completing the assignment. When I get home from school I’m tired, I just want to sit in bed playing video games, chilling on my phone, and resting in my little free time before I have to go to work. Once I get home from work I’m even more worn out than I was before from running around and being on my feet the whole time. I just want to shower and go to bed but usually I still have to do my homework so then I’m up late doing homework and not getting a full 8 hours of sleep.
The article shows a comment made by a former teacher saying "The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value." This really shows how pointless some homework assigned really is. Why are some teachers still giving non beneficial assignments to students? It serves no educational value and in my opinion is just a waste of time. Giving homework like this is one of the reasons students dont like doing homework, nobody wants to do something that they think is a waste of their time.
Sophomore year is not what it's cracked up to be. All these years my family has told me “ just wait till high school you’re going to love it!” But when does that start?
So far this school year I've missed every one of my high school football games, soccer games and homecoming for nasty ole homework. Each night I sit at my new white desk in my rosemary pink chair watching the clock tick 9:30pm, 10:30pm, 11:30pm and so on. As the clock ticks my brain starts to explode with useless knowledge I know I'll never use. As I sit there completing the 5 worksheets given I wonder why. Why do I need to know the quadratic formula or how to complete a square? Why are we taught this useless knowledge instead of how to pay taxes, a thing we actually have to know.
I really connected with Mr. Kang when he said “homework has become just a ritualized thing they have to do each day.” It's so true. Homework has just become something to check off my list and get through before going to bed for the night. Having 5 worksheets in one class per night automatically shows me I'm receiving busy work. For me there is no possible way I can retain 5 sheets worth of knowledge and actually remember it. Homework gives me no benefit as I'm just doing it to get an easy A.
Fun fact for the teachers: I have a life that doesn’t only revolve around my school work. Every single night I am overwhelmed by extra work piling on my plate after a seven hour school day that drains basically all of my mental battery. We definitely should get rid of homework or at least lower the amount because it's a pointless ritual everyone has unwillingly become accustomed to since the age of five. I have four difficult classes I work hard in so why am I punished with more useless work after school? Many students as well as me feel like school is a dull vacuum constantly sucking time out of our lives each day. All of the genuine fun of curiosity and learning has been stolen from us since we are constantly stressed while thinking about it. When I surprisingly had a free night last week, I watched an interesting show and I even learned to sew but if schoolwork is all that I have time for then I won’t get to learn other useful skills I can’t gain in a classroom. When we are forced to do excess busy work when we could be relaxing or actually enjoying our teenage lives we find homework an inordinate waste of brain power.
Mr Kang argues, “I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.”
@A, Block 2 ” I agree with this statement in many ways; homework can help you master a skill or keep you satisfied but isn’t the point of being a teacher to help students understand and also stay engaged? I am not engaged when I'm falling asleep in front of my computer then being tardy from school since I didn’t set an alarm. All my pediatricians recommended 2 hours of screen time per day but when I am on a computer for 4 hours in school and another 3 at home I frankly don’t think that's healthy. I strongly believe homework is a great way to help people in language classes to memorize and be able to fully grasp the information or for other classes to shortly practice skills they learned. I am in a French 3 class and if I didn’t study then I would not be as strong in the class as I am, but she doesn’t overwhelm me with worksheets like other classes. If we cannot understand the topic while in class then we just need more time to work on it with the teachers instead of doing it ourselves at home; wasting our “free” time. My French teacher even gives us a day for review, so we don’t have to study as intensely on our own.
I work day and night to keep my grades up and my overall health and mental state plummets when I don’t have any time for myself. The occasional workout or walk isn’t good for my body either. Doctors have always told us to go outside and do at least 1 hour of exercise each day so I should have time aside from homework to do that but I don’t.
@A, Block 2 . Although homework can be a good way to keep a skill strong in your mind, the stacks of work after a long day at school take all motivation and excitement away from learning so is the school system trying to get students to learn or to hate learning?
I'm on Mr. Kang's side. Mr. Kang states that “Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day.” I agree with Mr. Kang that homework can help students find a balance and daily schedule that is not all play. I believe homework can be helpful in moderation, and hurtful in extensive amounts. Homework reminds students about what was taught in class that day and helps students better manage their time. A necessary skill for the future.
Although I’m on the side of keeping homework, I recognize the problems caused by it. Homework is stressful, you are always worried about how much homework you have and how you don't have enough time to complete it. Homework causes significant levels of stress on students all across the world, and over time it's only gotten worse. Thirty years ago there was no online homework so whenever you had an unexpected day off you wouldn't have to worry about completing the work at home. Sadly we don't have that privilege, now the majority of the work we do is online and we have to go through a forest of links to get to the assignment, and we can only do that if the technology decides to cooperate. Overall I personally dislike homework because it takes away so much of my time, but I understand its value and how it will prepare us for the future.
Math homework? No. English homework? Yes. For some it may be the opposite. Homework shouldn’t be one size fits all assignments. In my opinion homework should be optional. What's the point of practicing a subject that you’ve already mastered, like for me math, when you could be focused on what you haven’t. When I get home I’m already exhausted and the last thing I want to do is boring school work that I already know. At least if I had the choice on which areas I needed help in, I feel it would be more stimulating.
Mr. Kang stated “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?”, this is where I disagree with him. A lot of work in life is pointless, but I feel it should be something we get rid of rather than try and get used to it. Life can be short and why would we waste our time and energy on pointless things?
I mentioned how homework is not only pointless when you already know the material, but it takes valuable time away. I would much rather spend my time playing soccer, or hanging out with friends and family than do homework. Schools emphasize the importance of after school activities like sports and clubs, but with the amount of homework given these days it's almost impossible to balance both.
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Everybody has a different perspective on homework. Some think it is just a plain waste of time, others believe homework is beneficial at times. To me I believe there should be no homework. Everybody would rather be out with their friends having fun and enjoying the rest of the day that they have left.
As an athlete I despise homework. The reason I abhor homework as an athlete is because whenever I come home from football, I’m tired, weary, exhausted, and fatigued. Half the time I can’t even keep my eyes open, let alone trying to study the material .The last thing I want to be doing is homework.
I agree with Mr. Kang says that kids feel satisfaction whenever they complete an assignment. To me personally, I do feel satisfactory because it makes me feel like I am doing something educational. But this doesn’t mean that teachers should give us loads of homework each day.
If the point of school is to learn then why does it feel like I am getting dumber every time I do homework. I have never liked homework. Homework has always felt like a chore, like I have a gun to my head and if I do not do the work I will fail the assignment and my grade will drop 10 points.
That's not just the case either. It is very hard to get homework done on time. As soon as I leave school at 3:40, I’m done. I don't want to do anything else the rest of the day besides have fun, hang out with friends, and sleep. Having homework adds another level of dread to my day knowing that I still have one more thing to do before I can rest. It’s even worse on weekends or during football season, I already have about 3 hours at home before I go to bed. I am already tired and have 3 assignments due before 12.
@G Block 2 There are many different types of homework and some are good, others are, well, dreadful. English and History can be alright depending on teachers. Science isn’t good as it is this formula of researching or looking at something and coming to my own conclusions while answering multiple choice questions which get confusing the deeper I go, but math is great, depending on the worksheet. If the worksheet is about something you learned in class it could be very easy but as the worksheets go on they get harder which leaves me with a lot of questions, but without a teacher, who is going to answer them. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten stuck on a math problem doing homework and had to look up a boring 10 minute video on how to do it but by the end I end up more confused than before I even started the video.
In conclusion; I don’t think we need to get rid of homework completely, but I do think it would be for the best if we didn’t have as much or had slightly easier work.
Of course I wish we could get rid of homework, I've always hated it but it's helped me. Well, maybe not always. I mean, who can forget getting so frustrated over math homework to the point you break down in tears? That's when I wished more than anything for it to just completely disappear, however, as I’ve gotten older and especially after reading this article I see the benefits of some types of homework. I agree with Mr. Kang that it’s beneficial to practice certain subjects but I completely disagree with the statement that it’s the only ritualized thing we have to do everyday. He could be talking about younger children who don’t have as many obligations but for those of us in highschool, that is absolutely false.
On that same topic of having multiple obligations on top of homework, I’ve never really had to deal with that until I go to highschool. So although having that experience and learning time management and/or responsibility, it’s brought me to realize how useless some homework can be. It’s been brought to my attention because when I have to cancel plans because I have 4 hours of homework, I can see that there’s certain things that give me no academic value at all. That's the homework we should get rid of. Making a Romeo and Juliet book cover and writing an essay to show what I learned after learning about the topic for an hour are some examples of homework I’ve had that just didn’t do anything for me except for wasting time. >>>>
@alexis, Block 2 Math homework is really the only one that truly prevails on the extra academic progress scale. It allows me to have that extra practice Mr. Kang talks about it and it also allows me to understand it if I didn’t get it in class. English, history, and science -- for me personally -- have been classes that I can do work in class and get it and then study or research at home if I feel I need it. Now with those classes that I actually have 2 out of the 3 don’t give homework and it works for me. Overall, homework that actually helps you and doesn’t completely overwhelm your afternoon, is beneficial and gets a thumbs up from me.
Part 1
Homework. You either hate it or barely deal with it! Even though homework is dreaded by most, I believe it can be beneficial in so many ways. Especially in math, it has helped me truly understand new concepts being taught because of the extra practice that was given. In the published article “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities”, the authors argue that research shows how the accuracy of a child’s homework relates to the child’s support system. In some ways I agree, but homework is less about a child’s support system at home and rather about how much information the child is grasping in class. Like Mr. Kang says, ““But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy.” Homework has helped me grow as a student. There have been numerous times where I’ve grasped more from doing extra practice than actually learning in school.
However, many can argue that homework is a waste of time. Mr. Kang even starts his essay with “The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value.” I have received homework assignments that were nothing more than busy work. And while that has no benefit for my learning, I was still obligated to complete them.
@Vaani Phayal, Block 2
part 2
What the passage fails to mention is that after long hours of sitting and learning, kids need a break to be kids. It is important to understand that we have a life out of school. While school is important, there are numerous kids who have jobs and extracurricular activities. If not, that does not invalidate the importance of a mental break. I have spent grueling, long hours gaping at my screen, dozing off from lack of sleep, just to finish one assignment. Students already spend about 7 hours sitting still at school, we shouldn’t have to spend even more to finish an assignment that has no academic value. Sleep is something I value the most. When I lose sleep from staying up to finish homework, I learn little to nothing the next day because of how tired I am. The amount of homework assigned is ruining student’s mental and physical health.
School is not a bad thing. It’s an environment to learn and ask questions. While homework is not something I prefer to do, sometimes it can be very beneficial. Getting rid of homework completely can be harmful on the academic perspective of a student. Over assigning homework has not failed to show how much it negatively affects students. So what is the right thing to do?
Stressed out. That’s how I feel in regard to the amount of homework I’ve been assigned this year. I get so frustrated with myself sometimes, I know I have a very bad habit of procrastinating but I still tend to do it. Here I am writing my comment at 11 pm, what else is new? I push things off. One more hour, then I’ll do it, after this episode, then I'll do it, when I get home from volleyball practice, then I’ll do it. It’s honestly a never-ending cycle that I put myself into.
I always have a busy schedule. I find it hard to find time to focus on my schoolwork that needs to get done. Sometimes I wish we could keep our home life separate from our school life. I think the extra practice homework gives is beneficial, but it would be just as beneficial if teachers gave us the time to complete it during class. Having a teacher at an arm's length away to help explain to me anything I might be stuck on is much better than being at home with all sorts of questions wandering aimlessly around my head. I agree with Mr. Kang in the article, there are so many factors that go into assigning homework to students that come from all different kinds of backgrounds. If the power were in my hands, I would side with completing all schoolwork while on campus and getting the rest of the evening off to enjoy our own lives.
From my experiences, homework is pointless. I don't gain much from coming home after a long day of school and doing more school work. When I get home from school I want to hang out with my friends and family, not having to worry about homework, but that's hard to do when you have work to get done.
I disagree with Mr. Kang when he says, "homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day". This may go along with younger kids, but as you get into high school many kids have a lot to do after school, like: work, sports, gym, or any other plans they have, which is all topped off with homework each night. I have practice every day after school, causing me to get home around 6:30. When I finally get home, I get a feeling of relaxation until I realize I have homework I need to get done. Some nights it’s just one hour, but other nights I spend hours sitting at my desk confused, until I eventually finish and end my day.
This year these problems of homework have really stuck out to me. Nightly English work isn't bad, but when it's piled up with homework from other classes it's hard to get done with a good understanding. For example, right now I am writing this response, but when I finish I have to do Spanish homework and study for a Chemistry test tomorrow.
@C I fully agree with your rebuttal to Mr.Kang. As a student in highschool I also manage a job and after school activities each and everyday and any day I do have off with time for myself I use it as such, For myself.
I believe that homework, while being very important, should not be given to people in large amounts. Homework is a great way to teach kids to have to think for themselves and learn how to manage their work—learn to not procrastinate and to get work done on time. Learning to do this stuff is very important later on in life. They are also a good refresher between school days. I think that homework shouldn’t be given in large amounts because it can cause people to stay up all night which isn’t very healthy. I believe that each day, kids should be given a small amount of homework and not just all clumped up on one day.
I personally think that we should get rid of homework because homework will just end up stressing people even more. From a personal experience, homework has not helped me in any of my classes and has not helped me learn anything but just end up confusing me more. When students are in class learning about stuff, they might understand the concept and have a good concept about it, and then they will get to the homework and then just be completely lost and not understand anything. But there have also been sometimes when homework has been useful for me. Whenever I have an early morning class I usually do not remember the homework or what we learned and then when I get to the homework it will recap what we learned and refresh my memory. Normally when I get home I have a few little assignments and then one big assignment so I’m drowning in homework and trying to balance it with sports. So if I have practice that night: I normally do not get as much homework done. I think that the amount of homework we get is unacceptable because I do not think teachers understand that were have 3 other classes who are giving the same amount of homework as they are. So one class's homework is okay but then you have 4 times that amount and it just becomes very overwhelming at that point. I think that homework is not a good use of time because we have other stuff in our lives but also it is also helpful to review some stuff with maybe something small but not drowning us with work.
I could argue about this problem for both ways. Although I am not the biggest fan of homework, it does have its positives. For example, you definitely get a better understanding of it when you take the material home that you're given and you practice it, because practice does make perfect.
But, I also can argue about the other side. Now don't get me wrong, homework is great and all but, there is for sure a based side to it. For example, sometimes your teacher has no idea what is going on in your life and all that they are doing is piling work after work for you. Although homework might be good for you, it can also be a bad use of your time management when you have already mastered the material and you have to spend time on it because it's your "homework".
One of the questions in the passage asked if you can handle your homework load. In all honesty I can. I have been blessed with teachers that understand a good amount of homework. Not to much. Not to little.
I completely agree with Mr. Kang about needing to practice schoolwork, it helps to reinforce a lesson students learned so they don't forget it and homework can do this perfectly. My problem with homework lies in the crushing workloads given out by teachers, it should be a refresher not a whole lesson at home.
I get home at 6PM and I have to eat, shower, do chores, and be expected to complete at least 3 hours of homework everyday. It is absolutely crushing and the homework for me has lost all value, it is no longer about trying to understand a topic further, now I just rush to finish all of it so I can go to bed before midnight. Every single worksheet and assignment given out just made me feel even more swamped until I felt like I could never get it all done. I understand that classes are getting harder so there is a reason for more homework, but students have 4 classes and many have responsibilities outside of school, so the workloads pile on and cause large amounts of stress.
I feel like we have lost sight of the purpose of homework, it is originally a tool that helps students understand material better, not repetitive busywork that just consumes time. Homework shouldn’t be removed, but it should be tweaked to allow students to enjoy their life and still facilitate learning at home.
Today’s high school students are in school eight hours a day, five days a week. That equals most full-time jobs. There are many other demands also made on this after school time. Students play sports, have jobs, and have to help parents after school and have no extra time to do homework. I am taking 3 hard honors core classes and playing lacrosse on top of that, and I have never once been able to come home after school and chill. I spend hours on top of hours trying to complete all my homework before my head hits my pillow at night.
I believe teachers often assign homework that is not beneficial to their students’ learning. It is merely busywork. In the article, Jay Kang stated, “As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing this sort of pointless homework that I occasionally assigned.” As a teacher he too assigned pointless homework just because. Teachers should be more cognizant about everything that goes on after school and remember they are not the only teacher assigning homework.
Yay, schools over, now I can- wait… homework. A lot of it. Tell me this; how am I supposed to live my life if I’m constantly doing homework?
As soon as school ends I’m on my way to practice and get home after dark with none of my homework completed, causing me to stay up until 1:30 every night. I have to read, write, and complete a project for English, finish my weekly math packet, study for my weighted biology test, and look up inspiration for my current art project, but I need to give my all for each and every one of these things or my dad will ground me.
I think, like it said in the article, we do need some homework to keep us practicing outside of school, but oh my goodness do teachers not think about the fact that we have 4 classes to complete homework for every day?
The big question really is should students receive homework or not? There really is no easy way to choose a side when answering this question. I agree with what the article said when thinking about this question. Kids need to practice but they need to live their own lives.
Not only do we have an excessive amount of homework on weekdays but what about over the weekend? Every weekend I have at least 3 things to turn in for my English class, but since it’s the weekend, that’s the last thing I think about, because I’m a teenager and I’d like to spend time with my boyfriend and friends and family instead of being locked away for hours longer than I have to.
@K, Block 2
I think there is definitely a limit we need to put on homework but we should still have some. Basically, what I think is, school is where we should learn and practice; home is where we should live and relax.
Like most, I've never enjoyed doing homework and always complain when I have it. Especially on weekends. It hurts my head, takes up my time, and keeps me up late. Why should I have to do more work at home after I was just at school for the majority of my day? Then I start to think about it more and I realize that if I didn't have math homework some nights I wouldn't have understood the math and the next day's class I get the much-needed practice that ensures I understand the topic. As the article said, “that takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.” Sometimes after doing the homework from the night before I realized I didn't understand something I thought I did, so the next day in class I can ask my teacher for help. So yes homework helps and I don't think we can get rid of it all together I just think sometimes it's the amount given that makes students dread it so much. For example, when I leave school on Friday with 30 math problems or homework for every class I procrastinate more waiting till 10 p.m. on Sunday versus doing it when I get home from school on Friday because I only have five problems and it's easier to just get it over with.
I
When going about my afternoon routine I follow these standard procedures: let the dogs out, start a load of laundry, make a snack, tidy the living room, and finally go upstairs to start on homework. Without my habits, I lapse into hours lost in social media and crime dramas. Despite some evenings of productivity, there is always a crash. Homework is a necessity -- not a passion. I often just dredge through it. It’s just another checkbox to be ticked off. Homework has on rare occasions helped me; in fact I could argue that it’s worsened my performance and mental health.
About two hours into homework I’ll be chugging along just fine -- until I start to feel my crash. Now the time is 8:30 p.m.. I’ve completed chores, helped cook dinner and gotten a good amount of work done. I’m simply exhausted -- mentally and physically. Once I feel the oncoming crash, I have to evaluate what I can live without doing. This not only harms my grades, but my mental state. I don’t have the energy or time to talk to friends, I can’t take just 20 minutes for myself for a break, and I can’t be with my family. Instead I tediously plow through essays and algebra problems, only to wake up feeling less rested than the day before. On paper, I show the standards of a college student, but I only have the social capabilities of a 14 year old -- countless nights were lost staring at blurred papers and blinding computer screens; all because of a learning tool that supposedly assists our futures.
I agree with Mr. Kang when he states that homework helps students learn material. I agree that giving his students a little homework each day is beneficial. Sometimes, we just need a refresher on what we learned in class so we can be prepared to learn something new for the next day. Quick, refreshing homework has helped me understand material and get practice for upcoming tests.
However, this is almost never the case. This semester, my average amount of time spent on homework each night is 4 hours. For four hours each night I have to burn my eyes into the blue light of my computer screen while pouring my thoughts onto a google doc. This is too much. This damages my and other student’s mental health. When did a quick revision of classroom material turn into 4 page packets with 40 questions due the next day? What the author of this passage fails to realize is that they do not have the experience of being a student today. Nowadays, homework is not about learning material. Homework is repetitive busywork we spend our lives doing when we could be exploring our interests and being teenagers.
So, when asked, “Should we get rid of homework?” My answer is yes, and no. We must not end it entirely, rather remind ourselves of what it was originally intended for. We must lower the amount of homework, but still allow room for some of it to help students understand material. This way, us students can be trusted with learning information without the cost of our childhood.
This article fired me up a bit. Stating: ”Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day.”
I disagree heavily. Sure some kids don't have extracurricular activities, but quite a lot have jobs to support themselves or their family. Maybe even huge passions for sports or hobbies they want to continue when they graduate. Sometimes I can get home at 11-12 if I am working a closing shift. Why would I want to do my homework at 12 after I just made ice cream for rude customers and went to school for 7 hours? It is extremely exhausting. There are so many aspects to debate about this topic that I can’t even come to a solution.
Personally, I think homework has done nothing for me educationally, all it does is cause stress to me and creates lack of motivation for other activities. When I choose to study on my own time, doing things my own way that I know I learn the best benefits my knowledge. Let's say I need to study for a history test. Instead of answering lengthy questions assigned by my teacher that will just exasperate me, I make a Quizlet to memorize and establish the terms. This can be different for everyone. Customizing and using my learning styles allows me to excel in my subjects, but doing homework that isn’t catered for me is utterly pointless.
@Isabella, Block 2 Whenever I cannot cater to my learning style, I become frustrated. The times I would come home in 7th grade with my Delta math problems — Begging my dad to help me. In the following moments hot tears would be streaming down my face. Why? Because my dad had learned this math years ago, in a much different style. I felt foolish. Frustrated. Like an idiot. In class, I excelled in my work. At home, I felt helpless.
This is a hard argument; for some they truly don't need the extra practice, but others are simply saying we should not have it because they are lazy. Personally, I don't mind homework as I'm just used to the routine of going home after cross country practice, and doing my work. Honestly it keeps me engaged with the class so as to not forget all the material we went over in the previous class that day. I do not think it is that much of a burden to myself that i would say to get rid of it.
With that being said, the article makes a great point, “ Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly," I am very privileged to be able to say all of that up above. I have an amazing support system at home that other less fortunate students lack. I myself have a unique situation, my father and mother both have PHD's in chemistry and are teachers at the university in my town. Whatever questions I may have about science or math they have an answer for me, this is especially helpful as a sophomore taking chemistry and doubled up on math this year.
@R, Block 2 I 100% agree! Some people do need the extra homework, while others don't, this is a choice I feel each individual should make. Homework being built into routine is great, but sometimes you have to think, is it really helping you or is it wasting your time? I love how you talked about your parents almost playing a role as a teacher for math and science, because it shows you don't need a book or homework to learn things, you can use other people! Great job!
I believe that schools should get rid of homework for students in all grade levels. I agree with students demonstrating the skills they learned in class through various worksheets/activities, but disagree with homework taking that form, as homework adds stress and time-issues for a student. After school activities such as sports and other commitments makes it hard for a student to complete homework, and makes the process monotonous as they have already learned that skill during class. Many recourses have been created to give students answers to homework, which shows disdain for homework among students around the world, which gives more of a reason to end the system of homework as students will not learn material through cheating. Plenty of homework on a certain night can leave students with insufficient sleep, causing them to be tired the next day which can effect them mentally and physically. These mental and physical effects with out-dated homework should be enough for administrations to end homework and continue the learning process in the classroom.
I honestly hate homework . I can understand the thought process that teachers have behind homework. It prepares you for the tests, extra time learning, it gets to things that weren’t taught in class, etc. However, homework should not be given out to students. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of does homework really help students academically excel? Whereas some are convinced that homework is mandatory and should be given out daily, others maintain that homework is not necessary and it adds unnecessary stress to a student. especially the students who is often an athlete, and involved in extracurriculars, etc. The biggest complaint about homework is finding a balance with time. Often, it is difficult for me to feel motivated to complete homework after a long eight-hour school day. Without motivation, a student is in no stable mental mindset to be “practicing” the information learned in class to master it .
I hate homework. The stress I feel every night after coming home from school and work for 12 hours is overwhelming, and many times I’ll stay up until 10 or 11 o’clock just trying to finish all that's due. Even as I'm doing it, I’ll calculate in my head how much of it I could do before class the next day, and then proceed to put it off and sleep. As a high school student, I feel like there's a lot more homework than in previous years, and I mainly believe it’s due to the difficulty of the classes. While I understand that it’s to help us memorize such difficult subjects, many people (myself included) often forget all about the homework immediately after completing it.
This is where I disagree with Mr. Kang’s notion that students feel satisfaction when they understand a concept. For me personally, it’s never about mastery. It’s about completing all of it correctly and getting a good grade. Grades are what let you into good colleges, and good colleges can change the trajectory of your life. Because of this, many people I know never care about mastering a subject. They just care about getting a good enough grade to pass with an A or B. On top of this, most homework is almost the exact same as classwork, only at home. What this can lead to is burnout in school altogether, as it can feel like you’re just doing schoolwork for 16 hours a day.
Despite this, I do think that homework has a place in life, however I think the current model for it causes more harm to students than good.
I disagree with the claim of how we should get rid of homework. The extra practice outside of school is helpful into preparing for tests since, on a test we would not get that extra help. So being able to do the topic completely by yourself and assessing what you know and do not know is crucial to the learning process. But I feel homework can both be beneficial and also overwhelming. Teachers also need to be mindful on what homework they are giving because “busy-work” is not going to benefit me and instead overwhelm me. The homework is only beneficial if it is related completely to the topic and builds on it. Also for me personally, it helps me study and prepares me for the test.
@Arushi Mehta I agree with this so much because homework can be beneficial, but I feel as though some teachers just give out home because they have the ability to do so. Sometimes the home work that's given doesn't even add up to the lesson they taught earlier .
When it comes to helping students learn the material and enthusiastically engage in class, homework does a poor job. As a student, most homework assignments are another menial task I mindlessly complete for a grade. When I actually do learn, it's all within the classroom, when I have a teacher there to help explain the concepts. As the article says, beyond just being pointless, homework is also a legitimate issue for students who lack a free schedule, or are employed with a difficult shift. When these students look after their more important responsibilities, they are punished by the school for “forgetting” to do their homework, which I think is wrong.
If I had to make a case for homework to stay, I would raise a personal anecdote in which homework has improved my character and taught me a lesson. As a commissions artist, I have to hold myself to a schedule to deliver art to people on time, which forces me to have a level of discipline and the ability to plan. Homework taught me that even if I find something challenging or boring, I should still hold myself accountable to complete it on time if it’s my responsibility.
I have never been a homework kind of guy, I don't go home and get excited about doing the homework. When the school day ends my mind is just done thinking about school and is on to sports. After football practice has ended and I'm going home I'm tired and just want to eat and go to bed. This is why I feel like teachers should get rid of homework because it causes stress and no kid goes home and thinks about doing there homework.
I can understand the thought process that teachers have behind homework. It prepares you for the tests, extra time learning, it gets to things that weren’t taught in class, etc. However, homework should not be given out to students. Most if not all high school students have either a sport, club or job after school. Some have two jobs, just to help provide for their family. Others are in varsity sports training for D1 colleges. We go to school everyday for 6 to 7 hours, and then are expected to continue teaching ourselves with busy work, after that full day of school. Most of the time, combining all 8 periods, kids will go home with hours of work, and on top of that, have to study for tests as well. Personally, the way I study is very different then filling out a homework sheet, so I would have to do both. I think students should not be given busy work for homework, but should be expected to study and prepare for tests still. Some teachers assign homework that takes hours to complete and make it due the next day. Students that have jobs or sports sometimes don’t have time to complete that with one days notice. The harsh expectations for students on homework makes it so that the students are pushing themselves and working hard all day, to having to push themselves even harder to stay up and complete busy work rather than getting good sleep, spending time with family, or just resting. High school is hard enough already. Teachers need to realize that before assigning extra work.
As a Junior in high school this year I strongly presume that homework is not always beneficial. I have 7 classes a day, test in each class almost every other week, not to mention working a job and doing a sport. Most of the time when I conclude school I think of having to memorializing things and then taking a test and never remembering what I so called “learned” because it’s on to the next topic because it’s all for that good grade. I’m not saying homework is all bad I do consider the benefits of it but I feel like it should be optional for extra practice. Like if your struggling in a class you might be asked to do the homework and show the teacher but if you are fit by the class why would we make kids do extra work, when they could be spending time with family and friends or just taking a mental break. We burn kids out and then wounded why kids are struggling and hate school.
I think that teachers should get rid of homework because for some students it gives them so much stress to deal with if they have other work to do for other classes. If I had to say I honestly don't think it benefits anyone very much, I would rather go home and study for what we did in class that day then have to do homework and study for it.
When it comes to the topic of homework, most of us will readily agree that teachers need to stop giving homework. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of does homework really help students academically excel? Whereas some are convinced that homework is mandatory and should be given out daily, others maintain that homework is not necessary and it adds unnecessary stress to a student. My take on this topic is that homework should be given to students— however, a limited amount. I’ve heard some of my peers spend countless hours doing homework the whole day. We have to keep in mind, especially at this age— the amount of other activities students have going on in their life’s. While I’ve never really personally experienced having an excess amount of homework, it’s definitely an issue many students are mentally and even physically suffering with repeatedly. Teachers need to maintain a healthy schedule of giving homework, studying and in class work.
I think we should get rid of homework. At the end of the school day all I want to do is go home and take a nap because of how tired I am. Homework just adds on extra stress that we don’t need. In class is enough time to help me succeed in the topic we’re learning and personally I don’t need outside of school work. Of course studying for tests and quizzes should still be required as for “homework” but we don’t need extra assignments that we could easily do in class. I never understood the point of homework because truthfully, most students at home are going to ask others for answers or they can easily search them up so it’s not like we’re learning anything from homework anyways.
Homework should be handed out to students but in the form of extra classwork. It avoids some stress students face, and it also helps avoid inequalities in student mastery of topics. It has become counterproductive because it stresses students out and adds to possible anxiety. While Mr. Kang is correct that homework has some educational value, sending out the work as unfinished classwork to help students with their understanding and to prevent the stress of it seeming like the students were assigned a lot of work. When getting home, I immediately go straight to work and finish everything, but it adds to my stress and means I have less free time to relax. The work gets tedious after a while, and it stops being so effective and becomes detrimental. It is valuable to students in higher grades, but this stacks on unfinished classwork, and lessens the free time that students have to try new experiences and unwind. For homework to be effective, it should be assigned in fewer amounts, considering all the classes that students get homework from. As a teacher, I would assign homework, but would not assign much to prevent students from being so anxious about the work.
The only people who used to criticize the practice of assigning homework were students. For many years, parents and educators believed that assigning homework was an essential part of educating kids. However, research on the effectiveness of homework has produced conflicting and ambiguous results, prompting some adults to urge that it should be abolished.
Parents today are too preoccupied with their duties to manage their families as well. They frequently struggle to impart knowledge on the subjects to their students. These elements allow a student alone to learn and complete homework.
The following day, when these kids return to class, their teachers could discipline or reprimand them for their poor performance. We cannot say that homework is not important; it certainly is; however, this does not imply that it is overly required. People call for the elimination of homework since it causes so many different issues for both children and their parents.
**THIS ONLY APPLIES TO AGES 11-17**
I believe that homework in itself should not be given, but schoolwork should also happen outside of the classroom. The idea of homework is a very stressful one for a student, especially senior students. Imagine having to come home and having to continue doing work that is due the next day, or imagine if you were a 16 year old teen. You're just about to go to college, but you need funds. However, you have so much homework to complete, and this takes time out of your after-school job. You lose money, and if you don't complete your work, you get yelled at by teachers. Lose-lose. Nevertheless, I do believe that schoolwork should be worked on outside of class. Homework should instead be replaced with optional revision. At this age, it is vital that students learn to take control of their own learning. Furthermore, it is also vital that students learn to deal with the consequences of not finishing work. This is why I believe that homework should be replaced with optional revision; because students need to take hold of their own future.
Students should not be given homework; it played out and causes extra stress. Some people have a life outside of school and want to enjoy and learn other things. Also most students work and do after school activities and are tired after, then going to sleep knowing you have something due is the worst feeling ever. I think homework should be a quick review if it's not given anything extra and it shouldn't be given everyday. Homework is putting stress on kids and not everyone has time to sit and do a whole bunch of homework for each class
@P, Block 2 yes , homework is very unnecessary work and it just give student the stress they shouldn't need a young age . homework don't give students time to live their life without being to stressful or staying up late for homework , which is messed up .
I don't think we should have homework, at least not as much. I do think it is necessary if there is work from class that you did not finish or get to during class time. For me, I have a harder time learning things on my own than when I have a visual example of something.
In the article Mr. Kang says "homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day." I disagree with this. This may go along with younger kids, but as you get into high school many kids have a lot to do after school, for example: work, sports, or any other plans they have, which is all topped off with homework each night. I have practice every day after school, causing me to get home around 6:30. When I do finally get home, I get a feeling of relaxation until I realize I have homework I need to get done. Sometimes I have an hour or two of homework per night, which can be a lot to do when you're really tired.
I think y'all should get rid of SOME homework. At least make it fun, let us show creativity while learning, and enjoy it. There shouldn't be as much either. I do think it is bad for some students because not all students have the time, wifi, or anything needed to do it. At the same time, it is good for education even though it's hard to admit. It has helped me get better at reading and learn better in math. At home, I usually study if needed or do homework my own way. Sometimes in math there is too much but it helps me understand it and see if I can do it by myself. Grade level does matte because the older you get you have to be responsible and the grades and subjects get harder. I’m not sure of a way to make it more effective but I would say do the thing I said earlier about what I would like about the homework. If I was a teacher I would assign homework. I would at the same time let’s kids take their own notes and stuff like that. I would do it their own way but at the same time the right way.
@Alyssa I am a big believer in only doing work that will help you. If you don't understand something; you should practice it, and if you feel comfortable with a subject, then extra practice isn't always necessary. One thing I can agree with in your writing is that teachers should make homework more fun and creative oppose to a bunch of papers or online work that tends to become routine.
i feel that homework is necessary for many classes, some math classes are expected to teach the students an enourmous amount before the end of the year, thats why some final tests have stuff you werent taught, but for classes like english and marketing or other types of one off classes that arent given finals by the county homework is unnecessary and is a waste of time that can be avoided by simply not assigning them
I believe that homework should exist by choice. As a student, I acknowledge the benefits of homework, but I am also aware of the unnecessary stress it may cause. For example, I am the type of student who always does their homework, classwork, and any extra credit possible. While this is an admired quality by teachers, sometimes the homework assignment is pointless. I value homework for the following reasons: it helps me solidify what I learned in class, it serves as a review, and it allows me to utilize the ‘spacing effect’ to help me remember the information in the long term. I agree with Mr. Kang when he says that kids need to practice material in order to master it. This can sometimes cause stress for the student, who is often an athlete, involved in extracurriculars, etc. The biggest complaint about homework is finding a balance with time. Often, it is difficult for me to feel motivated to complete homework after a long seven-hour school day. Without motivation, a student is in no stable mental mindset to be “practicing” the information learned in class to master it. While numerous studies show that homework completion improves academic performance, one needs to consider the fact that we have to wake up early, take tests, learn, go to practice (if a student-athlete), go to work (if applicable), then complete homework. This leaves little time for a teenager, (who is still a child) to spend time with family.
@Natalie Correia I agreed, many classes have unecessary homework that only serve to stress students that will gain no additional knowledge on the subject but still threaten grades that are necessary to pass
I believe that we should get rid of homework. The article states that the work prepares children for the monotony of real life and helps them develop certain skills, however many children stress out over their work and it prevents them from doing their best simply because they wish for the work to be done. Additionally, practice may make perfect, though there are children who understand the topic, ergo why should they practice a topic over and over again if they already demonstrate understanding? That would not be fair. In my opinion, children should have homework if they demonstrate confusion toward the topic. Those who understand should not need to do additional work.
I think that when it comes to improving, mastering, or learning,homework is a must.
Homework helps the students to develop self confidence. Sometimes there is not only the pressure to finish quickly in the classroom, due to the amount of material that has to be reviewed, but also the feeling of competition with other students. I agree with Mr.Kang that homework still has real educational value. Homework helps us to clear doubts as we practice more exercises at home. Finishing a project, checking our notes, doing research, rereading what we can not understand in class etc. At home we work without the rush, therefore we can enhance our learning skills. I love homework, and if I were a teacher, I would definitely give homework to my students. Not much but enough to help them improve their skills. Having good communication with the parents of students to work as a team, could be a way to do this more efficiently or directly with the students if they are in high school or university.
It seems that this debate will never end to attract parents, teachers and professors. The opinions are divided on the issue of homework. There are those who believe that children do everything at school. However, for others, homework helps them to understand data that they have not assimilated in the classroom and makes them more responsible. What is my personal opinion?
Practice makes perfect. I can not imagine a school without homework. I am among the educators for whom school must help children to become independent. Working alone is also a way to help students to become more responsible. The school must help the student to move from dependence to maturity. Homework is of paramount importance. The teacher must make a gradual transfer of responsibility. Provided that the homework really makes the learners progress, teachers work with the learner and challenge the learner. When I was at school, I used to do my homework. I liked doing that too because It was always beneficial. When you do your best to have a solution to a problem you know better than when the people do it all the time for you. At school I did all my homework. I worked without good results, I failed and I started again until I passed. When I worked by myself, I learned a lot of things.
Definitely we can not have school without homework. Students need to perform and be responsible. They need to grow in maturity. They learn better by practicing at home.
I don't believe that homework should be completely eliminated. Homework can be helpful in the sense that it can be used to prepare for upcoming tests. Homework assignments that involve practice questions and studying notes/definitions should be used. However, homework assignments that just involve busy work should not be given to students for completion. I complete about 4-5 hours of homework each night. I believe that this is way too much homework that is expected of me each night. Some assignments are useful in preparing me for assessments and class time while others are not. If I were a teacher, I would give assignments that I believe would be beneficial to helping my students prepare for tests. Resources that I would provide would be featured on assessments to make sure that my students would be prepared.
I’m going to be honest, homework sometimes is a stressful thing, but I can’t imagine how I would have developed my English study without it. As a student I consider homework is a fundamental chore in the process of our learning. Doing homework makes me gain new knowledge and improve my abilities as well such as new ideas on how to be more responsible. Also, it helps me reinforce my family relationships and friendship when I have to share some ideas with them and they give me some points of view about and sometimes we start to discuss and we often end up laughing. Moreover, through it we have the chance to make good friends that can last our lifetime. I do not believe without homework I learned something about English because all I know about is thanks to the assignment given by my teachers.
I do not think schools should get rid of homework. Homework can actually be a great way to review material and prepare for upcoming tests and exams. Homework has been given a very bad stigma and this might be because of a few reasons like the amount of homework given and the material it is on. Homework should be for review, so giving extreme amounts defeats the purpose and giving new material for homework doesn't seem reasonable. But, if the right homework is given, I think it is very useful and should be kept in schools.
I don't believe schools should get rid of homework , instead I believe its best to get rid the amount of homework and work load is given to do at home. Homework helps with revising the topic in class and helps student practice and understand the topic more. But many assignments are given at once can cause stress and is best to reduce the amount being given
I do not believe schools should get rid of homework, however I believe it should be optional and points should be rewarded for doing the assignment, if the student does not do the assignment it should not impact their grade. I believe that homework should be optional because doing assignments reflects upon how much the student actually cares about their grade. For example, there are students who do not care about their grades and don’t do the assignments which causes the teacher to assign extra homework for the whole class because a few individuals need practice that they won’t do anyways. A student might already have a very solid understanding of a concept and the class in general, and they just don’t need the extra work. However, if the student with a solid understanding wants to get more practice or improve their grade they can do the homework and be rewarded points.
I don't think we should get rid of homework here's why. Because if we get rid of homework we increase the amount of stress teachers have and the amount of work we have to do cause all the work we could be doing at home would have to be done in class. Instead what we should do is make homework optional for people who have above a B+ because first that causes kids to want to work harder so they don't have to do homework and the kids who have homework opinional want to keep it that way so they work to do so.
@kendo I agree when you said, "Instead what we should do is make homework optional for people who have above a B+ because first that causes kids to want to work harder so they don't have to do homework and the kids who have homework opinional want to keep it that way. What do you think would happen if they did give up homework for everyone?
Despite my fervent dislike of homework, I do agree with Kang that homework still has some educational value. I’ve seen firsthand the benefits of “extra practice” that homework provides, but this is as far as I support this argument. Roughly three quarters of my additional homework is what I consider “carry-over assignment completion:” homework assignments that only exist because the class ran too short or we need to complete it in order to be on schedule for the following day. For these assignments, I believe the purpose of homework is spun on its side, and is forcing me to work more than it’s encouraging me to learn. This is the cornerstone of the counter argument—of which I strongly agree with—to Kang’s writing. Despite agreeing with the counter, I believe that the real issue that isn’t focused on enough is the reason the homework is being assigned. If a particular course needs to assign external work in order to stay on pace, perhaps the curriculum of said course must be adjusted in order to fit the most crucial lessons into the class and focus homework on practice instead of work completion. Or, perhaps the course needs to better understand the time going into certain homework assignments in order to help students maximize their time on lessons the classes tend to struggle in.
I agree that homework should still exist, but in my experience I think homework could be slightly altered to provide a more engaging assignment for students. I mostly use my homework as a means of reviewing for an upcoming test or understanding on my own the class material provided. I feel homework should not have any weight to it, and rather it just be a means of review if a student so chooses to do it. Teachers can offer a few points for completing an assignment, but should not penalize those who do not. However, this change will cause students to have to hold themselves accountable if they believe they do not need to do the homework.
While I think homework can be annoying and time-consuming, it is also essential in helping students reinforce ideas they have learned in class. For this reason, I think we should keep homework. I think homework is most effective when used as a review or to finish up classwork that was not completed in time. If teachers focused more on sending home supplemental materials rather than new concepts, I think students would strengthen their understanding of in-class concepts at home. If I were a teacher I would assign homework to help reinforce in-class concepts. I would carefully pick review problems so that students could get the most out of their work in a timely fashion. This way, I would be giving my students the opportunity to grow their skills at home, while not assigning a burdening workload.
I think that schools give too much homework and I sometimes feel that I study more things at home as homework than I do at school. Teachers shouldn't get rid of homework because it allows students to practice different skills to acquire them. Nevertheless, teachers could give less homework, that way students will be less stressed and they could do their homework of better quality because they have the time.
@Agapi I totally agree that schools give way to much home work. I love that you said if the teachers gave less homework the students would be less stressed and have better quality on other things.
I think we should have less homework but not get rid of it because it helps us learn responsibilities.
I would say sometimes it can be ineffective because students will just try to breeze through it but I think it is still helpful. I agree with the authors because if it is something online that requires wifi some students my not be able to do it outside of class.
I understand his point but I think its a mix of both the authors and Mr. Kang.
I do all of it that I have because I don't like to have things hanging over my head. I think it can be overwhelming but I feel better when it is done. I think it is somewhat important to my learning experience.
I think its a lot more valuable to younger kids. They have a lot more free time on their hands and it is an important time in their brain development and learning.
We will never be able to make it effective for everyone I believe.
I would assign homework but not an unreasonable amount. It wouldn't be busy work.
One ritual I have is before bed i facetime my best friend to talk about our days. This is a ritual to me and makes me happy because I enjoy talking to her about the things we experienced throughout the day. Me and her have been doing it for years, I enjoy talking to her, especially when we can't hangout, we do everything together so it just makes sense. It is important for me to do this because If I go long periods of time without talking to her I begin to miss her. Doing this improves my life because I have someone to talk to whenever I want, and I have someone I can rely on on a daily basis.
Schools shouldn't entirely eliminate homework, because it provides many benefits such as enforcing practicing a skill until perfected and there definitely are academic benefits to doing homework. I think many forms of homework are repetitive and ineffective, but some such as unit reviews are very beneficial and I do agree with Mr. Kang's point that homework can be beneficial. I usually only have one worksheet each night and an ongoing project looming over me. I think this amount is appropriate because I get enough done in school and have things to do outside of school like working. I think homework assignments that are assigned in units and worked on throughout the class and outside of class are the most effective because students have that time in class to get help from classmates or the teacher. If I was a teacher I would teach by that principal and try to limit work outside of the classroom.
This topic I have mixed feelings about. I feel like this is a very debated topic depending on what teacher you have. Although homework can be very tiring sometimes it is a good to make sure you know what you just learned but in my opinion when I finish 8 hours of school and when I get home the last thing I want to do is sit down and do 2 hours of homework everyday. I feel like the most effective way of fixing this problem would be if you don’t understand the work there should be options to do practice work, but if you understand it why should you have to stress about finishing it. Since at a young age we have been taught to do our homework at night and if we don’t do it then we will get points taken off or it will lower our grade. I remember getting ready for bed many times and remembering about all of the homework that I haven’t done that is due tomorrow and now I am stresssing about it. Why have all of this stress on us students and students staying up late trying to finish all of there homework.
I believe if homework is assigned just for the teacher to give "busy work," that it is not needed and should simply not be given. However, if a teacher is giving homework to reinforce a topic we learned in class, then I believe it is productive. I don't mind getting homework so that I can practice my knowledge. But, sometimes it is evident that a teacher is assigning the work just to give the kids something to do. I believe that the load of work should be minimized, and teachers should consider the work given to us by other teachers.
Mr. Kang states that the evidence about the effectiveness of homework is pretty scattered. Some sources say it helps students to learn and there isn't too much work, while other studies say too much homework can be harmful to a student's mental health. As a student, I find myself stressing about work a lot. I spend almost every night after school flooded with homework, and I don't usually finish until about 7:30 pm, leaving me with almost no time to hang out with my family. On top of athletics and a 7 hour school day, I find myself burnt-out, almost. I can't focus as well as I used to before I had all of this work, and it takes me more time to get it done. While homework has is negatives, I feel we should keep it, but have it reduced. Homework has helped in ways such as boosting my grade, and improving my understanding of a subject.
Sophomore year consists of missing every high school football game for nasty ole homework.
As much as I agree homework can be beneficial its not the same for everyone. Right now in all my classes I receive the same work as everyone else. The problem with this is that we all aren't the same meaning we aren't all having trouble in the same class. I enjoy having homework in classes such as math because it's the hardest class for me so repeating problems has helped me remember the order the problem goes in. Some kids have trouble in English but are amazing at math so the homework is not benefiting them the same way it is for me. Since English is an easier class for me, receiving homework can be looked at as something I can breeze through as I am more concerned about my math homework.
Since we all have different strengths and weaknesses I believe that the students and teachers should meet two times a quarter to discuss how the student is doing and If they need extra work like homework. They would discuss the students grades and overall work ethic per class.
This can also help me determine my nights load of work so I know if I can hang out with family and friends or If I need to stay home.
To me, the need of homework is a very discussable topic.
My original thought of homework was that it is a necessity, but after reading this article furthermore and receiving the amount of homework that I do, I've come to a different conclusion; homework is only necessary for those who need it. Mr. Kang believes that all kids need to learn to practice things, and homework is the most efficient way of doing so because it is an inevitable practice in most cases. Homework isn't always counterproductive, but it can be when people have certain extracurriculars such as sports for example. If the only purpose of homework was to practice something, then I think it should be for the people who have no extracurriculars and basically do nothing when they leave school. I don't particularly like homework due to it being very time consuming and stressful since I typically start it late because of my tight schedule. In the letters to the editor, a reader says "Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel." I feel that you don't need homework to excel, it's just a matter of needing it or not. Personally, if I were a teacher I'd have assignments available for practice if needed, but nothing mandatory.
If getting rid of homework is equivalent to decrease in stress, increase in sleep and time with family, then I agree we should get rid of homework. I feel as if homework is just a pile of stress that we pull out of our backpacks and is brought into our home. Meaning, I feel as if stress is being brought into our homes onto ourselves. I honestly think homework is a counterproductive tool for learning. Not only that, but I agree with the statement that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students' home circumstances. For instance, the article states, “Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame.” This is saying that the process of perfecting the skill of learning perfectly is really difficult. Personally, when I get home, I try to get as much homework done as possible. However, it can sometimes interfere with my home life. For instance, sometimes I don't have time to hang out with my family or do some of the things my family is doing because I am stuck doing homework. I feel as if homework has taken a lot of my time and I would rather do my work at school instead of bringing it home. Further, I feel as if my home is a place I can come to to cry or to my comfort, and I dislike the fact that homework is brought into that, for it stresses me out.
I think we shoudn’t get rid of homework because, personally for me, homework makes me better at what I’m learning. I do think that homework should be kept at an easy-challenging way. Homework can be beneficially for students if it’s not so hard to understand. I feel like homework is practice but at home. In my defense though, homework should not be self-taught. If homework were to be self-taught, then it’s a burden for the students because they don’t know what they are doing most of the time and they tend to give up which makes them lazy to do homework for the rest of the time.
I think we should not get rid of homework. As much as we all dislike it, it has major benefits in helping you learn and understand more. I think if we are going to have homework we just need to change the way we use homework. When I get home from school I have around 15-30 min of homework, sometimes around an hour. I think that is a fine amount of time, sometimes more is okay but roughly an hour is plenty so you can fit leisure work and other activities around it because homework is only so important it makes you smarter but there are other skills you can’t always learn from homework. The best way to make homework more effective is to incentivize it so if you do the homework you get something or my personal favorite. If you have a good enough grade in the class you are exempt from the homework so it makes you want to have the best grade which usually means doing your homework.
I think we should not get rid of homework. As much as we all dislike it, it has major benefits with helping you learn and understand more. I think if we are going to have homework we just need to change the way we use homework. When I get home from school I have around 15-30 min of homework, sometimes around an hour. I think that is a fine amount of time, sometimes more is okay but roughly an hour is plenty so you can fit leisure work and other activities around it because homework is only so important it makes you smarter but there are other skills you can’t always learn from homework. The best way to make homework more effective is to incentivize it so if you do the homework you get something or my personal favorite. If you have a good enough grade in the class you are exempt from the homework so it makes you want to have the best grade which usually means doing your homework.
Homework is pointless. I go to school for nine hours just to come home and have to do more school. How does that make sense? Mr. Kang says that from a teacher’s point of view homework has educational value because it can create a routine for younger kids. I’m not a younger kid, I’m in high school. Homework shouldn’t consume all of my free time out of school. I should have time to do things unrelated to school. However, if I have a test coming up and a teacher gives me a study guide for homework I think it’s helpful. I can see how homework can help to create a sense of responsibility when you’re growing up. Once you’re in high school you should already have responsibility and not have to show it through homework completion. When homework works towards something like a test or to help you master a skill it’s meaningful. In my math class, sometimes I understand everything and sometimes I know nothing. When I know nothing I may need homework to help me learn. I don’t need homework for my Spanish class or any other electives I take, only for core classes with a reason behind them.
Seventh grade. English class. Animal Farm. Every night I endured 2 hours of grueling worksheets. Busy work. The worst part of school and the most ineffective. What point is there to reciting useless facts on 10 different worksheets every week? Students don't need that. If there is going to be homework, at least assign homework that will not put students to sleep or teach information that will go in one ear and out the other. Almost every night while doing the English homework, I fell asleep with my head on the table until 1 am. Even though my English class wasn't particularly boring in school, but at home, I wanted nothing more than to put those worksheets in the shredder and forget they existed.
Not only did English homework kill me, but every subject had hours of homework every night, reciting useless facts we already learned in class. This is why I 100% agree when Mr. Kang says repetition is not important with homework and speaks to it in a negative connotation. Repetition homework took time away from my social life and other things that I enjoy doing, such as soccer. Without these hours there is pointless homework every night. I could be focusing my energy on parts of my life that positively impact me. So case in point, homework, or at least busy work, needs to go away to make room for students to live their lives before they have to become an adult with hundreds of responsibilities.
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Part 1
My paper has goopy wet marks from crying over my despicable enemy; math homework. The formulas smile and laugh at me, knowing my teacher refused (forgot) to teach it to us before assigning it. I’ve tried google and khan academy, both leaving me empty handed. How am I supposed to know how to isolate the variable and take the log of each side without being taught? I try to break my pencil, but its wood is too strong, and so is my fear of splinters. So instead, I do all 24 questions wrong, being more lost on the subject of logarithmic equations than I was before.
Turns out it was just something we forgot to cover in class, and hindsight made me feel extremely embarrassed for my overreaction the night before. Despite this dramatic story, homework is useful, teaching us the perseverance that comes with practicing, and helpful- when given correctly. However, a main aspect to homework’s actual success in these fields is open communication between teacher and student. As mentioned in the article, socio-economic status affects homework completion, as well as various school life factors. Mr. Kang offers a more conceptualist approach against the counter article, stressing the importance of practice and mastery.
Both require the student to advocate for themselves to the teacher. The former requires students to be vocal about their situation while the latter requires students to give their teacher feedback on their homework, if it’s benefiting them.
@M, Block 4
Part 2
Both require teacher's acknowledgment. I felt discouraged as my teacher seemed exasperated when I tried telling her what I didn’t understand on the homework, but it was beneficial to bring to their attention, as we were able to go over it in class.
Homework is important because it teaches students valuable lessons such as time management (enforced through policies against late work), communication, and self awareness of what you're struggling with.
When we are talking about homework we have to know that this terminology means “activities for the student at home with a specific time” but based on my experience, it is different to handle this being an adult or a child.
As far as I am concerned, when you are an adult and you are studying something you are aware of how much it can help you to improve your knowledge and also you know the advantage to keep your brain working on this topic throughout the day. On the other hand, when you are an adult you have to deal with other duties. Sometimes you have to work, take care of your family or do other things, etc. Therefore, you don’t have time to do your homework frequently. In my opinion the professor and student have to find a balance where the topic and the amount are considerable to work in the free time and the student can improve and learn with this homework.
As a student, it's easy to say (and to wish) we should get rid of homework but reading this article reminded me of the lessons and qualities it holds. As the article mentions, it does teach responsibility and time management which is a necessity in "the real world". Especially if you have sports or extracurricular activities. I also agree with the fact that, the homework that has no academic point is useless and that's what we should get rid of. Homework that actually helps develop the understanding of a topic and doesn't completely overwell or overtake all of the little free time we have, is the homework we can keep.
In my opinion and in my experience, I like when classes don't give homework (daily) and assign work in class but give you the opportunity to work on it at home. It gives you a reason to get the work done in class so you don't have extra later. You could absolutely argue that you should give homework on top of all the work so they have that reason to get it done in class but that's just adding to the mountain of other work and obligations.
I appreciate math homework because most of the time you can't always grasp the subject in class. It gives me the opportunity to look back and understand it in peace and quiet. Other subjects like english, history or science are all really in class or study type classes. You can do selective work at home but there's really no need for major amounts of homework.
Homework is always talked upon by parents, teachers, and students. Homework is definitely something kids should get, to practice what they are learning in class to become better as Mr. Kang said. Although, sometimes the work they give is just too much work because some nights I'm doing 2+ hours of homework. For me, it is too much work on top of a 7-hour school day. According to the effects researched by a Stanford researcher, many teachers need to take into account what he/she found, many students spend 3.1 hours on homework each night. That's just way too much work, as it causes a lot of stress when trying to complete the work and puts a lot of pressure when trying to complete it. This is why many students or 56% of students don't do well when it comes to homework and then class. For me, the number one cause of students not doing well in school is because of the reduction in sleep caused by the time spent doing homework. Leading to the effect of exhaustion, weight loss, headaches, and sleep deprivation. I disagree with Mr. Kang because when homework affects students in this way, it has no educational value. Doing more harm to yourself than good. Is there a way to make homework more effective? Most definitely, but according to the articles I've read, it looks as if homework has gotten very ineffective toward school and effective in our daily life/health.
@Dylan, 4th block
Part 2
That's why, as a teacher, I’d never give out homework. Letting them spend the rest of their day to themselves, because their life doesn't revolve just around school, they also have family, sports, friends, and extracurricular pursuits to attend/hang out with.
I believe the removal of homework would both play beneficial roles and limit our learning. Without work at home, students can explore different extracurricular activities without having the stress of countless assignments and studying each night. These students may have the time to develop new hobbies and habits that they cannot do as of now. But, on the other hand, homework arises many little benefits that we may not even recognize. It allows students to practice over and over again to perfect a topic, which is a common lesson in our society. Furthermore, it helps us create timing methods that help us succeed in life, whether it prevents procrastination or it highlights our priorities. Therefore, homework has a balance of both helping factors and limiting factors.
(Part 1 of 2)
The very controversial debate of “homework” comes with a huge variety of pros and cons, yet homework shouldn’t be completely compulsory, it should be lessened. Much of school is just busy work: no learning is being done, simply just a waste of time and thought, so why carry it home, to spend every last hour of free time after school working on more useless work, if the work won't be bettering us academically?
I have a very busy life outside of school. No matter the circumstances, no one should have more than 2 hours of homework a night. Going to school for 7 hours, then going home to piles of homework on top of extracurriculars causes a lot of stress. After school should be time strictly dedicated to family bonding. Giving a lot of homework easily disrupts these bonds: stressing to finish a pile of assignments on time, while the rest of my family is hanging out, maybe watching a movie in the living room together. How is that fair? To me, it's not.
While the cons of homework are very crucial, sometimes it can be beneficial. Like Mr. Kang said, homework does still have real educational value, just not always. Necessary homework shouldn't feel like you're doing homework. Small sheets of math practice, reading, writing, studying, and unfinished classwork are necessary homework that could actually benefit my knowledge.
@Mia Block 4
(Part 2 of 2)
Over an hour in class is plenty of time to teach a lesson and get a good start to an assignment.
Homework could be more effective if teachers put more effort into deciding whether or not the assignment will educate the student and create a better performance in their work. If teachers really feel like the miscellaneous assignments are effective, create a study hall class, so we can have the opportunity to lessen the amount of time spent on homework after school. There's many ways to make this more effective for teachers and students. The large weight of homework should be dramatically reduced.
Part 1
With only 1 hour and 25 minutes in a class per day, I think that homework is a good tool to continue learning outside of the parameters of school. Yet, I think that the amount of work given can be too much.
For me, homework, in Chemistry and Math, has helped me since repetition helps get formulas and procedures in my head. And the amount given by those teachers seems to be just right, usually a 1 worksheet with a few questions. But for English, homework for me is seen as a chore since it's something that I think I know and writing has no specific parameters to how long it's supposed to be -in the case of these NYT prompts-. This comment is a revision of my previous one on this prompt. So in this case my homework has benefited me since I was able to see how uninterested and unfocused my writing was and the improve upon that. One example of how homework is a negative for me is that last night me, my family, and a family friend went to the beach for a light up kite festival, but I wasn't able to finish my work before we left. Because of this, my thoughts were occupied with wanting to get it done. We then got home late so while I was trying to fall asleep I thought, again, about how I have to do it the next day. Another example is how we don't know when or how much homework is going to be given. Because of this my plans with friends may be interrupted since the unknown homework is then abruptly assigned.
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I agree. I always love having a clean cut schedule for my homework and knowing around how long everything will take. When I haven't completed all my homework, time spent away from working on it is wasted on stressing over it. As I move on to the next semester, I'm going to try to keep a healthier relationship with my homework and open conversations with my teachers about it. I do love revisions as improvement is always satisfying, but when piled up loads of math and AP World homework, everything seems like a chore and has lost its interest and passion. I think homework is best in moderation and consideration; moderation so as to not stress nor overwhelm us and consideration, thought from teachers to allow us to practice what they think is most useful and not just "busywork".
@Beau, Block 4 So I stand on the idea that homework is useful but it can get in the way of personal life.
The beginning of the article asks if homework has taught you a sense of responsibility, and I think it has. I do my homework right when I get home, so since I've done that from such a young age it's taught me that sense of responsibility and independence, therefore I think that is one positive thing that homework has taught me. Another statement made in the article is “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?”. The author of that article says there's a lot of value in that statement, I don't think so. Now yes, there is a lot of pointless work you are going to do in your life but that's not something that you should teach with homework. It's not a good example to set because kids and us teenagers will start to see homework that way therefore they are going to want to do it less and less. So, I agree with what Mr. Kang said that homework has a good educational value, but disagree with the idea that, even if the homework is busywork or pointless, we should do it since “you will have to get used to it”.
In discussions of homework being given in schools, one controversial issue has been if we should be getting rid of homework or not. On the one hand, Jessica McCrory Calarco (“sociologist”), Ilana Horn and Grace Chen (“both math education scholars”) argue in a paper they all created that homework creates a competitive sense that depends on how much resources they can get for learning which reflect on their own homework. This is a bad quality of homework. On the other hand, Jay Caspian Kang (“parent and teacher”) contends how homework not only is a way for kids to learn things but a way for them to keep good habits of having the ability to practice which will then help with structure in the classroom and future. This is a good quality of homework. Others even maintain that homework can be seen either as a waste of time, busy work or become detrimental to people’s mental health. My own view is that I feel that we should still keep homework as it helps students stay on top of the material taught in class during school but teachers should be mindful of how much they give each day. Teachers should allow students to have the time to work on it in class with also making homework due later on in the week so it gives them a sufficient amount of time to work on it as students have busy schedules.
We should get rid of homework.Homework only causes problems.If we didn’t have homework school would be less stressful and students would do better in school.Because they would not need to worry about missing something.Also,they would have more time to do more fun things outside of school.
I think we should get rid of homework and do the exercises at school during a special hour on the last day of the week, when everyone does his own homework and there is an adult to help or when students help each other learn for the next test. Technically you don't get rid of homework but you do it at school with help and you are free to do everything you want at home.
Homework is sometimes necessary and helpuful. For example, there is many instances that the teacher doesn't manage to teach the daily material, so in order no to be any "blank space" about the material, he/she puts the rest of it as a homerowrk. Also, homework is helpuful for a student, because by doing it, he/she can find thing that he/she didn't understand and study them more.
Despite how I dislike homework, it is undeniable how it is helpful in learning the material we are trying to learn at school and it can give us practice on the things we want to master. I don't believe it to be something to remove due to how without it, kids may become behind on their understanding of their material without that practice at home. However, at the same time, homework has the effect of stressing out students greatly, with how they can easily be overwhelmed of its quantity and the due dates that are set for it. It's these two factors combined with how it affects our grade to a good degree that causes distress to the students who have to finish it. It also leads to said homework being rushed for the sake of getting it done rather than trying to really understand what the subject is about. I believe that one way to make homework effective is to not make it have as much weight on students' grades. Whether it's by making it something which is optional and can be done for the sake of practice or making it not have as much impact on our grades, I believe that to make it something that doesn't stress students as much will be helpful for their stress but also give them an opportunity to continue to practice the things they are learning at school.
@Takuma Fukumoto I agree with the idea that when students have a lot of homework they tend to rush through. That then results in poor work, nothing learned and possibly developing bad habits.
Homework is helpful, I can’t deny that, it helps widen our knowledge but it doesn’t mean that we should have a lot of it. Homework does one thing and one thing only: stresses students out. We already spend most of our day in school and all we wish is to get home and rest but we can’t because of all the homework that is given to us. Some teachers give students a lot of homework thinking we have a lot of time when we have homework from other classes and quizzes/tests to study for. Yes, homework may help us be more intelligent or understand classes better but it affects us mentally and emotionally. Students have many mental breakdowns during the day because of the stress of finishing homework on time or doing it correctly in order to get a good grade.
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Personally I do not like to do homework because it takes a long time and I don’t get to do other things I want to do for fun like playing sports and hanging out with friends. We already are in school for 7 hours and about 10 if you’re doing a sport. Homework should be optional because of all the stress we already face- but you could do it if you wanted more practice. However, homework can both prepare you for the test and help you master the topic. All in all I think homework should be optional because we are already at school for 7 hours a day, we have enough things to deal with, and if you really want to learn the material then you can do it but if you don’t need to then you shouldn’t have to do it.
I do believe that in order for students to understand concepts, they have to be practiced, however homework needs to be regulated for students. Personally, because of the amount of homework I get I often feel like my academics completely take over my life, including my personal life outside of school. I go home after being at school for 7-8 hours just to get right back to doing work. Homework should not be given daily, it should be every once in a while and spread out to not overwhelm students with the work. Even if it seems like the homework a single teacher might give out is not that bad, we forget that an average high school student has 5-7 classes and all the work eventually adds up. Making homework more reasonable can make students feel more heard and cared for.
As a student, I obviously want to say we should get rid of homework, but there are some parts of homework I do see the value in. I believe that all homework in elementary and middle school is useful as it reinforces routine and continuous practice. Homework is almost always that only source of these skills because elementary and middle school students are at an age where they aren't really doing extracurriculars and don't have jobs. But in high school, most students have an extracurricular or a job to substitute the values taught by homework. Most homework I have not is nothing but busywork so the teacher can say they assigned homework. The only outlier to this is math homework. I think math is a subject that fits itself well to homework. In general, in math class, you learn a topic, practice it in class with peer and teacher help, then practice it at home by yourself, which I think is useful. While I don't think other homework is useful, I definitely don't agree with the article. To say that homework performance is based almost solely on socioeconomic status is simply not true. A poor kid can be just as smart as a middle-class or rich kid. Furthermore, most homework doesn't require any outside materials, so it really just is not an activity affected by socioeconomic status. (1/2)
@Powel Block 4 Then the scientists in the article went on this whole tangent about how all meritocracy should be abolished and students should not be told they are better than one another. That is a fairytale. The fact is, some students are better and smarter than others, whether they're poor or rich. (2/2)
Im very torn between getting rid of it and keeping it nice article me myself as a student who does his homework every night and doesn't look forward to it but realizes yes it can teach me many things maybe or it can just waste my time but after reading this i think it should stay just because I'm used to it and i am practicing memorizing and i don't hate it or love it
Thank you for your time
Is homework helpful, or is it pointless? Many people have different opinions. Mr. Kang believes from a teacher's point of view that homework has educational value. He says, "homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day." While I can agree with Mr. Kang having a benefit I also think it's outdated and sometimes unnecessary. I think some classes need to get rid of homework. As annoying as math homework is, I feel more prepared for class the next day and tests when I complete it. On the other hand, I believe that extracurricular classes don't necessarily need daily homework. I can understand if a student doesn't finish their work in class and needs time to work on it at home, but homework is too much. I agree with the article about how homework can worsen inequalities that exist between students' home circumstances. As technology has become a bigger part of school life, not all kids have access to the internet at home. If homework is assigned electronically and a student doesn't have wifi they won't be able to complete it, causing them to be behind in that class. I believe homework can be made more effective if it helps to prepare you for a test in a core class or if it's something you didn't get the chance to finish, other than that, I think it's pointless.
Whenever the teachers mention the word homework many of the students would have different reactions towards it. In the reason behind this is that many know that some homework’s that the teachers give out don’t real help the students out for upcoming assessments. Some of the homework tends to get in the way for other classes or other work outside of school. In my experience homework's has been giving to study notes and doing more practice problems and by adding huge amount of homework questions along with it makes it more difficult for students to understand the lesson: because they would be more worry about finishing the homework then actual taking the time to understand it. Even so their are some kids that don’t even do their homework because it won’t help them improve their grades at all. So in order to make the students do their homework teachers should try to make the homework value more points towards their grades to try to encourage students in actually doing it. After all students go to school for 7 hours and by giving them more work they should be rewarded by all the work they have done.
I think that homework has both benefits and detriments, so should sometimes be reduced, but not removed. In many cases, homework can help students improve their time management skills, their knowledge of the subject, and their problem solving skills. Excessive homework, however, can become detrimental to students, as it may weigh down their lives. Students who have extracurricular activities, or other students who have too much homework, may end up getting less sleep while they attempt to complete long, complicated assignments. this lack of sleep can lead to reduced focus in class and subsequently, reduced understanding of subjects as a whole. Overall, I think that homework should be reduced, but not eliminated.
I think that giving students homework is a good thing because it gives the students an opportunity to practice the material given during class, however giving homework is helpful for the student, but gives the teacher more work as far as tests and teaching the material go. Homework also can provide the teachers with positive progress that the student is making and what their class might need to work on that more in class rather than as homework.
Homework is not a good thing most of the time. Generally, Homework takes away a student's time and homework takes away a student's will to work. Students spend all day at school learning and practicing their skills. To these same students going home to do more work is often damaging to the student. As a student myself, I can personally say I have less of a desire to go to school and work hard if I had been bombarded with homework the night before. Not only am I mentally drained, but often physically drained as well because I often have to stay up too late to complete my homework. Students need free time to decompress and build their lives outside of school. Without homework, students can work jobs, practice hobbies or talents, or get the rest they need to begin the next school day. On rare occasions, homework is necessary to practice certain skills that school hours don't have time for. This work should still be short and simple to give the students the rest they need.
I believe homework should be made optional. Homework can be good practice, a good learning opportunity, and a good work ethic. However homework can pile up on each other. When you have 6 classes and each one assigns homework, it can be very time consuming especially if you have extracurricular activities. Therefore if Homework is optional, you can still do it for practice but you don't have to worry about it ruining your grade.
When it comes to homework, one major debate has been about how we should get rid of homework. They argue that teachers just give homework as “busy work” and it doesn’t help the students advance in the class. However, some are convinced that homework is very beneficial to students because homework teaches kids self-control and responsibility.
I think that yes and no. Many homework assignments that are given out are busy, unnecessary work, while others, such as reading a book for English, is necessary. I think that teachers shouldn't be allowed to give out busy work, and only assign homework that is necessary for their students. In my experience, math teachers often give out homework that I find is necessary, but have a large over abundance of questions, so I also think that homework assignments shouldn't be so long- you don't need to do 50-100 math problems for a section for homework. With the decrease in homework load comes the increase in student's mental health. Every student I know that completes their homework loses sleep because of it combined with all their other responsibilities, and it seriously affects their mental health, more than school already does. The unnecessary homework does nothing for the student, while necessary and not too much homework helps the student.
I think that homework can have positive effects on further deepening a student's understanding of a subject, but it can also be pointless to some students. I think the best conclusion is to make homework optional. It would give the students who are feeling iffy on the subject a chance to better their skills and the students who are confident with it can choose not to take time out of their free time on something they do not need.
I personally don't love doing homework and with all 4 honors classes each giving out homework usually daily, it definitely gets too much. I feel like I go to school for 8 hours just to come home to more hours of homework waiting for me, which is definitely not a good feeling. But I have left a classroom not really understanding then going home and feeling confident after completing my homework. If my homework was optional I would still take the opportunity to better my skills on where I'm lacking, but could also focus more on where focus is more needed by not doing unnecessary homework .
I agree with Mr.Kang that it has some educational value, but not all of it. I don't believe in getting rid of homework but changing it to optional would help students out a lot, and to the argument that some people would choose not to do it and it would affect them in a negative way, I doubt those students who don't care about understanding a subject don't even do assigned homework. And if they do, not thoroughly.
Short answer, it really depends on a few different factors. I feel that some homework teaches kids self-control and responsibility. At the same time though, some teachers give homework as "busy work". A factor that can really dictate if the homework is actually needed or not, is how the curriculum is set up and how the teacher manages their time in class to teaching. For me, my BIO class consists of a lengthy lecture, but I still have to go home and study many different topics as my homework to keep up with the class. Although, some classes don't need homework, they get everything covered in class. At this point, I don't feel that homework should be assigned, especially as "busy work". There's nothing wrong with not assigning homework, as long as everything is covered in class. Overall, I really think it depends on the class and the level. If it's a heavy class and requires the student to learn on their own at home, I think it's okay to give homework. But, I also think if homework is needed, it should be given in moderation. School is stressful enough and trying to keep up with life outside of school too adds onto that stress. I feel that it would be helpful if homework was limited to a point. A packet of homework a night wouldn't help me learn, it would honestly deter me from the class and tear down my motivation. I think a healthy balance between moderated homework and covering things in class is best.
Yes, homework is good for gaining more knowledge and skill in academics but should it be given out at such large amounts? No I personally had many mental breakdowns and stress at the hands of homework. I understand it practically out of the teachers hands because they're just following that outdated curriculum, but it's a lot. Especially in highschool and college yes you're supposed to be challenged but the meaning of homework to everyone has been so negative, that many don't find it enjoyable. Independent study should be teached at a young age so as they get older they have that self- discipline and aren't confined and stressed about deadlines and grades.
Although it’s important for kids to learn and get ready for their tests, kids should be given less homework and some homework should be optional. Some classes give way too much homework and it gets stressful during the football season when you get out of practice late and have to rush home to get homework done. Obviously kids need to do some homework but teachers should only give mandatory homework when absolutely nessasary. Other times they could just give the students optional practice problems that they can do if they have time and need the extra practice.
I feel like homework is kinda not important. I know some people who don’t take time for it, or they can’t access it. Me, knowing myself, I have a hard time making time for hw and/or getting me to do it. Homework only does one thing: stressed kids out when it isnt done. I also feel like if we are in school for 7 hours a day, why do we need to bring home stuff and work on it even more after school is over? It makes more sense to do that in the class period and not a couple of hours later.
I personally believe homework is important to a certain extent. There also should be an age category of “when’s a good age to start homework?’ But also a lot of homework isn’t good for a student either, no matter the age. I feel that a student shouldn’t have to do hours on end of homework on top of sports, work and even a social life. The homework does make you accountable for your actions and prepare you to be accountable in the outside world. But also at one point it’s to much and highly exhausting. Grading the work for teachers is very time consuming and even a stressor for them. The faculty have multiple classes, multiple learning styles and then they’re just day to day life as a job or even personal life. Also, some of my homework is all busy work, it didn't help me grow in the class academically or even help me on the assessment. Homework can be very pointless and not very efficient for a student. The main two things about homework: it can be a stressor but it can also help you grow as a person.
I think homework is an important thing that helps reduce students’ gaps. I live in Japan, and the elementary and junior high school I attended did not force its students to do homework, probably to increase the independence of students’ minds. However, this environment caused huge gaps in students. Some who were diligent could rapidly grow their academic skills, but those who were loath to study were left, and the gaps became wider day by day. By having homework, that is by requiring students to study, students who don’t like to do it can integrate ‘study’ to their daily schedules, and so called study enthusiasts can grow their academic skills furthermore. Therefore, in my opinion, the significance of homework is very huge.
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I could argue about this problem for both ways. Although I am not the biggest fan of homework, it does have it's positives. For example, you definitely get a better understanding of it when you take the material home that your given and you practice it, because practice does make perfect.
But, I also can argue about the other side. Now don't get me wrong, homework is great and all but, there is for sure a based side to it. For example, sometimes your teacher has no idea what is going on in your life and all that they are doing is piling work after work for you. Although homework might be good for you, it can also be a bad use of your time management when you have already mastered the material and you have to spend time on it because it's your "homework".
One of the questions in the passage asked if you can handle your homework load. In all honesty I can. I have been blessed with teachers that understand a good amount of homework. Not to much. Not to little.
In my opinion , i think that education is really very useful for the kids and the people . We live to learn all the time new things and all of that we can helps us to grow up on their mind at first and start to look clearly about their life. The education not stop. Homework is a meaning of a good work with their self first.
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Although I do agree that homework has educational value, having too much work all the time can be a huge problem for students. Checking back in and testing your ability on the things you learned that day can be extremely helpful to your knowledge but when does it get to be too much. when do we draw the line i think that we need to end hw in all. that's why we go to school if teacher can use they're class time right why should we need to suffer maybe they should work harder
“Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?” Is the question I am answering. I do not think we should get rid of homework but we should limit it. I say this because I do think that it is important for kids to do homework, but I also feel that students should be able to play sports and hangout with friends after school. Kids need to practice and learn what they are doing in class but they can just do that in class. Not every kid is going to have parents who sit them down and help them with homework. Also, not everyone has homework when they get home.
I think homework has many pros and cons. The thing is it's always pushed to the extreme. Teachers give out too much homework to the point where the students cant compensate. I feel as if many teachers don't understand that their not the only ones that give homework.
The homework stacks up, and the average amount of classes is 4 to 6. This just sets to reason how much homework can stack up. If you have 6 classes and are given 30-minute homework assignments in each, that's 6 hours. You have to balance that with sports, extra studying, a good sleep schedule, good hygiene, and a good diet. It's difficult.
I also see some pros of it though. In the text it was saying, " Hey, a lot of work you're going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not get used to it?" This is powerful, it just sets the stage for your job. In your future career, you will be forced to do stuff you don't want to do. Although this is the case and you may not like it, you have to build this type of habit.
I agree that homework has educational value because if it was optional, half of the class wouldn’t do it and half would. Although I don’t enjoy homework, if it wasn’t required and determined my grade I wouldn’t do it but I also wouldn’t be learning anything and studying outside of school. Some homework isn’t helpful but some of it is.
As a student, I believe we should keep homework, but reduce the load. Working through hours of homework can be frustrating, but the benefits generally outweigh the time cost. Homework has helped me learn to study on my own and taught me time management skills. Most importantly, it helps reinforce ideas I learn in the classroom. A few extra minutes of work can help retain and gain a deeper understanding of important topics. This means that more class time can be spent learning new things and less time is spent reviewing past material. Although homework is a valuable educational tool, an argument can be made for reducing the amount of homework, and getting rid of "busy work". Tonight I have approximately 4 hours of homework. Including school hours, I effectively spend 10 ½ hours a day working on schoolwork. That leaves little time for much else. While some homework is valuable, many assignments are simply busy work. Teachers should be more selective with their assignments. Lightening students' homework load to around 2 hours a day would allow them more time for extracurriculars, and increase the quality of the homework they complete. It has been argued homework exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities in the classroom. However, eliminating homework would not address the deeper issue of socioeconomic inequality. Rather than getting rid of a practice that many agree is beneficial to students' learning, we should take steps to address the time and resource inequalities instead.
I think that we should not get rid of homework because it reinforces information that students learn in school. It is hard to retain an idea if you only hear or work on it once. Having to do it again at home can reinforce the information in the students' brains.
Homework is definitely effective. Often without practicing a skill that the student learned that day, they will forget it quickly, and learning it in the first place then becomes pointless. I do think that homework is capable of being harmful if the student is given too much. Students have many extracurriculars after school, and the determination to finish homework often cuts into students' sleep and social time, (both of which are essential for the well-being of a teenager).
I believe Mr. Kang is correct in saying that homework still has educational value because it continues to reinforce topics learned in the classroom, or even teach students something they didn’t understand during the school day.
When I get home after school I often have one or two assignments. Sometimes I am able to complete them in study hall, so I am technically not even doing them as “home” work. However, I think this amount is appropriate because it gets me to think about topics again before the next school day starts so that I am ready for the next pieces of information in a unit.
We should get rid of homework in certain classes. I believe this because in some classes homework is busy work that doesn’t help you learn or improve in class. Although, other classes use the busy work to improve their skills in that specific class. In classes like math, homework helps the student master the skills with practice. In other certain classes, skills are easier to grasp and learn than those in others.
Homework is effective to help students repeat and repeat until the skill is mastered. I disagree that homework is harmful, but I do agree that in different households with highly educated and less educated homes could and will affect the ability to learn and master information.
I also agree with Mr. Kang that homework had educational value, but it all depends on how it is being consumed. When I get home, I will do some of my homework right away but not all of it. Sometimes it is 3 hours of work in also different classes combined. I think the amount is appropriate depending on what the student signed up for. If a student was placed in a homework baring class without their knowledge, it works be unfair. But a moderate amount of 15-20 minutes of homework for each class would be enough. My homework includes projects and assignments at home and yes they are important, although, at home, there is no protector are director to point you in the right direction which can lead a student astray when not given ultra-specific directions.
I think we should get rid of homework. As a teen with lots of hobbies myself I find by the end of doing my homework for the day and helping my mom out with my baby brother and cleaning I hardly have time to play guitar, draw, write, read, etc and then I end up staying up later than I planned because I want to at least play guitar for 30 mins-2 hours or read for 1-2 hours leading to bad sleep schedules and being tired the next day. And that's just me! There's teens out there who play sports and have practice late but still have to try to keep their grades up. Or there are working teens who need to support themselves or their family and they hardly have time for homework either. I feel as though homework is a way for school to seep into kids time of rest that they deserve, and I believe without homework there would be more excitement for school and less stress on everyone even the teachers who have to grade it in the end.
As a student, I believe we should keep homework but reduce the load. Working through hours of homework can be frustrating, but the benefits generally outweigh the time. Homework has helped me learn to study on my own and taught me time management skills. Most importantly, it helps reinforce ideas I learn in the classroom. A few extra minutes of work can help me retain and gain a deeper understanding of important topics. This means that more class time can be spent learning new things and less time is spent reviewing past material. Although homework is a valuable educational tool an argument can be made for reducing the amount of homework, and getting rid of “busy work”. Tonight I have approximately 4 hours of homework. Including school hours, I effectively spend 10 ½ hours a day working on school work. That leaves me with little time for much else. While some homework is valuable, many assignments are simply busy work. Teachers should be more selective with their assignments. Lightning students' homework load to around 2 hours a day would allow them more time for extracurriculars, and increase the quality of the homework they complete. It has been argued homework exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities in the classroom. However, eliminating homework would not address the deeper issue of socioeconomic inequality. Rather than getting rid of a practice that many agree is beneficial to students’ learning, we should take steps to address the time and resource inequalities instead.
I don’t think we should get rid of homework altogether. In later middle school and beyond, homework does serve a purpose. There isn’t enough time to teach a concept and have enough left over to practice, go over answers, and make sure people understand, especially when each student has different needs. There aren't many other good ways to learn something than to just practice it.
However, I think the way homework is given out can be improved upon. Busy work should stop being assigned-- it creates anxiety and takes time out of already busy students’ days without providing any value. I also agree that a student’s socioeconomic status can unfairly affect their grades and homework; ideally, teachers could assign completion-based homework and review them in class. Optional homework can relieve some stress on busy students, while still giving the opportunity to students who will benefit from it.
Ultimately, homework is still an important part of education, but there are ways to improve it.
We should get rid of homework in certain classes. I believe this because in some classes homework is busy work that doesn’t help you learn or improve in class. Although, other classes use the busy work to improve their skills in that specific class. In classes like math, homework helps the student master the skills with practice. In other certain classes, skills are easier to grasp and learn than those in others.
Homework is effective to help students repeat and repeat until the skill is mastered. I disagree that homework is harmful, but I do agree that in different households with highly educated and less educated homes could and will affect the ability to learn and master information.
I also agree with Mr. Kang that homework had educational value, but it all depends on how it is being consumed. When I get home, I will do some of my homework right away but not all of it. Sometimes it is 3 hours of work in also different classes combined. I think the amount is appropriate depending on what the student signed up for. If a student was placed in a homework baring class without their knowledge, it works be unfair. But a moderate amount of 15-20 minutes of homework for each class would be enough. My homework includes projects and assignments at home and yes they are important, although, at home, there is no protector are director to point you in the right direction which can lead a student astray when not given ultra-specific directions.
I believe homework to be ineffective. If the purpose of homework is to help students practice responsibility and time management, it is doing the opposite.
People are not granted unlimited time throughout their life. The key to success and happiness is using our limited time in the most efficient way. In the same given hours, some people tend to be more successful than others, and it simply depends on how much time they were able to invest toward their passion and focus on one specific goal.
However, homework is limiting our options for time management and disturbs our focus. Since an average student spends approximately ⅓ of their day in school, they do not need more hours to waste time on something else. Students should have the option to choose how they could spend their time. As mentioned in the article, homework is not necessary for learning a certain topic, and it often doesn’t teach us anything useful.
As a high school senior who has a lot of activities going on, along with college applications, homework is not a thing that I want to invest my time on. If I find homework to be useful and necessary for me to learn, I would certainly do so. However, taking classes does just as enough, and homework always just feels like unnecessary work and an inefficient way to spend time. I would rather invest my time in college applications and the activities that I am more passionate about.
I think that we should not get rid of homework because it reinforces information that students learn in school. It is hard to retain an idea if you only hear or work on it once. Having to do it again at home can reinforce the information in the students' brains.
Homework is definitely effective. Often without practicing a skill that the student learned that day, they will forget it quickly, and learning it in the first place then becomes pointless. I do think that homework is capable of being harmful if the student is given too much. Students have many extracurriculars after school, and the determination to finish homework often cuts into students' sleep and social time, (both of which are essential for the well-being of a teenager).
I believe Mr. Kang is correct in saying that homework still has educational value because it continues to reinforce topics learned in the classroom, or even teach students something they didn’t understand during the school day.
When I get home after school I often have one or two assignments. Sometimes I am able to complete them in study hall, so I am technically not even doing them as “home” work. However, I think this amount is appropriate because it gets me to think about topics again before the next school day starts so that I am ready for the next pieces of information in a unit.
I don't think we should get rid of homework because it doesn't matter whether you are in a hard class or an easy class. You still need to have practice whether that's with the skills learned in that class or learning to be productive and having the ability to hold yourself accountable for work outside of school.
Yes I do agree with Mr. Kang I think homework and lots of practice on school skills can create healthy habits. and a better understanding of the scale you were learning. Without practice you can't work on the small details.
When I get home from school I only have about an hour of homework to do. I think that is the perfect amount of time just to maintain my studies and create a good work ethic.
Throughout my life I have struggled with the idea of homework. For me, I have always viewed homework as additional stress students are forced to take home with them. Don't get me wrong, I believe a certain amount of homework can be beneficial. It can help students reflect on information taught in class. I also believe the majority of work should be done in class. Not ever student has access to calm enough environment to successfully complete work. When large assignments are sent home teachers and professors are leaving those students at a disadvantage.
I think that we should not get rid of homework entirely, but decrease the amount assigned. Me personally, I have sports every day after school. I have loads of homework to complete before I go to bed, and on top of that I’m exhausted for water polo practice. If a student isn’t able to make time in their day to due homework, then it shouldn’t affect their grade. It’s quantity over quality, and that is probably the best way to go.
@Jacob Miller I can relate to this response because I too also have sports everyday and sometimes homework does add a lot of stress to me but, it also teaches me a life lesson of time management.
I believe that homework should be at least reduced in quantity as it takes up too much of a busy life for some students who work or play sports. Reducing homework would make it much easier for these kids to focus on work and sports, and make people less stressed over schoolwork: on the flip side, homework can help make people study for tests and practice more on subjects, which would allow people to get higher grades in classes. Homework is also a motivation for self discipline and is something that is very useful later in life when people become independent. Overall, homework is both a stressor and a motivator and people should have at least a little bit of homework but not enough to stress someone out.
In my opinion, only problems that are helpful and don't just create busywork should be assigned as homework. If kids are given too much homework, it can cause stress over doing it and prevent them from having the leisure time they need for their mental and physical health. However, if homework were not given, students would not be forced to think systematically or complete tasks outside of class or at their jobs. It creates the idea by using parallelism but it would still be excessive if teachers gave you assignments solely to keep you occupied.
@Raymond
I disagree. to me it's not excessive from the teacher, but accidental. Teachers forget that you have tons of classes throughout the day and don't understand the amount of work you have to do.
I think we should keep homework and not completely get away from it. They brought up a good point that we should get used to having to practice the same stuff to be able to learn it and homework is one way to do that. However, there is a lot of pointless homework that we get assigned that gives us students zero benefit. If we got rid of this kind of homework and focused on homework that would help us learn I think it would be a best case scenario.
This is a hard argument; for some they truly don't need the extra practice, but others are simply saying we should not have it because they are lazy. Personally, I don't mind homework as I'm just used to the routine of going home after cross country practice, and doing my work. Honestly it keeps me engaged with the class so as to not forget all the material we went over in the previous class that day.
With that being said, the article makes a great point, “ Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly," I am very privileged to be able to say all of that up above. I have an amazing support system at home that other less fortune students lack. I myself have a unique situation, my father and mother both have PHD's in chemistry and teacher at the university in my town. What ever question I may have about science or math they have an answer for me, this is especially helpful as a sophomore taking chemistry and doubled up on math this year.
I feel like we shouldn't get rid of homework in general but we should make it not mandatory to do. I think if we need more practice then you should do it but if you understand the topic then maybe you should do none to little homework. After sitting in class for over an hour five days a week, that should be enough work for us to do already. Although I think it is good to have and learn the responsibility it is too much. Some students also have activities and things to do after school and if you have to do it later then you are also loosing sleep. This is how I feel about homework and how it should be handled.
I don't think homework should be taken away entirely away. Reason being, when we learn something in class, it won't stick and we will have to take more time to memorize. With homework, it's easier to memorize and helps us learn faster. I absolutely despise homework but I can't deny the fact it helps me study and prepare for upcoming assignments. I don't entirely disagree with this, 'They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.' I only agree with the fact that kids who do their homework tend to do better in school.
I think that we shouldn’t completely get rid of homework. For instance why are you going home to do work of something you already understand, just time consuming. Just depending on the student/class. Like for math yes I do think you should practice to understand to pass the test but if you already understand why stress yourself out and waste time when instead you could be doing something better, like going outside or doing a hobby. But y if you don’t really understand a topic or a problem I do think it is necessary for you to do the extra work but just so you’ll understand. For some people they just don’t learn with homework some just might copy or cheat to get it out the way. Some teachers say just go outside and relax while posting many assignments, some students have sports and jobs to pay school and to finish that busy work they have to ruin their sleep schedule. And if there’s something I learned in psychology class was that if you don’t get enough sleep it leads to way more problems physically and mentally. Overall I think that that it is good for learning and responsibility but bad if it’s an everyday thing.
I think we should get rid of mandatory homework, if a student feels the need to practice something they can ask for homework to help them learn the topic better but some kids just don't need that extra practice and it's doing more harm than good by causing extra stress.
In the article it even talked about how most homework is pointless but it prepares students for the pointless work they will face in adulthood, which in a sense is useful but at the same time it's slowing most kids' productivity down doing things they don't want and don't need to do.
Kids are at school for 7 hours a day and sometimes more if you're in a club or sport. I feel like since we are in school so much adding more work on top of that is both pointless and cruel. From experience I feel like all I’m doing is stuff for school. And if I didn’t have homework my mental health would be so much better. Without homework I would be less stressed and have time to do things I love. Also without homework it gives you more time to study for your tests which will result in better grades. So in conclusion we shouldn’t have homework- because it adds unnecessary stress.
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@Anna
I completely agree, coming from someone who does cross country everyday after school. I am at school from 8:30-5:30, it can be exhausting sometimes keeping up with all the mandatory homework that can make or break my grade!
I believe that homework should be assigned but only problems that are useful and do not provide busy work. Homework, if given too much, gives students stress about finishing and makes them not have the free time they need for their mental health but they also do not have the time to take of their physical health. Although Mr. Kang does argue that if we do not assign homework the kids would not be thinking in a structured way and get work done outside of school or work. He really does hammer in that point through his use of parallelism throughout it but it still would be too much if teachers are assigning homework just to keep you busy.
I feel homework should be a once in a while thing-because it can be very stressful. Homework both takes lots of time and energy which could be used for many other things. When I have a lot of homework in classes I begin to not like those classes, Especially when teachers give you no time in class. Students spend most of their day in school, why should they have to spend more time at home? Overall I feel homework should not be often and if there is homework there should be given time in class to at least start it.
I believe that homework shouldn’t be an everyday thing. Homework is both time consuming and not very beneficial for kids— causing stress and anxiety to submit all their assignments on time. Students not only have to go to school for 7 hours a day but then they have to go home and finish their homework assignments. No one talks about the time and energy that homework requires. Even though some would say it is beneficial and gives extra practice and you can better yourself with it, it just causes more unnecessary stress. If your confused on something or need extra help you can just ask a teacher or peer during the school day. Due to the time and energy that homework requires most kids don’t do lots of socializing or sports outside of school since they already have a heavy load of homework to due and don’t have time for anything else. Overall I believe that homework shouldn’t be an everyday thing and kids should be given help during the school day allowing them to have time for other things out of school.
Homework is an essential part of the learning process in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education; we should not eliminate it. As a high-achieving and goal-oriented student, homework has been one of the factors that have aided my success in school. Merely learning material in class for less than one hour a day is not enough to acquire a rich understanding of a subject. Students that desire to learn about a subject in detail must take the extra time outside of school to complete assignments that will expand their knowledge beyond memorizing and regurgitating that information back on the test.
I agree with Mr. Kang that homework has real educational value for everyone. Homework teaches students repetition, diligence, and problem-solving skills. Going home and attempting new problems gives students the opportunity to problem-solve and come up with their own answers, which also promotes creativity. Repetition teaches students that things in life do not always come easy and patience and practice are the keys to success.
I do agree with this student that the value of homework may at first be unclear for younger students in primary school. But this is the time for kids to learn what tools work best for them. Homework is a vital skill that helps students learn information and apply it in the real world. As kids grow and understand the importance of homework, they will use it to their advantage and already be accustomed to the work as they head into high education.
All students can agree on one thing and that’s homework—we just have too much. We go through a whole day of school, and then when we get home, we have more schoolwork. If we do an assignment in class and we just need to finish a little at home, that’s fine. But for most students, we have hours of homework. Schools also encourage us to do sports. After finishing your sports and eating dinner you’re done, right? Nope, time for homework. Having both 7 hours of school and clubs after, we shouldn’t have to at least an hour of homework.
Homework should be kept around for a long time. As someone who did most of my schoolwork at home through my sophomore year in High School, I find work done outside of school to be effective. It allows for a difficult assignment such as a narrative essay to be done over several hours or even days, with breaks in between to eat, go for a walk, or pursue some other activity in order to refresh the mind.
Homework teaches the art of learning on your own, and that life skill will never be outdated, ineffective, or counterproductive. And while I agree that there are inequalities between student’s home circumstances, I don’t think that has ever stopped anyone who really wanted to learn. A famous Ukrainian artist, Katerina Omelchuk, was banned from painting or even going to school by her parents, but that didn’t stop her from teaching herself to paint on scraps of leather. If she could do that, anyone living in modern day America certainly could too.
Homework will be most effective when the students want it to be. The key here isn’t how great the teacher’s system is, it comes down to whether a student wants to take anything away from the learning process or if they are content to let it be a waste of time.
This topic can be quite controversial, and I definitely see both sides as a current student. I do, though, believe that homework serves its purpose in providing practice to help a student master a topic. Homework has the stereotype that it’s horrible, boring, and a complete waste of time. In some cases I can completely relate to that. When I’m super busy and can’t seem to find any time to do anything, homework can be my greatest enemy. However, I do believe that it supplies students with extra work to allow them to practice and expand their knowledge on subjects. I fully agree when Mr. Kang said that homework allows students to make mistakes and get the instruction they need to get it right. It gives students opportunities to perfect their performance and understand what they need to work on. Homework isn’t always a waste of time, whether students choose to believe that or not.
I believe homework should be a tool available for students who need extra practice or help in understanding a topic or subject.
Many students have things they have to do right after school like sports, working, or other responsibilities, and coming home to do hours of homework just causes large amounts of stress and anxiety.
I do not think we should completely get rid of homework, as Mr. Kang says homework helps kids to practice things, and practicing can be very helpful for classes like math and sciences where memorization is key. I do however think that assigning homework to everyone isn't needed, kids should be able to recognize if they need help and they can request homework so they can practice, assigning homework to someone who already understands the topic isn't helping them it is a waste of time.
In my experience I have had large amounts of homework assigned that didn't have much value, it was just something the teacher assigned for a grade. In other classes, I have had little to no homework with lots of extra help and practice resources available, and for me that worked a lot better because I wasn't forced into doing homework on things I knew, I could focus my time on things that I didn't understand.
The concept of homework is logical; it familiarizes students with new and difficult topics. It also allows students to practice at their own pace and encourages personal responsibility. On the other hand, it can take up a significant portion of time outside of school, which discourages children from relaxing, socializing, and pursuing their own interests. It also worsens socioeconomic inequality because it makes it easier for students who have jobs or family responsibilities to fall behind.
From my own experience, I think that we should get rid of homework because it allows teachers to transfer the responsibility of education onto the student. I have classes where I am expected to learn much of the material on my own while class time is used to discuss (most of the time very superficially) this material. Most students are already in school for seven hours, if this were the expectation in every class, what time would be left? Such demands make it hard to find time to spend with family, have hobbies, and even sleep.
They say school lasts 7 hours a day but that’s not true. Everyone knows the school work you get at home and the studying you basically have to do is what really affects the grades you get. If I want to have both good grades on test and do all my homework. I have to go home and work for another 2 hours and maybe more on some days. That why we shouldn’t have homework when you are already at school for most of your day and week. When your not there you should be able to do things that you enjoy and not have to worry about the stress of school.
There is one thing that most students hate about school: homework. I think homework can be both beneficial for students and a boring, time consuming activity. I think some classes give out way too much homework, but I think some homework is necessary for a student’s growth in the material. I don’t think that homework should be given out all five days of the school week because it is time consuming for people, and can become tough to complete a lot of homework if you play sports or do an extracurricular activity. I believe if a student is struggling with work, they should get help with their homework from a teacher or someone who knows the concept of what you are learning. In my opinion, I learn best when I have a teacher teaching me the concept of what we are learning, not when I am at home after school and sports doing homework. I think some classes need to give out homework to master the concept but only a couple of classes. If I were a teacher, I would give students very little homework. I would give all of the work in class, and if a student doesn’t finish, then they would have homework in class.
I don’t think homework should be an everyday thing. Kids should be going outside and playing. Even if you're older, why go to school for 7 hours just to do a lot more once you're home? I would say homework does help you learn the material, but why do it at home when you can do it all in school? Students, including myself, do not look at homework as a thing to make us learn the material, or to get better at it, but as a chore and something to do so our grades don’t go down. I think you should learn everything in class and then work on it together. If you don’t know how to do the work, you're in the classroom with your friends and your teacher. They can help you get better at it. The way students view homework as a chore applies for both homework and tests. I think of tests the same way. I know that I don’t focus on learning the material, but to get a good grade on it. There are just so many other things people have to do once they get home from school, and just getting more of it, doesn’t let you do a lot of other things. I just think kids should not have so much work to do starting at such a young age. Overall, I think schools should stop giving out homework and start doing it all in the classroom.
Like the author I believe it helps students practice responsibility, and time management, but I think that it should be on a student by student basis, and I know that is hard seeing how every single student is doing and if they need more practice on the material.
But students that are doing well in the class and understand the material to the full extent shouldn't have to be subjected to pointless work that won't teach them anything.
And maybe –if you aren't doing so well in the class– homework could be an extra grade to help your grade AND it will teach you something.
I think that we should make homework optional. I know that when I am struggling with something in class, I am relieved when we have homework, I can get some extra practice.
I know that other students aren't like me and don't WANT to be doing homework, but in honors classes that might be a different situation, people will be looking for a challenge.
@Carmella Block 2
I completely agree with your point that students who fully understand the subject material shouldn't be forced to do extra work on it. Students should be able to realize if they are struggling on something, and that is when homework can be beneficial, but giving a proficient student more work isn't helping them.
Also, when you wrote that some students don't want to do homework and may not take the opportunity to get extra help, that is completely their fault and I don't think that it shows a glaring issue in optional homework.
Finally, Mr. Kang even states that some homework he assigned was pretty pointless, so I wonder what is the point of assigning it in the first place?
I believe homework is both beneficial, and also time consuming. Students are constantly pressured to stay on top of their assignments by teachers or mentors but it can be quite difficult when we all have to balance sports, clubs, jobs, and value relationships with family and friends. Homework doesn’t sound appealing to anyone, but the expectation to finish it can be very important to learning, and encouraging.The extra practice is definitely going to be beneficial, and encourage students to pay attention in class. Being a student that can get distracted easily, knowing I will have to do something on my own at home will get my attention because I don’t want to struggle or take a bunch of time on one thing. I do believe though ,that homework assigned to students needs to be extremely manageable. As mentioned before students are involved in many extracurricular activities that can be equally important as their education, so the amount of time taken for each assignment should be very short, and not a bunch of different assignments for one class.
In my opinion I don't learn as much doing homework compared to the teacher teaching the information in front of the class. In my experience homework assignments have been less about the information the student will gain from doing it and rather the teacher making sure kids did it and giving them a 100% for completing the assignment.
The article shows a comment made by a former teacher saying "The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value." This really shows how pointless some homework assigned really is. Why are some teachers still giving non beneficial assignments to students? It serves no educational value and in my opinion is just a waste of time.
When it comes to academics, homework doesn’t really help students learn the material. As a student, homework is just another chore to do so I can get a completion grade. I feel like the real learning that I do is within the classroom, when the teacher is there to explain concepts. Homework can also be an issue for students who don’t have free schedules or jobs, and can take away from more important responsibilities.
I do also think that the argument can be made that homework has its value, and could be worthwhile in some cases. It helps develop the habit in students to do menial tasks, which is a skill that you need in your adult life. I think it could be improved upon if teachers took the effort to make it more interesting and engaging.
Homework is outdated and Inefficient! Although older Generations may argue that their school life was much harder than it is nowadays, and though that might be true--Studies by The American Psychological Association show that “Gen z Is the most stressed demographic of people, and 90%Of gen Z experience psychological or physical symptoms as a result of stress in the last year.” I agree with Writer Jay Caspian Kang that even if homework might be pointless it still helps kids learn something However, I feel as though this rule shouldn't apply to high school students. High schoolers have more important things to focus their time on like studying for AP tests or practicing for driver's ED or even applying to their dream college. Homework should instead apply to elementary students who have a more flexible schedule. Wouldn’t you like to be able to spend more time doing things that matter like some quality time with your family?
@Juli
This was a very thoughtful response to the article. I agree with what you said, I also think homework is outdated and inefficient and should be used more heavily for younger students. The quote from the American Psychological Association shows that you did extra research on this prompt and that you are more educated on this topic. The information from the quote is very interesting and I didn't know that 90% of Gen Z experience physical symptoms as a result of stress. I also like how in the end, you responded to the prompt with your own opinions.
Teens are corrupted with many things in life; Busy with family, busy with friends. Furthermore, I’d say it would be both a good and bad thing. Homework is useful and can give students good practice in subjects. To put it bluntly, it can also be overwhelming and harsh to deal with. Of course, even easy and simple homework could help out someone. Though these days, it seems that homework is progressively getting harder for us. In fact, I know that it’s hard to balance out with other things in your life. Especially mental health. Beyond that, I don't think many teachers or schools think about how homework is connected to mental health. Many teens have problems with motivation–energy, bringing themselves to do the work given. For example, a teen could be struggling with their mental problems. Yet forgetting another factor such as homework being due that night or the next. In short, yes I suppose homework is necessary sometimes. I’d just like to see more well beings taken into consideration.
Although I do agree that homework has educational value, having too much work all the time can be a huge stressor for students. Checking back in and testing your ability on the things you learned that day can be extremely helpful to your knowledge — but when does it get to be too much? Throughout the article, it mentions how beneficial homework is, but never mentions how much pressure it puts on the students and how it takes away valuable time from other things that are important as well. Additionally, I prioritize many things over schoolwork such as my well-being and family, so when I have to not only go to school for 7 hours a day but also complete my homework that night, it gets tiring. Having the freedom of pursuing my other hobbies and values outside of school is something I feel is more significant than homework. Therefore, giving us optional work outside of class is the most reasonable way to push students to excel but also to give us room to pursue our other interests and responsibilities.
I spend hours doing homework every night. Sleepless nights, fatigued mornings. All to maintain a passing grade. Teachers make homework the main priority instead of making their students the main priority. They give out assignments, projects, presentations, etc without taking into consideration we have five-six other classes we also have to do homework for. It is exhausting. Some kids also have to balance sports into their schedule. I am in two sports and Ap and Honor classes and from personal experience, it is mentally and physically draining. I understand there is an importance to homework. We need to be practicing what we learn inside the classroom and be able to execute it on tests. There comes a certain point where you question the importance of homework. Do you put your grades or mental health first? When do we have time to live? To be a teenager? To be–human?
@Cloe I can relate to wasting away doing homework every night. It feels like schools need a measure to prevent students from being overburdened with work from all their classes, and honestly, homework should always just be extra credit.
We should get rid of homework because for some classes it is not needed. Homework should be used for certain classes that need it to support the material covered in class. The assignments should never be pointless and should be actually useful to the class. Only eliminate homework for classes that do not need it or minimize it.
@Udham S
I completely agree with you, homework that is just pointless should never be assigned, and teachers should only be assigning homework that is helpful.
I have had my fair share if homework that I never had use of again!
@Udham S
100% agree with you hw should never be pointless if its not extremely important to actually learning something that we didn't get to in class to move on then we shouldn't have it all that extra practice stuff is dumb teacher don't go home and just do extra practice
Nobody likes doing homework, we all know it is boring and seems like a waste of time. But for most people, it's what a big chunk of their grade is based on. On one hand, homework can be a benefit to students that are struggling in there day to day work in school, it can give them a chance to do some after-school work that can help them learn the material they need to learn. But on the other hand, many students already know the material and have no benefit from doing homework except extra stress added to their life. A problem with Mr. Kang's argument on why homework is beneficial to students is that most students don't care enough to think deeply about homework and only do it because they have to. This brings in cheating on homework and copying from friends. If I was a teacher, I would give out homework but only as an extra credit option, I would also encourage kids who I think could benefit from after-school learning to take on the homework as a way to learn and bring their grade up. I would give assignments that make the students use their brains and would show examples and instructions on how to actually do the work.
@Kameron I agree I think some homework could be beneficial but a majority of the assignments given by teachers are just for the grade.
Homework is often mindless busywork monotony, hours of dull mind-numbing tedious work. The often-said question “Is homework good or bad” is just simply a bad question, everyone is different and everyone's brain works differently. Homework can be good for some people, helping them practice or memorize math formulas, but for others --such as myself-- it is just repeated stuff you already to know how to do and have proven you can do. It can drag your grade down if you forget to do it. I’m a high schooler and when I get home from school, I'm not thinking about school anymore. I'm playing video games, I’m at the gym, or I’m hanging out with friends. I often forget to do my homework because of this, and then it piles up so high I'm drowning in it. For people like me, it just leads to stress, disdain for school, and a lack of motivation. Homework can be good when it's used right, but often it's a leech that sucks out all motivation and enjoyment for school. “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” is a retort my parents use often when I complain about homework, but all day during school, I’m doing work I consider pointless, so taking up my free time to “teach me how to do pointless stuff” is simply beating a dead horse. Homework can help some people achieve their goals and can be great, but for others, it's just, simply -- not.
Is it stressful? Yes. Is it helpful? Sometimes. Homework when in mass quantity is just something to check off the list and it’s a daunting task; the amount of stress and anxiety that comes from a lengthy homework assignment may be worse than not even turning the work in. One teacher assigns a lot of work, and he tells us to “not check boxes” when that is all I do in that class. A different teacher believes that if we need practice we should do it but there should not be a need for homework if it is just busy work. One of these classes is math and where many people would assume it’s the first listed, it’s not. In the article, the author argues that math homework is the most daunting task for most students when it comes to homework, but the reality is that you won’t get anything from doing busy work, you should do homework if you really truly need it. Furthermore, students should be given less homework because in order to “succeed” in high school, you need ---clubs, hard classes, sports, and good grades--- this isn’t possible with the workload some teachers give it just isn’t and they don’t get time to be themselves. GIVE KIDS TIME TO BE KIDS.
In order to learn something/master something, you have to practice. After all, "practice makes perfect." Well in school one of the best ways to practice something is through homework. Yeah I get it, homework can be boring, frustrating, and gross, but it's actually helping students more than they think--it's preparing them for the bitter world that lies ahead. The saying Mr. Kang agrees with: “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” has a good point. Yeah, it's harsh and not what you want to hear but it's true. The homework that some might think isn't effective most likely is, just not in the way some would hope. Almost everything you learn in school is preparing you for your life once you're out of school. Even if it's a subject you don't think you're ever going to need to know, you can still grow from the homework. You would have learned how to be strict with yourself and be better at completing deadlines, one of the most important skills for the future. I think that without homework, people would become a lot lazier and not well-trained for the professionalism needed to be successful.
As a student, I obviously want to say we should get rid of homework, but there are some parts of homework I do see the value in. I believe that all homework in elementary and middle school is useful as it reinforces routine and rigorous, continuous practice. Homework is almost always that only source of these stimuli because elementary and middle school students are at an age where they aren't really doing extracurriculars and don't have jobs. But in high school, most students have an extracurricular or a job to substitute the values taught by homework. The only outlier to this is math homework. I think math is a subject that fits itself well to homework. In general, in math class, you learn a topic, practice it in class with peer and teacher help, then practice it at home by yourself, which I think is useful. While I don't think other homework is useful, I definitely don't agree with the article. To say that homework performance is based almost solely on socioeconomic status is simply idiotic. A poor kid can be just as smart as a middle-class or rich kid. Furthermore, most homework doesn't require any outside materials, so it really just is not an activity affected by socioeconomic status. Then the scientists in the article went on this whole tangent about how all meritocracy should be abolished and students should not be told they are better than one another. That is a fairytale. The fact is, some students are better and smarter than others, whether they're poor or rich.
To me, homework is pointless. After sitting in class for 6 hours, who wants to go home and do more work? Teachers emphasize the importance of extracurriculars, sports, etc. But how can we do these things when we have homework. In a couple years my homework isnt gonna mean anything to me, so why even bother? Also after a long exhausting day, I'm not putting my best effort into my homework. Homework almost feels as if it's a punishment rather than a way to “achieve excellence”.
In the article, Jay Caspian Kang, stated “The teacher's side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value.”, to me this makes no sense. What is the point of giving out homework, if a teacher can’t even teach during class. They admit how little academic value is taken away from this their lesson, so how are these students expected to even know how to do this homework? Perfect example on why homework shouldn't even exist, it's causing stress to students when they aren't taught to do the assignment and can't comprehend it.
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@J. Block 2 CONTINUED..
On the flip side, Mr. Kang says “That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.”, which I completely agree with. Students should be taught the lesson during class and walked through step-by- step to clarify any questions they may have. He talked about how the key way to get a question correct, is to get it wrong, and have proper instruction to lead to the correct answer. In conclusion I agree with Mr.Kang, and feel school work should only stay in school, rather than messing with students outside lives.
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” – Lily Tomlin. Homework is definitely a waste of time and I know that sometimes not finishing classwork leads to it being homework. I agree with that perspective because if you aren't going to do what's assigned in class get it done on your own time. Think about this, what about if you don't get a question and you can't ask your parents and they don't understand? Who are you supposed to ask, you can't just call your teacher and ask for help. Then you get marked down because you didn't complete it or do anything with it. If you're going to assign homework at least make it easy enough so some students understand. Listen, some students play sports, some have jobs, and some have family problems. Don't send them home with more stress to add to their plate. Coming from someone who has very bad anxiety homework won't make it any better.-- Homework
@Serenity I agree with this, if you're going to give homework at least let it be something easy and not very time consuming because most students have a lot to worry about already.
Homework is mandatory mindless work created just for kids to work more. That may sound bad --and it 100% is-- however it can help kids practice subjects they have a hard time with. More time to work on it at home can give new perspectives on their topics, allow them to mold their questions for teachers, and comprehend what/where they are failing to understand. Homework is bad when it's busy work on a skill the child has already understood. Optional homework or selectively mandatory homework is better, that way it's there if you need it, no need to stress over pure busy work. Busy work leads to a disdain for learning. Disdain for learning leads to a lack of motivation to succeed. Lack of motivation to succeed leads to failure & depression. Failure combined with depression leads to many terrible outcomes, some unspeakable. All because you forced a kid to do slope-intercept form homework daily, even though they clearly understood it. Homework is necessary for some people, but it's time for school's accept that it's a hindrance for others. The more they deny this, the worse the next generation's brains become, leading to catastrophic events that will inevitably appear in our future. Imagine how lackluster our presidents will be if they lost their motivation to succeed. Our scientists. Our soldiers. Our maintenance workers. Our civilization will crumble because of one insanely stupid thing -- homework.
After thinking about my own experience of suffering through homework, I believe some homework is necessary for learning; however, teachers go crazy with the busywork. When we are asked to do the same assignment over and over, I question its value. Are these 5 assignments, that are variations of the same lesson, really reinforcing something I learned a week ago? Even now, as I respond to a New York Times article, the same way I have responded to millions of articles this semester, all I happen to think is, how many more times will I have to do this? Kang believes this kind of work is valuable when he says, “‘Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?’” This is a horrible lesson to teach kids. Why would you want your children to go through life getting walked on, simply because they grew up learning that you must do pointless activities. Which is how I might feel after finishing my fifth article analysis this week. However, in the end I know it will make me a better writer. So, as Kang points out, “Kids need to learn how to practice things.” The practice is helping my writing, but the amount of practice does not always equal the help it is giving. Therefore, teachers need to find a better balance between work that matters and busywork. If they don’t, they might raise a generation of students who think learning is nothing more than a chore. This sure isn't a way to build future readers of the New York Times.
I have experienced the painful moments of working on homework with your parents while sitting at the kitchen table. You’re on the verge of crying tears of frustration; trying again and again to solve a simple math problem, but no matter how long you stare at the equation, it just doesn’t make sense. Homework can be overwhelming at times and stressful especially when you have multiple classes you have to work on. It can also be inconvenient when you have family in town or if you're sick. It’s hard enough to understand the new topics you learned and then add on the new things you are learning including homework. It can be a huge challenge to get caught up. However, homework can also reinforce what you learned in class and oftentimes makes it easier to understand. Homework helps me learn how to apply what I learned in class and how to apply it in the future. Homework helps me understand the subject more in depth than I may have understood it in the actual classroom. It also helps me interpret the things I'm learning and understand it in a different way. Mr. Kang also said “Kids need to learn how to practice things” which I definitely agree with. Homework generally helps me prepare for upcoming assignments by continuously practicing and studying. Does practice help you? Are you the kind of person who studies or do you wing it?
Part 1
I think homework is both a good thing and a bad thing. In my experience homework, in the context of my chemistry right now, is really just good practice, sort of drilling formulas in your head. But I feel like sometimes the amount of homework that is assigned can prohibit what goes on in your own life. Many kids do extracurriculars and sports so I feel like piling homework on top of that can really add a lot of stress to Teenagers that we don't need.
The beginning of the article asks if homework has taught you a sense of responsibility, and I think it has. I do my homework right when I get home. It's what I'm doing right now, this response is my homework. So since I've done it from such a young age it's taught me that sense of responsibility and independence, therefore I think that is one positive thing that homework has taught me. Another statement made in the article is “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?”. The author of that article says there's a lot of value in that statement, I don't think so. Now yes, there is a lot of pointless work you are going to do in your life but that's not something that you should teach with homework. It's not a good example to set because kids will start to see homework that way therefore they are going to want to do it less and less.
@Beau, Block 4
Part 2
One thing I want to say is that homework is perfectly imperfect. I agree with the author of the first article that they think it's imperfect but still has a purpose. There's so many things that could go both wrong and right with homework, it can teach you how to do something but also if you end up doing it wrong over and over you accidentally drill that into your head instead of what is correct. So, I don't know where exactly I stand on the scale of homework. I've seen both its pros and its cons, therefore where I stand on the opinion of homework is sort of a gray area for me.
I don’t have a definite side. I believe that homework is still useful in some cases but in others I think it is a waste of time. I agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value in the sense that it’s a good way to learn. Homework is useful for the purpose of repetition and that’s one way to retain what you learn. In some cases I think there shouldn’t be as much homework because at that point students will get burnt out and will block the learning. Even though there are some flaws in homework it’s ultimately there to help improve your skills, managing time to do it, comprehension, problem solving, making use of your resources, all while learning new material.
@Sydney R I agree. Homework teaches some life skills but too much homework begins reversing those benefits
Homework could be a stressful or helpful activity. After a long day of school, logging on and seeing all the assignments needing to be done produces stress. Having school for a long period of time and still having more assignments sounds ridiculous to me. I believe the system should be if you didn’t finish it in class, you finish it at home. Having a whole new task awaiting for you at home is dreadful, yet, if you know it is something you were working on in class and just needs a few things to complete, you could become more motivated. Especially for students who participate in sports, after school, they don’t have the time to complete assignments, unless they are willing to lack sleep. For general students as well, they might have some extracurricular activities or family duties after school that will require their attention. Homework/schoolwork is one of the causes of sleep deprivation.
However, students may choose to lack sleep because they decide to entertain themselves rather than complete their duties. In that case, homework could be helpful because it can teach responsibility and time management.
Overall, my opinions on homework are mixed, so the stress could really depend on the workload and the amount of time one has to complete the given tasks.
Yay, schools over, now I can- wait… homework. A lot of it. Tell me this; how am I supposed to live my life if I’m constantly doing homework?
Coming home to relax and then remembering I have to read a certain amount of pages, turn in 3 papers, finish my math sheet, and submit 4 things for English and STILL worrying if I finished everything I needed to get done is not something I enjoy doing every single day and over the weekend.
I think high school and college students have WAY too much homework nowadays. I do agree with the article about the fact that you learn something by practicing things and some homework is necessary but oh my goodness.
A page or two of homework on weeknights is reasonable but any homework at all on the weekends is too much no matter what.
If we’re in school for almost 36 hours a week and we’re learning for 7 and a half hours a day we do not need to worry about it on the weekends when we should be having fun.
Overall, I think school is where we should learn; home is where we should relax. I wouldn’t say it’s a waste of time, but I think an excessive amount is unnecessary.
I believe students should not be required to do homework. For example, many see homework as busy work. There isn’t always logic behind assigning homework because everything should be planned and taught at school. After all, that is the teacher's job. It’s unrealistic for teachers to expect students to have time and effort after a long day of school to complete even more work. Some even have sports and after school activities to attend and they just genuinely don’t have time to put in extra work. Another negative view on homework explained in the article was that not everybody has an environment that makes learning effective at home. For example, some grow up in loud, busy, or poor households that aren’t ideal for working in. On the other hand, some believe that homework is a time for students to grow their knowledge and practice the skill they learned at school. Unfortunately, many don’t have the supplies or help at home to accomplish homework in the first place. Homework is easily just a waste of time considering that students could be living their life and having fun. The days while students are young don’t last forever and students need to live their lives so they can impact the world around them instead of being graded on extra work that most likely won't make a difference to their future.
@Dedra P. I agree. I believe students dont have a lot of time to be young so they need to use it wisely and to the best they possibly can. I like how you said, "The days while students are young don’t last forever and students need to live their lives so they can impact the world around them instead of being graded on extra work that most likely won't make a difference to their future." Which goes along with my comment as well about how students need to use their time the best they can.
I think that we shouldn’t completely get rid of homework because it gives students the opportunity to practice the skills they learn in class. However, if it is given constantly and in great amounts, it could hinder a student's study if they don’t need it or don’t have time due to jobs and extracurriculars. I think that homework should be optional and a resource that students can access if they would like to. If I were a teacher I would not assign homework unless I find it absolutely necessary. I would just provide practice sheets and tests
I do not think we should get homework as a whole. It is important to hone your skills but should not be forced upon any student. I agree with Mr. Kang that homework has real educational value; however, should be up to the student’s discretion. I would definitely hand out homework as a teacher but would make it optional for those who want a better understanding of the topic at hand. The assignments would be made with examples and easy questions at the beginning which would then get much harder to rack the student’s brain.
You can finally go home and enjoy your day after a long school day. You want to relax and then it hits you– homework. Mood ruined. Homework should be banned or at least limited because some teachers hand it out like candy. Homework has ruined some students' perspectives and how they go about their work. They always say how it is not about the letter grade and it’s to learn the skill, however, I can speak for every student that does a homework assignment, does it for that letter grade and that takes out every bit of joy if there even was any, to begin with. Of course, some homework assignments are practical or helpful, but the tens of pointless and stressful ones outweigh the useful ones. In the article, Jay Caspian Kang mentions how most of the assignments she gave out as homework were pointless, so why give them out? Pointless is homework. Homework needs a ban. SO BAN IT.
I believe that we should not get rid of homework. It can help teach students responsibility and prepare them for college where they have to do a lot of self-teaching, as well as provide more contact with the material and give students more time to master it. On the other hand, many students are involved in sports and other extracurriculars, as well as having a job. And some have to babysit siblings or do not have an environment where they can focus on homework. From my perspective as a student, I appreciate when teachers give up some of their valuable time for the students to work on their assignments. So considering the helpfulness of homework and the busy schedules of students, I would say that the homework assigned to be done outside of class should not be busy work but would be helpful for students to better understand the material.
Homework is a very important part of learning, especially when learning complex and hard concepts. It is how students learn and practice material taught in class, which helps improve understanding of the concepts. Practice is an important part of getting better at anything, and homework is the means of practicing what is taught in school. I understand why some students don’t want homework because they feel it is time consuming and pointless especially in easy classes. However, doing homework in the easy classes can teach students productive study habits, so when the material is difficult and requires extra practice, the self discipline and good study habits are already in place. I think homework is most beneficial when it directly correlates to what is taught in class, and is not just busy work assigned for an extra grade.
As a high school student who has taken many advanced classes, I believe that we shouldn’t completely get rid of homework. I believe most homework is influential and expands the knowledge of what is being taught. It prepares students for college and real life. But I also believe that some assignments given by teachers are not beneficial and are just time consuming more than anything, I don’t believe giving homework just to give homework is an acceptable excuse for teaching.
I don’t believe homework is outdated or counterproductive, it is showing hard work and proving to the teacher that the students strive for success. But I do believe teachers should be more lenient when it comes to due dates and exceptions of late work. We all go through things that may be more important or time consuming than completing the assignment due at 11:59 on time.
When I go home every night, I complete about an hour of homework. I don’t believe this is too much due to the amount of classes I am enrolled in. I think it is an acceptable amount and I believe that the homework given to me is all beneficial and helps me become successful in the classes I am in.
I do attempt to do a lot of my homework because I think it is an important part of hopefully understanding what I am learning in school to practice on my own. For student-athletes like me, it sometimes is difficult not getting home until late or during busy competition seasons. I feel as long as teachers take that into account when assigning homework and using their flexibility, homework is a great way to grow as a student and learner.
I believe some parts of the homework process are outdated. I feel as though COVID and the whole pandemic as a whole have taught us the importance of an interactive class. So much of my learning was taken away from me during COVID because I wasn’t able to learn just based on random assignments. It can assist me to learn how to work on my own but it does not always provide the full picture some of us need to understand.
I also believe that homework does worsen some gaps that occur between different student circumstances. The students that don’t always have access to the internet or have to spend time taking care of their siblings/parents or making dinner, the homework being the basis of our learning automatically puts them at a disadvantage. At least at school, you know they can be helped as similarly as the rest of the class with time and resources within their reach. Homework would help the privileged and able kids, and hurt the kids just trying to help and survive at home.
What's one thing perpetuated in schools all over the country, the world, that most students can agree is counterproductive and generally unnecessary? That can make some students feel more excluded than they already do? I have an answer — homework. For me personally, as a high school student, homework has proven to do more bad than good. It drains what little spare time I have with a rigorous after-school schedule and tanks my grades when I can't submit assignments on time. Kang's defense of homework, that students don't ever practice things to perfection outside of homework, doesn't apply to me or most of my peers today. Arguably, the musicians, athletes, actors, and artists who populate schools have too much to practice. We have far too much on our plates to stress about the busywork our math teacher assigned that morning. Another point that is brought up when debating the necessity of homework is whether or not it worsens inequalities that already exist in students' home lives. While my own perspective is that of a privileged student who gets to engage in activities that, while beneficial to me, are mainly for personal enjoyment, a large number of students have failing grades because they need to work to support their family, or they need to cook and babysit younger siblings. Not everybody has the luxury of doing homework. Overall, I don't agree with how homework is integrated into the school system currently, and I hope it changes for the better.
I think we should get rid of homework altogether. My first reason is we go to school for 8 hours a day for 5 days a week going to 4 different classes learning different stuff and at the end of each one we get homework. Some teachers give out a lot of homework and then expect us to get it done by the next day even though we have other classes and shorter due dates for homework. My second reason is when students get home after school they may have after school programs, sports, and jobs to do meaning they will have more pressure put on them to get their homework done in a certain amount of time so they could go do what they have to do or they won't be able to get their homework done because they are so busy and that could affect their grade or even get them in trouble. My last reason why students should not have homework is it could affect their mental health. With all that they have to do and a short amount of time to get it done or the amount of homework the teacher gives out they could start feeling anxiety or even getting depressed. This can get really bad because students will start to slack on their work that they have to do in class or even start failing tests because of how much pressure they are under.
I don’t think that we should get rid of homework because I think that there is value in learning how to be self-initiating and be able to get a task done outside of when you are a part of the event (in the classroom). However, I do think that homework could be reduced and/or given as a supplement to the teaching rather than it being the only way of learning. I also think that grace should be given along with the homework in case a student was busy with sports or any other extracurricular activity. I believe that homework is not only helping students learn about what is being assigned but also teaches students to learn basic life skills such as self-initiation, prioritizing, and delegating. All of these are helpful skills that can be carried into college and into future careers. For these reasons I believe that homework should still be given to students, however, I think that the homework should be given with the intention for students to actually learn. And for teachers to remember that students have other responsibilities and commitments to focus on.
The concept of homework should not be completely abandoned. There is truth in both arguments, The mistake that many people make is looking at problems such as this and assuming that there is a limit to binary choice. There are useful pieces of information brought up by both sides that can be used to create a system that works better. Mr. Kang is mostly addressing one article in particular as his opposition, but that article only touches on one counter argument to one part of his thesis. What all of it really boils down to is the question of what homework is. The answer varies based on the teacher, as Mr. Kang pointed out. Homework can be beneficial, but only when it's not purely busy work. When homework has meaning it is better than that which is meaningless. However still not everyone will do the homework, because of outside factors. Fine then make the homework non compulsory but meaningful. There you have fixed the homework question. Now if the homework is meaningful will everyone do it, no, only if they have time to do it. Then give them time, now they will do it and all they need is a desire to do it. That means you need better teachers. For all of this you need better teachers. Homework isn't the problem, the quality of teachers is. If you can make a student take responsibility for their education that's better than teaching them a busy work discipline. To do that you need to pump money into schools, a lot of money. Which is the answer that no one wants.
Yes, we should get rid of homework because many students have a lot on their schedule like sports, AP classes, and clubs, and some students might not have enough time to get their work done on time, and they are more than likely to fall behind in their classes. If I were a teacher I would try my best not to give out homework to my students because you never know what they are going through, what kind of things are happening at home, if they are struggling with their mental health, etc. If I HAD to give my students homework I would give out something easy and fun like word searches, riddles, and crosswords which will be fun and easy to do and that can also help them understand what is going on in the class. So in conclusion I would give my students fun activities instead of making them write essays.
For many students, homework is considered useless and a burden. It takes up sometimes hours of our time after school that could be spent doing other things that are still productive. I believe homework should not be assigned to students, with more free time students could instead further improve their social lives or pursue a job to make some extra money.
I believe that with the current amount of homework I am receiving I am able to do all my activities and still get them done. Although sometimes I struggle to meet deadlines I usually get it done on time. Personally, I never find that I get any new learning done while doing homework.
I think if there is any way to make homework more effective it would be to create shorter assignments. This gives students less stress about spending hours just working to get one assignment done only to start on another right after. With shorter assignments, students would still be engaging their brains in critical thinking outside of school but with less stress and also creating more opportunities for students to pursue other things they are passionate about outside of the given assignments.
Homework, homework, homework. There are very few things in my school life that I dislike, and homework is one of them. When I have homework from one class, and then go to the next and get more, I get overwhelmed. Then I tend to not want to do my homework knowing I have so much to do. Homework is incredibly overwhelming for me. I feel that I am in school to learn, and outside of school, I need to be working on myself, and my life outside of school. I personally, learn very little to nothing with homework. I'll have questions, but then I can't ask because I'm now at home, well look, that homework assignment is now late. I feel that homework is not a good use of time in any sort of way. Going home from school, to do more schoolwork is unfair. Going to school and going home. Going home and doing more work. Work is stressful when you don't have help. Having no help leads to anxiety-homework.
Fun fact for the teachers: I have a life that doesn’t only revolve around school work. Every night I am overwhelmed by extra work piling on my plate after a 7-hour school day that drains most of my mental battery. We should get rid of homework because it's a pointless ritual everyone has unwillingly become accustomed to since the age of five. Many students feel like school is a boring vacuum constantly sucking time out of their lives each day because the real fun of curiosity and learning has been taken since we are stressed all hours while thinking about learning. When I surprisingly had a free night last week, I watched an interesting show and I even learned to sew but if schoolwork is all I have time for then I won’t get to learn other helpful skills that you can’t gain in a classroom. When we are forced to do excess work when we could be relaxing or enjoying our lives we find homework an inordinate waste of brain power.
Mr. Kang argues, “I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.” I agree with this statement in many ways; homework can help you master a skill or keep you satisfied but isn’t the point of being a teacher to help students understand and stay engaged?
@A, Block 2 I completely agree, homework is a waste of brain power. I love how you mentioned our lives don't revolve around schoolwork, because some days I think that's what teachers think. I also love how you spaced your writing making it easier to read. Lastly I too ask myself, isn’t the point of being a teacher to help students understand and stay engaged? Great job!
@A, Block 2 Part 2
I do believe homework is a great way to help people in language classes to memorize and be able to fully grasp the information or for other classes to master skills. I am in a French 3 class and if I didn’t study then I would not be as strong in the class as I am, but she doesn’t overwhelm me with worksheets like other classes. If we cannot understand the topic while in class then we just need more time to work on it with the teachers instead of doing it ourselves at home; wasting our “free” time. I work day and night to keep my grades up and my overall health and mental state plummets when I don’t have any time for myself. Although homework can be a good way to keep a skill strong in your mind, the stacks of work after a long day at school take all motivation and excitement away from learning so is the school system trying to get students to learn or hate learning?
One of the most controversial topics within the schooling system, the value of -- Homework. Like Caspian Kang said in the article and said that he is also responsible for doing as well, teachers are distributing assignments as homework that have “little to no academic value”. Personally, I believe that homework is unnecessary, I believe homework can only just add to the already packed schedules of some students and can be in some cases harmful to the development of students learning. From my own experience when I receive an excessive amount of homework or homework that I feel is of no value to my learning the only thing I want to do is to complete the assignment as quickly as possible which causes me to put minimal effort into my work leading to the development of bad habits or lack of understanding. I think that the only work that we should be completed at home is the work we don’t finish in class. Homework doesn't contribute to building understanding, homework is only used to practice the skills we already know and shouldn’t be a requirement but an option for students to complete.
As someone who has struggled with many different concepts in many different subjects, I must say that getting rid of homework together may have a negative effect on students. Homework is something that helps us, as students understand what we’re learning in a class. Now, some students may say that they learn everything they’re taught in their class period, but for everyone, that may not be the case. Let’s say that you are having an early out and your classes are shortened, by having something to work on later to refresh your mind on the topic, can help you for future events.
Normally, when I get home, I try my best to work on the homework I know will take the most time. For me, the amount of work I have to complete is never too much or too little, it really is in the middle. When it comes to projects and writing assignments, I think it is very important to learn certain concepts. It makes you really think about how you want to convince your audience on a certain topic. These projects and writing assignments are significant to my learning experience; even if they take extra time, it helps me understand more.
Honestly, I would say by not giving out small little assignments that are worth 5 points. Those are the assignments that don’t really have such a big effect on our learning. I think it takes patience and understanding to know that you’re doing the assignment for a reason, even if you don’t see it.
I don't thinking getting rid of homework is the solution. It provides extra practice outside of the classroom of the content that's being taught, which is how you learn. But I think there's a line between too little and too much homework. I don’t think it’s outdated, but I think schools needs to realize how much weight they’re giving students who have alot going on already. When students have this large burden on them of homework that they need to get done, they either don’t do it or cheat which doesn’t help them at all and defeats the real purpose of learning. I think it absolutely has educational value, but the amounts and contents of it need to change. I think the amount of homework I have is fair, but it hasn’t always been. It’s definitely a part of the learning experience, but done in moderation is what makes a real difference. Learning is more than homework. The grade level does matter because as you go into high grades and higher education, it becomes dire to your success. This is why you need to teach from a young age how that it’s important and how to manage it. If we just pile on assignment after assignment to students, it holds no value to what really matters, which is their education. If we pile things on them, they aren’t going to want to learn.
I agree with Mr. Kang when he states that homework is necessary for students to learn material. I agree that giving his students some homework each day is beneficial. Sometimes, we just need a refresher on what we learned in class so we can be prepared to learn something new for the next day. Quick, refreshing homework has helped me understand material and get practice for upcoming tests.
However, this is almost never the case. This semester, my average amount of time spent on homework each night is 4 hours. This is too much. It damages students' mental health. When did a quick revision of classroom material turn into 4 page packets with 40 questions due the next day? Nowadays, homework is not about learning material. Homework is repetitive busywork we spend our lives doing when we could be exploring our interests and being teenagers.
So, when asked, “Should we get rid of homework?” My answer is yes, and no. We must not end it entirely, rather remind ourselves of what it was originally intended for. We must lower the amount of homework, but still allow room for some of it to help students understand material.
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Most students would definitely argue the question–do we really need homework and should we/should we not get rid of it? Some would say that homework greatly benefits students while others would say it doesn’t. Nevertheless, we all still do homework. I believe and agree that teachers assign homework as a way to help students practice and develop good study habits and we shouldn’t get rid of it. They prepare you for both your short-term and long-term success. Although, I also believe that assigning an abundance of work can be mind-numbing and unnecessary. We, students, do homework as part of our routine and so we can learn. At the same time, we don’t expect to do much work that will eventually tire and overwork us. The point suggested by the writer opposing Mr. Kang, saying “...I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign…” is valid to the reasoning that we shouldn’t complete extra, “pointless” work that we would already know. Homework can absolutely benefit you individually in terms of grades, but too much can eventually distract you from your learning target and lead to you feeling overwhelmed as a result.
I strongly have to say there should not be homework. Why would a kid go to school for 8 hours a day 5 days a week just to come home and do hours of homework? Many kids have so much other stuff like sports, jobs, helping out with parents etc after school and have no extra time to do homework. Kids have life other than school. I am taking 3 hard honors core classes and playing lacrosse on top of that, and I have never once been able to come home after school and chill. Every single day and even the weekends I have to spend hours trying to complete homework.
Sometimes I even think that teachers give us homework that's not even beneficial, it's just more of “busy work”. In the article, Jay Kang says “As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign” This is showing how a teacher agrees it's all pointless work. As a student I know of many kids and I bet most kids do it too, but when teachers assign homework kids just end up looking up all the answers anyway. When kids know they can look up answers they usually do it because the teacher can't stop them.
@H, block 2 I agree with your writing, I find that homework can interfere with my life outside of school. I also think busywork that some teachers give us isn’t beneficial and we’d be better off just learning in class.
I, as well as almost every other student ever, have never liked homework. I have never really benefited from getting sheets and packets of questions about random topics we learn in class. If anything, I feel that homework like that adds more stress and unnecessary difficulty. I mean, we're already at school for about seven hours. Why add more work after that?
However, I think that Kang makes a great point. While the homework may seem a bit pointless, it at least trains the student to get things turned in in a timely manner. It also causes students to develop self-discipline and responsibility, getting them ready for the real world. The rest of our lives will be filled with things that we will not want to do that need to be done. So I suppose there is some value in that.
Even though I agree with Kang on that aspect of homework, I still think homework, at least for the most part, is kind of silly. Like what McCrory, Horn, and Chen said, students have different home lives and to assume that the homework works in a "one size fits all" way just seems wrong. Whether it be that the student has to pick up a job to support their family or they simply do not have all the resources and time they need to complete their assignment, something needs to be done.
So, in conclusion, I would say that either teachers should go lighter on the homework and stay flexible with it, or it should be done away with completely.
@N
Yes, homework can put tons more stress on top of the students. Why would we work hard all day and just go home and do more? I don’t see a clear point. Homework has put more stress on me than anything else. I just want to feel free after school and not have to worry, but that’s not the case these days. I do agree Kang makes a good point about homework but I think it should be less difficult and be more flexible for the students. Lots of students don’t have the time after school for homework. I can see why there is some homework that we need to do, but we don’t need it everyday and nor do we have time everyday to complete it.
Part one
I think it’s undeniable that homework has helped me understand new concepts. Especially in math, there are concepts that I’m not confident in but when doing homework, it gives me extra practice and time for me to search up or ask new questions to help me truly grasp what is being taught. In the published article “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities.”, the authors make a case that “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.” and while I do agree, like Mr. Kang says, “But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy.” School is an environment to learn and grow. Having the ability to do that extra practice, no matter the environment, can be so beneficial. For me, there have been times where I wasn't able to complete my homework because I simply didn't understand and looking online just made it more complex. That is where teachers come into play. As an educator it is their responsibility to help the student completely comprehend the material. I know, from talking to other teachers, they would rather help their students work out problems rather than students disregarding the lingering questions and blatantly complete the work.
@Vaani Phayal, Block 2
part 2
On the other hand, homework can be inconvenient at times. Mr. Kang even starts his essay with “The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value.” I have received homework assignments that were nothing more than busy work. And while that has no benefit for my learning, I was still obligated to complete them. In all, I believe that homework depends on the teacher. While some teachers give out beneficial homework, others give out busy work because they believe homework is necessary. I believe that they should, instead, provide other resources for the students who aren’t comprehending the material being taught.
Homework has its pros and cons. But for me personally i feel like giving too much makes it un effective. They should at least limit it to the point that students don't feel pressured and overworked. They could also compromise it and just have it for a specific subject for the week. Because the problem here is giving too much and give fatigue to the kids
I agree with writer Jay Caspian Kang that homework still has educational value. I like to do my homework. I have liked to do it since I was in primary school. I consider homework to be very important for learning because when I get homework I can continue practicing at home on any topic . From my point of view, homework is a benefit to help learn and memorize the concept of the topic. The homework is a source that supports the learning process. And the homework is to guide the student and guarantee to learn. For example, I never had problems with my parents and teachers for my homework when I was in primary school and in high school. I was always responsible with my homework and enjoyed doing it. So now I have a busy life. My homework often is overdue in my English program, but I still consider homework to be an important duty for any student learning.
As much as I don't want there to be homework because it makes me stressed, fall behind, and makes my brain explode I know that it also is a very helpful method for students to help understand things. Especially when referring to my grades most of my grades are homework assignments and grades are very important to me now so I do think that homework is mandatory--but also so tiring." the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at" by Mr. Kang spoke to me because it's by doing the homework you can finally master something you once were not good at. That is why if I were a teacher I would want to assign homework to my students but not hard homework that will make them not want to do it I would want to make fun homework that is engaging and would make my student want to do it and make it where it's not so hard just simple things because the little things matter even if they can only do a little I can figure out what the need help with and what I need to change if they can't solve something right.
Have you ever missed a homework assignment? How bad have you felt about it?
I think many of us have been in the position of feeling horrible because we did not complete any assignment. Homework sometimes may be stressful for students, and that is the reason many parents and students are following the trends to ask to abolish homework. But not everything about homework is bad. As a mother and as a student I think homework can be your personal tutor. Homework can help you understand the topics you don't fully understand in class. For example, in my former math class I used to struggle with Algebra. My math teacher would give us homework. Because of that I used to look for extra help on the Internet by watching videos on YouTube or looking on websites where they would explain in a way I could understand better. I know that homework for some people does not make any difference because they may be quick learners, but for people like me, it facilitates my learning. Even if doing homework stresses us, I think it is good to practice at home what you have learned in school so you can have better grades.
Ever since we were kids and started elementary school our teachers have given us a lot of homework. Is that homework truly helping us or only we waste our important time? If we remember those tasks only a little of that homework is truly helping us, and the rest of it is useless or unnecessary. While we are doing our homework we reach a point where we are no longer thinking. We only repeat the same process over and over again. I think that happens because we repeat the same type of exercise several times . In my opinion it is not bad to do homework, but I think that our professors should have control over the amount of homework they assign us. In my case, I work and study at the same time and to be honest I can't do most of our homework because I hardly have any time left. Also, we have a lot of assignments that we need to do from one day to another.
Homework is an essential part of school and learning, and without it, students would not be able to do well in class discussions and on tests. Teachers are only given a few hours a week with their students and if they attempted to both teach the material and have their students practice in order to prepare them for tests, they wouldn't be able to get through the material that the classes require.
There is definitely a strong argument in the aspect that students with more difficult home circumstances will find it harder to complete homework. The one problem with this argument is that it's blaming homework for the other inequalities that exist in the education system, such as how wealthier students generally get better grades. This inequality affects all aspects of school and learning, not just homework. If this problem is to be resolved, taking away homework would only solve a portion of it.
There is a solution to this problem, though. To give equal opportunity for students to complete their homework, it shouldn't be focused on learning new material. Many students can't complete their homework without help, which is why students with unfavorable home circumstances struggle more greatly with it. But if the homework itself is over something the student already knows how to do, they wouldn't need help and would be able to complete it on their own, no matter what support they have behind them.
I think we shouldn't get rid of homework and here's the reason why. Homework has a important part through our school years. One of the reasons homework is positive is how it helps you remember the lesson that was taught. Also it helps students understand topics and reflects on it for tests in the future. "A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right."
I think that we should not get rid of homework completely, but that we should place less emphasis on its status outside of the classroom. Students should not be burdened by the amount or type of homework given, as it should be the type of work that allows them to practice what they are learning already at school. Homework helps to reinforce for students the ideas and processes discussed in the classroom every day. I do not think that homework is ineffective, however, I do believe that it can become counterproductive for students when graded, either on completion or accuracy. This can negatively impact students based on their socioeconomic status or their home circumstances, as the authors stated in the paper, yet I do not agree with them that homework itself is harmful to students. I think that Mr. Kang is correct in that homework still has real educational value for students, allowing them to practice and perfect the topics that they have learned in their lessons at school.
I believe that some aspects of homework should fall out of use, but that in other cases homework can be beneficial to learning. Homework can sometimes be ineffective. Often, it’s hard to find a purpose in the homework assigned, and feels as if the purpose is to take up time, not to reinforce learning. That ineffective homework takes up time, which many students don’t have enough of to waste on assignments with no point. Putting aside any activities or extracurriculars, many students work jobs, some with the express purpose of supporting their families. These students have bigger concerns than these assignments, and if forced to choose, will understandably choose their job. I do believe that homework still has educational value if done right. Homework that gives students the opportunity to reinforce ideas they learned in class and practice concepts that are new to them will help the students retain that information long-term. In classes such as calculus, you cannot pass without homework and practice, unless you’re a genius. There, homework matters, and missing an assignment can be detrimental to a student’s learning. To me, the necessity of homework depends on the class and the difficulty of the content.
I don't like homework at all but It keeps us fresh with all the things we learned and helps us practice. But I also think we shouldn't have homework. There are many pros and cons. One of the cons is after a whole day of school we come home to more schoolwork. I think that homework every other day would be nice but homework is very beneficial if its applied frequently.
I do not like to do homework and I feel it takes up a lot of time, but I can argue that it benefits me in many different ways. There have been plenty of times, for example, where I have been confused on a subject, and the homework helped me to understand it and find out what mistakes I was making. Despite having negative memories with homework, it has taught me important lessons such as time-management and responsibility. I do find myself stressing a lot about work, and if I have enough, occasionally, I will fall behind for a day or two. While homework has its negatives, I feel we should keep it as it could potentially impact your understanding of a subject, and it can help to raise your grade.
I believe that there are both good and bad in giving homework. The benefits involve the student to be able to work on the material so they can get better at it. But I feel like there are definitely more negative factors in giving homework then the positive. As a student athlete it is not easy trying to maintain all the work plus the homework. Going to practices, workouts and being able to have a social life is hard for people like me. Homework should definitely be limited but not all just thrown out the window.
I both agree and disagree with the article. With the part about practice, I agree and feel like many students (mainly in the elementary to middle school years) need practice with their subjects at home. For me personally, there has been more than one occasion where I figured out how to do something solely because I had homework. In high school, I feel it is a bit different however.
Student’s generally become busier, work becomes harder, and stress becomes easier to pile up. As such, I think it would have to be a case by case basis and could really work either way. The part I disagree with however, is that students would do it for the sake of self satisfaction. Again, I’m speaking personally, but the only reason I would feel satisfied with understanding homework is because it would allow me to get a good grade. For many students, good grades are the main goal of school, so understanding becomes less important as the honor roll does.
With all of this, I feel like homework should definitely be toned down the older you get, but there should still be a good amount in a student's younger years. There are benefits and drawbacks to keeping and getting rid of it, and I feel like the best idea is to get the best of both worlds and to draw from both, allowing homework to become something that is still present, but would feel more like homework rather than just busy work to prepare for later life.
Homework should not be eliminated because it benefits students in the long run. Some people might think that homework is a bad thing but they must not think of why homework is assigned. Teachers don’t just assign homework for fun, they assign it so that students can understand and practice what they are learning. Homework can help students remember what they learn in class and help them with any upcoming tests. Homework is also assigned so teachers can see how well students are doing and help them if they are struggling. Homework helps because teachers won't be there to help when it's time for a test. As a student, homework has been beneficial to me because I am able to understand the class material better because I am constantly practicing due to homework. I do believe homework is not beneficial for all classes but that is something teachers should consider.
I personally believe that in some cases, homework can be helpful especially if students don’t understand the concept and would like more practice but in other cases, I also think that it can be a burden to students especially if homework can be unrelated to the topic or more difficult which causes more stress on students. For some students, the work that remains unfinished at school would be considered homework and then when teachers decide to assign more, it can be considered tiring and put more pressure on the students considering that they have things to do for other classes as well. So overall, I think that on some occasions, I think that homework is helpful for the concept of practicing and reviewing so teachers shouldn’t get rid of it completely but instead of assigning some every day, I feel like teachers should be more lenient about the amount they are assigning. This way, there isn’t a lot of stress being put on the students to do more homework but instead, they can incorporate more of the practices and learning in schools, that way, all the students have the same resources and are able to ask questions to the teacher if needed.
@Amillia N This is very well written, I agree with you that homework can be a burden to students. Teachers should be only assigning what the student did not finish in class, for homework
I don’t think that there is a right or wrong way on this argument. There’s solid points that come from both sides, and it’d just be hard to pick one or the other. A nice medium is what we should have. Homework, but not too much. Less busy work and more actual learning and remembering about the topic.
We don’t need to get rid of homework completely, just focus the homework more onto the beneficial stuff. Assignments get done faster and you recall information better. If I were a teacher I would give out homework. But only the kind that I think would be worthy of their time. Cause lets face it, High Schoolers are really busy.
@Genevieve Bodily You make a good point that there are solid points from both sides, and I like the idea of focusing the homework away from busy work and towards work supplemental to the topic you're learning about.
@Genevieve Bodily I agree completely. Homework shouldn't feel like a chore, it should be beneficial to students who need to learn and practice concepts. I have gotten homework that were basically just busy work that had no academic value. Great job explaining the happy medium!
@Genevieve Bodily
Honestly, I agree, it is hard to choose one side. We need homework sometimes, but they give us way too much. I think maybe an assignment per day after school would be good for us.
I think homework has positives and negative factors homework can be used in extremally helpful ways like by introducing people to new books or ideas. This has happened to me a couple times. But also homework can be very stressful for students believe it or not many students are not just students they are athletes or have to take care of a relative or maybe they are very social. In conclusion light doses homework can be helpful but too much homework can be deadly for the education experience.
Homework is something that every student has dealt with since their early years of education. It is something that has always been there and, for the foreseeable future, will always be. Some students may not care or even enjoy it while others despise doing it. In my opinion, homework is something that I have always done and completed as it was required and I was scared of losing points or moving down in letter grades. However, I never enjoyed doing it. Sure, I agree that there may be some benefit to it, but most of the time it is just busy work. Especially when you get to high school and beyond, students have many more responsibilities that require their attention. Spending time trying to balance the hours of homework every night plus work or other activities is extremely straining and at times unmanageable. Because of this, students waste time that they could be resting, sleeping, and recharging for the next day. Homework is an unnecessary issue that does more harm than good for students.
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@Shelby Lewis I agree with this for the most part. I also never really enjoyed doing homework simply for the fact that my grade would go down if I didn't. Also like you said, life gets busy in high school, and many times it can feel overwhelming to have to try to balance it on top of everything else. I do disagree with getting rid of it completely however. It is busy work most of the time, but I feel like it may sometimes help retain information when done correctly. Also, especially with math homework, it allows a student to practice skills they either already know or need to master. This is a positive in my opinion, and is what I feel is one of the reasons why it should definitely be toned down, but not removed completely.
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@Shelby Lewis I really can relate to what you said about things that require our attention beyond school. I am constantly struggling to balance my time worth work and school and it seems impossible. I believe as well that homework does more bad then good because when I am stressed about learning I am way less likely to want to learn or be excited to become educated. I don't think work that is beneficial is all terrible in moderation, but busywork is so unreasonable to me also.
@Shelby Lewis I agree with this entirely. As someone with an extracurricular activity, I can definitely relate to having to balance the hours between it and school. I also think that this balance causes students to have bad mental health, making them not wanting to do their assignments, causing worse mental health. This cycle is a hard one to break once you're in it.
There’s nothing more that I complain about than– homework. And trust me, I complain about a lot of things. However, I believe that homework plays a beneficial role in a student’s ability to understand assignments. In the article, Mr. Kang pointed out his past, “It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things.” Personally, I agree with Mr. Kang. I tend to space out sometimes when I’m in class. But when I get home and do my homework, I tend to understand the topic more because I’m exposed to it more often and I get to practice. Practicing something many times allows you to get better and raises your confidence when doing it. However, in my opinion, the amount of homework given is too much. Students are forced to endure 6+ hours of school, and many also have extracurricular activities –sports or clubs– right after that. I usually don’t get a chance to do homework till 8-9 pm because of my schedule. With the insane workload given, I find myself getting super stressed out often and having to stay up late to finish assignments. Schools always encourage you to take care of your mental health. Yet, teachers assign so many things and cause students to feel overwhelmed. Therefore, homework is a valuable tool, but too much of it can be detrimental.
@Chloe, I also agree with your idea on homework being beneficial for students to learn to practice. Personally homework has always been a way for me to understand the topic more thoroughly than I tend to in class. However, I think homework can easily become overwhelming especially when you have to work in multiple subjects and classes. Do you become overwhelmed by homework often? Do you have any advice for those who have trouble managing the extensive workload of school?
@Chloe I agree with you on your statement of "Schools always encourage you to take care of your mental health. Yet, teachers assign so many things and cause students to feel overwhelmed". Some people need to take care of their mental health by not doing homework so they're not stressed and some people need to take care of their mental health by doing homework so their grade stays good so they're not stressed. It's a big back and forth of, do this BUT, do that BUT. So I agree with you that it is helpful in the sense of practice but there tends to be way too much of it that can cause a negative effect.
I believe homework is needed in different situations, however, not all the time. Homework is beneficial in some cases, where it can help students understand more of the topic that was taught in class. It is a way for students to get a grasp of the topics because of the practice provided. For example, being assigned math problems to further enhance your math skills in that specific area is helpful and having homework in English can be helpful to practice your writing skills. However, having homework that is unrelated to what was taught during that day is confusing to do because you are doing extra work then what was taught. Homework at times can be a burden because there may be unfinished work in classes, and adding more homework on top of that can be a hassle. Pages and pages of homework makes the work repetitive and boring, making students not want to do it even more. In conclusion, having simple necessary homework is beneficial for students to learn more about what is being taught.
@Julianne M
I completely agree with what you are stating. Homework is only really beneficial to certain classes. Some certain topics like math or a foreign language may need homework for extra review so that the students are able to grasp the concepts better. There are many classes that don't need homework and it tends to add onto the students work load causing the students to be much more stressed and hate the thought of homework. Evening out the workload would give homework a better image. Which would make the students willing do their homework and learn more instead of ignoring it.
I think we should keep homework, but that we should have time to do it in class and there should be moderation. For starters, I find it far easier to manage work when I only have to do things in class- school is already a designated time to do schoolwork, and I don’t think that work should then be able to bleed into our personal lives too much. School shouldn’t be some all-encompassing presence in children’s lives, especially when they already have enough to deal with on their own, such as managing relationships, mental health, and more, varying from person to person. On that topic, if one’s homework still needed to be completed at home, even with the extra time, we shouldn’t have too much homework, for the same reasons that we should have time to do it in class. I think a good time limit for homework would be 30 minutes to 1 hour- this way, students can still have time for themselves while also benefiting from the homework. Conclusively, I think that homework should remain, but with restrictions, and we should be given allotted time to complete it in class. Homework is beneficial due to the fact that it provides extra practice and “drills” things into your memory, but I do think that too much homework is far too much to deal with during the time that is meant to be a break from school.
No one should get rid of homework. It is a vital part of our education system and helps students learn the concepts that will help them excel in their futures. If students are never challenged by their education, they will surely drown in the sea of struggles that is the professional world.
I generally have around an hour of homework a night. This is a reasonable and manageable workload for a high school student. Homework is a vital part of my educational experience. Time in the classroom should be spent on instructional lessons from teachers. We still must practice what we learn outside of the classroom. More than this, students must practice responsibility by completing assignments on time. It is additionally necessary to encourage students to challenge themselves and provide them with experience in navigating difficulties.
As students grow as humans and learners, their education needs to grow with them. It would be irresponsible and unnecessary to assign homework to elementary school students. At this age, students are learning how to learn in the classroom, gaining the basis of how to function in the next levels of schooling. However, once students are entering middle and high school, they need to start being prepared for the challenges of life beyond school. This is a skill that cannot be taught in the classroom. Homework prepares students to overcome struggles and become self-sufficient. You can’t learn to swim if you’re never thrown into the pool.
Teachers should should get rid of homework because it interferes with a student’s personal life, especially if they have sports or extracurricular activities. However, if a student doesn’t finish an assignment designed to take up the class, then they should finish the assignment for homework, but it shouldn’t exceed 15 minutes of work. Homework interferes with family time and make students stay up late, which can affect their performance at school because they aren’t getting enough sleep. If a student spends hours on homework, it will diminish their motivation to do other things which can affect their mental health. Homework can lead to students not trying at school because they won’t see a point in doing work in class if they know they would have hours of homework. When students leave school they should be able to live their life and be kids, not do school the entire day and night.
@Luly P I agree that homework should be assigned minimally. The curriculum set for that year should not be disturbed as long as the students are learning their lessons correctly, and large amounts of homework will only disrupt the learning process and cause the students to associate school as a means of survival (getting into college, a stable career, etc.) instead of an activity that helps students learn and remember. There are very few students who find enjoyment in learning these days and I truly believe there is an opportunity for change most teachers and students currently fail to carry out effectively. I say students as well because although the teachers are at fault for not properly delivering work that tailors to their students, us as students fail to vocalize areas in the curriculum we struggle with, therefore not many teachers know what exactly they should do to help out. Not only that, but as students who work in an infinite number of ways can practice making the work we learn more enjoyable, we just aren't often taught how.
@Luly P I agree. A lot of students have extra things to worry about. Like sports or a part time job. These things are also important to a student's growth, so limiting them with homework is not beneficial.
I think homework is essential and should stay in schools because it develops responsibility in students and allows us to begin learning time management and other crucial life skills. I definitely believe that students with challenging home circumstances may find their homework to be very difficult and it’s definitely a flaw that homework has. However, for the vast majority of students, homework can be a useful tool for understanding the material given in class, and we shouldn't get rid of it just because there are some flaws to how homework is distributed. Although homework isn't perfect, there are many ways to improve it and make it more useful. Teachers should ensure that all students have access to the materials they need to produce their best work because homework might be more difficult for some than others. If that's not possible, they should reduce the amount of homework and make it equally accessible to everyone. Overall, homework is a crucial part of learning for students and if homework were to be eliminated from school there would be more problems with learning and students would have to do a lot more in the classroom, which sometimes isn't ideal.
We should get rid of homework because it doesn’t really do anything for students, not even practice. It’s like doing overtime for your job, which can reduce our sleep, and put more stress when we don’t really need it.
I think that we should limit homework, especially in highschool. I think that too many teachers just give it to give it because they feel they have to, but really it adds a lot of unnecessary stress because kids have lives outside of school, and when they have hours of homework piled up it keeps them from doing normal extracurricular activities. I think that if you were not getting your work done in class, then ya you should have to do it for homework because the class has to keep moving, but for the most part homework is unnecessary.
My opinion on this topic is that I think we should get rid of homework. I think of homework as another way to study for upcoming tests and assessments but I think that we do study in different ways. I don't believe we need homework, I think we have homework to help us prepare ourselves for the test. But we do that by making study guides and making things to benefit ourselves. Homework is negative in my opinion because when you try your best and you don't do well then you feel down, you feel defeated for putting in so much effort such to get told you did it incorrectly. I do not agree with Mr.Kang, I don't think it has educational value, the only value it has is increasing or decreasing your grade. I feel like it has some positive outcomes, but truly it has a negative effect on a student's mindset when they don't do well, and they put in all their effort.
@Sukhpreet J
I agree with what you have put out. Homework can help us understand what we're learning a little bit better, but it can be a struggle. In my opinion, homework is ok but the way that teachers give it to us makes it pretty difficult. Take for example, some type of language class, especially a foreign language, if they're moving fast in class and you get confused, you have to keep up. To keep up you might need to study and such, but if they give you piles of work to be done at home, you continue to struggle. Your grade will keep on dropping lower and lower until you understand the lesson and get the work done. Again, homework is ok, but there needs to be a limit on how much teachers can assign. Students feel terribly about their grades when they cant get all the work done and it slips. Like you said, they put in as much as they can and watch their efforts collapse. Also, we have our own life at home! Oftentimes our personal life can be interfered with homework and we lose some of our personal values.
@Sukhpreet J I'm saddened that's how you feel about homework, not only because it effects your mental health overall, but also because you aren't the only person who feels that way about homework.
Since completing work after school has become an annual ordeal, the assignment's level of difficulty increases over time as well. We end up struggling more and more, and for some, the number of difficulties are seemingly infinite and to their surprise, so are the questions they have in combatting their struggles with the material. Homework can have that effect on individuals who are used to spending the majority of their time attempting to enjoy their life and it's extremely difficult to change because it is the system most adults are used to. So in the perspective of an educator: why change a tradition that poses at least a few of the benefits we are currently aware of?
When I get home after school, I try to complete all of my homework that’s due on the same day. I usually manage my assignments into chunks and by spreading them out over the next few days so I still have free time to myself. I think the amount I get is appropriate since I usually take my time with it. In my opinion, homework is an important part of my experience. This is true with AP Calculus homework since I need as much practice I can get to understand what I’m learning about. I don’t think homework is a waste of time since it’s one of the ways I can practice or understand what I’m learning about.
@Isabelle V. I agree with you I think homework is important and beneficial to students. Homework has great academic value. Homework helps in a lot of ways and it helps students and teachers know if their on the right track.
Homework is too valuable to the learning process to just get rid of it entirely, so I must advocate for homework to stay. There is only so much time in the classroom, and I know that I do not learn everything I need during school hours. Take, for example, a foreign language. If you have 15 minutes of work every day, then not only does the time add up, but the overall skills will increase more because it is being practiced and repeated every day. I know I benefit from daily applications of concepts I have learned in class. Learning takes place over repeated instances of exposure, and homework is a vital component of that exposure. I’ll spend about 2-3 hours doing homework or school-related work on any given day. It’s a good balance for me. Of course, it means I don’t get to go out with my friends every night and I have to plan and account for when I want to relax, but I like it. I don’t feel that I am missing out on much when I stay home, and the work is rewarding. I like learning new things and I can find pleasure in homework and trying my hardest. I understand that school is not as big of a priority for a lot of other students, but based on my own experiences, you just have to come at it with a positive attitude and recognize how much it will help you in the future. Even if I don’t always want to do it, I wouldn’t be able to perform at the level I do without having done all the work outside of class.
Although I understand the need for academic resources, I think that Homework is one of the resources that aren’t exactly necessary anymore. I view Homework as a hindrance and an inconvenience, especially for those with after-school activities. Not only does it take up more time from students’ personal lives, it applies more pressure on students that come home at later times, as they have less time to do what they need to do. I admit that homework is important, as it’s a good way to show your understanding on a topic/subject, but I believe that it could easily be replaced with alternative solutions, such as longer school hours.
Between basketball practice, extracurricular activities, and a job…students hardly have any time to do homework, and when we really look into the details is homework even that effective? I for one think that homework is a bad thing due to the fact that not only do students hardly have the time it also is school work to do when you get home. Why do we even go home? We might as well just stay at school, but instead, we get the relief of the car ride home, and then it's right back to school work. Does homework have educational value? Homework has educational value IF—ONLY IF— it's done with a desire to learn not just to be compliant. This is due to most people doing it because they have to which basically causes the information to go right through one ear and back out the other.
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Homework may have it's benefits and struggles but the ones I have heard more often than not is that homework causes stress. and stress is found in everyday life and yet teachers add more stress on us but giving tons of homework. The question of getting rid of homework has been a question for years but is it really worth it because if we don't have homework than there are going to be more things to do in class. Not having any homework would be a win lose situation you win for not having any homework but you lose because you never have any free time to do work for the other classes you take then you be over worked over whelmed and exhausted.
I think we should get rid of homework and here are my reasons why. I think we should get rid of homework, because we already learn all the stuff in class and we get time to practice it. Homework can be a really stressful thing because some students have a lot of sports going on, or just don't have time for it. Homework should at least be optional because the students that get it are going above and beyond for something that they don't need the practice for. Homework is a waste of time and hard work because overall you're just going to do the same thing for your class time.
@Mattie Cooper
Many things in life are stressful like for instance a teacher teaching a class. I personally think stressful things are what build character. A lot of people are not perfect therefore they sometimes may not pay attention I feel as though homework should be required just not graded rather as a test to see how your progressing and what a teacher can improve on when teaching.
Should we get rid of homework, why or why not. I think we should get rid of homework because I think homework is a waste of time. I also think that you can still be successful if you don't do homework. I think this because why should you have to do homework if you just did work at school? It doesn't make sense. Also I think people can still be successful without doing homework because they are already doing the work they need to be doing during school. Also i think if people have homework then what's the point of going to school if you're doing work at home? That is why I think we should get rid of homework.
Getting rid of homework shouldn’t be evaluated as a yes or no question. Homework may benefit students in skill development, time management, and responsibility, but should that come at the cost of the negative experiences students may acquire from it, including; stress, dereliction, and its possible negative impact on grades?
I agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value. In classes that are more skill-based and require repetitive practice, homework is necessary. It can boost memory retention, self-learning habits, discipline, and efficiency.
Though there are many positive benefits to homework, there are just as many negatives. I’ll often spend up to three hours of my night devoted to homework. This would be after committing time to other school activities, helping my family, and other students who have jobs commit even more time. I have noticed the more homework I have, the more stressed and unhappy I feel throughout my day. It limits the amount of sleep I get and my free time devoted to things I enjoy doing. If I am sleep deprived and unhappy, do the benefits I gain from completing an excessive amount of homework matter?
I believe if we were going to make homework more effective, shorter and less stress-evoking assignments would be beneficial. If I have a few short assignments, I’ll feel more productive and happy while still familiarizing myself with the criteria instead of a heavy, difficult, time-consuming assignment.
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We should not get rid of homework and it really depends on the students more than anything. Optional homework should be given because it will fit best. If someone already understands something it wouldn’t be fair to give them copious amounts of mandatory homework that they will just be doing without benefit. People will only have to study as much as they need for themselves. 5 units of homework might not be enough for one person to learn the subject and it could also be more than needed for another person. If someone doesn’t want to do the amount of homework he should do proportional to himself then he will have to deal with the natural consequence. Growing up to only do work when you are told to do it can make you accustomed to doing things without benefit and make it feel unnatural to do things on your own without something looking over you to do it. In terms of effectiveness, that depends on the actual subject. Some subjects require extensive applications of it while others don’t. A great way to make homework more effective is to use it when needed and structure the assignment in a way that will benefit the student. In my last year's math class, I wasn’t required to do the homework if I had a certain grade. This was a great way to motivate people to get good grades and also lets the student manage himself, if the student stops managing himself and starts getting worse grades then he loses the ability to manage his own work.
As a student at Ames High school I do not think that we should get rid of homework completely but I do think that teachers should give us an adequate amount of time to complete the homework in class. Allowing us to ask questions and get a good chunk of the work done before we go home. While homework does offer an additional learning tool, it can often be ineffective because students often try to get it done as fast as they can rather than deeply understanding it. I also agree with the authors of the New York Times Article that doing work at home can be deeply affected by the hardships many students already face in their families. I agree with Mr. Kang, that homework still offers some educational value. It creates a new learning environment for students to practice actively recalling what they have learned during the day. Depending on the day I can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours on homework this also includes studying and projects. As a student athlete I do not have tons of free time at home so it is a bit of a burden that my only free hours are spent doing homework rather than hanging out with my family or doing something I love. I believe that homework per class should not exceed 45 minutes which is equivalent to half of a block class period per subject. Grade level can definitely play a role in determining the importance of homework because of the level of content being learned.
I do not believe we should get rid of homework in schools. There is value in practicing difficult and challenging concepts outside of the classroom because it gives students a chance to practice these concepts that they may not fully understand. It’s unlikely, especially for the later years of education, that students will understand and internalize everything they learn in class without the enrichment that homework can provide. There are issues with the current use of homework. Arbitrary assignments that provide little benefit are a common problem with homework. Many times, busywork assignments are simply put there for more points in the gradebook, instead of practice. Another common issue with homework is grading. Often, teachers will grade homework for points, which is counterproductive to the idea of homework in the first place. Homework should be used to practice concepts or problems that have already been taught. Homework is to allow the students the chance to improve those skills. Both of these common issues can be easily fixed, by only assigning homework on skills that students need to practice, and grading those assignments on completion. There are shortcomings to homework, but if educators and students alike looked back on the original purpose of homework, it is a simple task to resolve many of these issues and be left with the positive habits and practice opportunities that homework assignments can provide.
We shouldn’t be getting rid of homework. It is very hard to find times when homework is unbeneficial for the student. It not only helps them understand the concept further but is practically the only way to prepare for exams. Setting deadlines helps reinforce the idea of not procrastinating and to develop time-management skills.
Homework is by no means outdated or ineffective. It being considered counterproductive might be a reach.
I usually spend around 1-2 hours completing my assignments. I’m currently given just the right amount so I’m not completely overwhelmed but I’m still busy every day. Every assignment I’ve been given has been beneficial to me in some sort of way, little or big, it all contributes in some way in the end.
We shouldn’t be getting rid of homework. It is very hard to find times when homework is unbeneficial for the student. It not only helps them understand the concept further but is practically the only way to prepare for exams. Setting deadlines helps reinforce the idea of not procrastinating and to develop time-management skills. Homework is by no means outdated or ineffective. It should never even be considered as counterproductive.
I usually spend around 1-2 hours completing my assignments. I’m currently given just the right amount so I’m not completely overwhelmed but I’m still busy every day. Every assignment I’ve been given has been beneficial to me in some sort of way, little or big, it all contributes in some way in the end.
I don’t think we should get rid of homework because yes it may cause stress but it gives extra practice. Maybe homework should be more limited but I don’t think it should get rid of. Kids may not fully understand the reason for homework but I’m also looking at it from a teacher’s perspective. Of course kids would say otherwise but homework helps and can also sometimes give extra credit. I also think that homework shouldn’t be graded on completion or attempting and not how well it is complete I think homework has some level of value. Everyone learns at a different speed. For the kids that need more time to comprehend a lesson, I think homework is beneficial. It gives them that little extra practice outside of school so that when they go back the next day, they aren’t behind. It is the best way for students to practice skills and be prepared for future assessments.
Homework does rely on the fact that the student has time outside of school to work on it. From what I’ve personally experienced, the responsibilities of students vary drastically, producing a group of students who perform well with the work they do and a group of students who don’t do as well. However, it does also reflect on the individual's work ethic and ability to exercise time management. Many students that do have time and resources still don’t do their homework. There is inequality, and there are advantages to those who have more resources. However, that shouldn’t be the reason why we get rid of homework in general.
Practice makes perfect. Without repetition of the skills you learned and the ability to teach it to others, you can’t say you understand the topic well enough.
Personally, I try to do all my work. I have been ingrained from an early age to get my work done on time and be aware of the time on the clock. However, there are other priorities that I sometimes choose over homework. As someone who lives away from their parents with a roommate and goes to public school, I have a lot of house responsibilities, financial budgeting, and extenuating circumstances I have to deal with on my own without the help of my parents. That takes a great deal out of my time weekly and sometimes I can’t get to the homework on time. Extracurriculars also expend my energy. On those days, homework becomes something stressful, not an opportunity to practice what I’ve learned.
With being at school 5 days a week for the whole school year and getting homework every day can be both challenging and beneficial. The challenging part is with sports and extracurriculars that people are involved with after school can get in the way with homework. But I think that getting rid of homework won’t help us succeed in life. Homework helps us better understand the material and prepares us for test. I think a result of these things is limiting homework that teachers give students so that it is convenient for ourselves after school has ended so that we both do the things we enjoy after school but also have enough time to get work done for school.
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Each individual teacher doesn't assign too much, and maybe I’m a procrastinator. I spent too much time last night putting my siblings to bed while my parents are away and too much time with my family over the weekend because it was the last time I got with my mom for a month. I should’ve been prioritizing homework, what was I thinking?
I really am happy to do all of these things. Learning excites me. I look forward to finally understanding what we are doing in calculus after practicing on my own. The AP Government assignment has given me a greater interest in law, while I’ve learned from chemistry homework that science is less for me. This all has value. I just wish there were a few more hours in the day.
Although the literal value of homework assignments may increase as we get older, we have to start building our habits from a young age. I wouldn't have the necessary work ethic if homework wasn't normalized my whole life.
It’s the combination of quick and extended due dates that make things challenging. The sad reality is, even if I have a month to do something, it will be put off for three weeks because there are too many quick assignments due first that have to be prioritized. If there was a way to create more of a balance for students, that would be better. Having intermittent deadlines for longer projects and chunking everything out makes things more manageable for students. So don't do away with homework. But give it a long, hard look through the eyes of students.
In my opinion, I think that many classes like math and science benefit from the use of homework. This is due to how subjects like these benefit a lot from practice to help understand it more than what a teacher can teach in a class period My thoughts on what should be done would be rather than together getting rid of homework would rather be that teachers would assign less to help students with less access to resources due to their socioeconomic status or rather the teacher assign optional resources for help students get the practice need to help expand their understanding of the subject rather than mandatory assignments. In Kang’s response, he mentions that “students he to learn how to practice things something.” This is something I believe is true due to my personal experience of how repeatedly doing math problems for homework helped me understand the materials and expand what the teacher taught in class. Kang in the end mentions how students master something that they were once bad at. One thing I agree that homework helps with. There aren't many ways I think that would make homework more effective but I think that the repetitive nature that homework provides is needed for a student to master the subject being learned. What I think may be better to do is rather that a teacher provides material or problems that help the student practice but rather have it due at a certain time or mandatory for a grade it would be done so that helps students get the reps in that they need.
Homework should not be done away with. While some methods of homework, especially busywork and redundancy, are outdated, homework overall is a critical part of learning. No matter what individual opinions of our current American society are, we must be trained for a world where competitiveness is everywhere. There cannot be the expectation that people will not work hard. But since America is also very unequal, there need to be ways to help students who are struggling with homework. Institutions should help with the homework already assigned, not lower the burden by taking it away. When I get home from school today, I will absolutely have too much to do. It all adds up to over three and a half hours. I’ll have less than two hours after school to do that and eat dinner before being gone for the rest of the night at soccer and church group, returning at 9 or so to have two more hours before 11 if I hope to get eight hours of sleep. So, if I use every possible minute, eat while I do my homework, and talk to no one, I should be able to get everything done, but that doesn’t account for studying for a major test tomorrow.
When it comes to the topic of homework, most people can agree that it does benefit students in some ways. Where debates and disagreements start to creep in is on the matter of what it actually does to help students. On one side, people such as Kang argue that the onslaught of work dumped on students helps them further understand any new topics that are presented to them as well as teaching kids how to deal with the menial tasks they may be asked to do at jobs in the future. Contrary to this, researchers such as Jessica McCrory Calarco see homework as something that encourages students to build self-responsibility and individual competence.
I believe that we should not get rid of homework, instead, we should whittle down what is considered “busy work” and eliminate that. Meaningful homework that is essential to the learning of that class should stay because it teaches the students about important topics and reinforces the learning that they do in the classroom. Busy work that has no positive impact on their learning, but merely sucks up their time, is a waste. Rather than getting rid of homework altogether, only assigning essential work that actually aids the student’s learning would be the way to keep it meaningful.
I believe there are many ways to make homework more effective. Creating an incentive for completing the assignment well will compel students to put more effort into the assignment. Teachers can also impact this by making assignments worth more or less in the gradebook, which incentivizes students to put forth better effort. Overall, I believe that making homework more effective lies in the content of the assignment and the motivation for students to complete the assignment.
If I was a teacher, I would only assign homework when necessary. Assigning students homework just to assign something is common, but is the wrong idea. If the homework would not supplement their learning in a meaningful way, then there is no reason to waste their time by doing it and my time by having to grade it. There are other ways of making sure that students understand the topics than just assigning homework every night.
I think the first step is to get rid of busy work. This is the work that has no educational value and requires lots of time from the individual to complete it. Tasks like these are frustrating and have no value to the student. However, I do not think homework should be eliminated entirely. It is important to have assignments so that students can understand the content from class. It’s hard to learn if you aren’t practicing the skills that you learn in class. I do think that the amount of work could be decreased and the deadlines less enforced. I think more than anything, I want my teachers to see that I am a real person with a real life. Sometimes things won’t get done or I won’t understand a task and I want my teachers to understand that.
I agree with Mr. Kang in that homework does still have educational value. I think many students really benefit from the tasks that they are assigned for home. However, I come from a stable and happy household. I do not have to worry about my parents being gone or not having food. My parents are almost always around to help me with the work that I have. I think that this is a very important thing to consider. If someone doesn’t have that support system, assignments are going to be so much more difficult to do and they should be able to do something else. I feel like the teacher should be understanding of that and make a different plan for them.
I think the first step is to get rid of busy work. This is the work that has no educational value and requires lots of time from the individual to complete it. Tasks like these are frustrating and have no value to the student. However, I do not think homework should be eliminated entirely. It is important to have assignments so that students can understand the content from class. It’s hard to learn if you aren’t practicing the skills that you learn in class. I do think that the amount of work could be decreased and the deadlines less enforced. I think more than anything, I want my teachers to see that I am a real person with a real life. Sometimes things won’t get done or I won’t understand a task and I want my teachers to understand that.
I agree with Mr. Kang in that homework does still have educational value. I think many students really benefit from the tasks that they are assigned for home. However, I come from a stable and happy household. I do not have to worry about my parents being gone or not having food. My parents are almost always around to help me with the work that I have. I think that this is a very important thing to consider. If someone doesn’t have that support system, assignments are going to be so much more difficult to do and they should be able to do something else. I feel like the teacher should be understanding of that and make a different plan for them.
Should we get rid of homework? No, it is important for students to be able to work on the more tedious and technical aspects of subjects on their own time, while class time can be used for more communal, concept-based learning. I think homework should be assigned sparingly, and that it should cover smaller parts of subjects that would be a waste of class time to focus on. I think teachers should make every effort to have as much learning take place in the classroom as possible, but homework can serve a purpose if used correctly.
Personally, I will typically push homework off until I absolutely have to do it, because the work I’m assigned I often can’t do without the guidance of a teacher. In the majority of my classes, there is time during the class period to do individual work, without much homework. I would do 15-20 minutes of individual work at home, as long as it is actually valuable to do and not just busy work.
How can we make homework more effective? Make it actually be worth doing. Most homework is just busy work, recycled from the lesson. The actual lesson time needs to be restructured to maximize group learning and time with the instructor, to make individual effort worth it.
When it comes to the topic of education, one controversial issue is whether or not students should be assigned homework. On the one hand, some people argue that homework helps students practice difficult concepts, develop skills such as time management, and learn how to repetitively practice things. On the other hand, people may contend homework exacerbates inequalities, reinforces meritocracy, and adds unnecessary stress to student’s lives. My own view is that homework is generally beneficial for students. It provides an opportunity to work through difficult concepts on our own and practice them until we have mastered them. Especially in math and physics, repeating various practice problems over and over until I understand the method and can more easily achieve the answer is crucial for my learning, even if I lament the time lost to these exercises. In other classes such as APUSH, daily readings help give me a more concrete understanding of the topics covered in class. There are occasions when homework becomes busy work which should be eliminated. I also believe that some homework should be lessened because at times the amount of homework I receive is overwhelming and the stress it causes is more harmful than the benefits I may gain. In certain classes I appreciate when teachers assign homework that is graded on completion, not on whether the answer is right or wrong. Overall, homework builds on what we do in class and allows me to ensure that I understand the material.
I do not think that we should get rid of homework all together. However, the amount of homework and the way in which it is assessed should be altered. It is important to learn time management and how to effectively get work done. I agree with Mr.Kang that homework still has educational value. It lets you practice skills learned in the class and get a better understanding. Homework also helps you learn how to effectively manage your time. That is a skill that we will use our whole lives so for that reason we should at least have some homework. But it should not be so much that kids don't have time to do anything else or the things that they enjoy. I think that about 1-2 hours is a good amount. I also think that homework should be graded on completion or attempting and not how well it is completed because many kids do not live in a home that is conducive to getting work done. Homework could be made more effective by not assigning busy work or extra work because the teacher wants to give homework. It should only be assigned if skills need more practice or a student did not finish the assignment in class.
I do not think that we should get rid of homework all together. However, the amount of homework and the way in which it is assessed should be altered. It is important to learn time management and how to effectively get work done. I agree with Mr.Kang that homework still has educational value. It lets you practice skills learned in the class and get a better understanding. Homework also helps you learn how to effectively manage your time. That is a skill that we will use our whole lives so for that reason we should at least have some homework. But it should not be so much that kids don't have time to do anything else or the things that they enjoy. I think that about 1-2 hours is a good amount. I also think that homework should be graded on completion or attempting and not how well it is completed because many kids do not live in a home that is conducive to getting work done. Homework could be made more effective by not assigning busy work or extra work because the teacher wants to give homework. It should only be assigned if skills need more practice or a student did not finish the assignment in class.
When asked whether or not we should get rid of homework, I think the answer is more complex than a simple yes or no. Every student learns differently, and for that reason, some students find homework beneficial to their learning. However, some students may feel that homework provides less benefits to them. Different students learn in different ways, therefore one learning strategy simply won’t work for everyone.
I think homework is most effective to a student when they are able to understand the purpose of it. For example, if a teacher is repeatedly assigning “busy work,” the homework is no longer truly effective. Ultimately, if a student doesn’t understand the purpose of a homework assignment, they aren’t receiving the educational benefits of the assignment anyways.
If I were a teacher, I would assign homework only when necessary. However, before giving homework I would attempt to explain why I think completing the assignment would be directly beneficial to the students learning. I would keep the assignments short because I understand that a student's time outside of school is limited, and most of the time a great amount of learning can still take place in a short amount of time.
I believe it would be a disservice to students to get rid of homework. While there will always be work that only seems like busy work and does not aid active learning, it doesn’t mean it should not be assigned. In high school students are constantly taught a wide range of subjects that we may not ever recall again--it’s unlikely that as a historian you will need to recite quadratic formulas by heart or as an engineer you will need to remember the household shifts during World War 1. However, it doesn’t mean these concepts should be taught. The existence of schooling should not be to commit pieces of knowledge to heart but rather build critical reasoning skills and patience that are necessary for any facet of life. Homework reminds us that all these big lessons cannot be disgusted and performed all at once or in a single class period. Instead, learning habits and critical analysis requires incremental steps. Homework is how we make those small progressions.
There are various methods that homework can be assigned productively. Teachers can evaluate what level of understanding each student is at based on the result of homework. It also offers an opportunity to connect with students when homework is not completed to inquire about what may be happening at home. Ultimately this allows teachers to make the proper accommodations to aid the student the best way they can. Homework doesn’t have to be a painful waste of time, it can also be the start of a conversation.
Yes, I do in fact think we should get rid of homework. Most of the time when something is due the next day or the day after that like homework is, kids do not do it just because they either don’t have time or truly forget about it because they're doing something they're focused on. Then when they wake up the next day and they may get a reminder or while going to school remember and they begin to stress about it. Some kids would communicate why they forgot but you have to understand social and communication skills aren't very good for some kids at our age and it may cause a lot of anxiety and stress. Everybody has things more important going on in their life than homework and some kids just can’t do it. That’s it, they just can’t. We are all still kids not robots. “Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school...I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly…” Mr. Kang said this. This is a great representation in his argument of my side of the story as a student athlete that struggles with certain circumstances in life. Also if we get rid of homework it gives us more time to study for tests, quizzes, and do our projects better. We would obviously have more of those but it would help us improve our grade more, work on our mental health, play sports, and not have to stress so much about things that won’t matter 10 years from now.
In my opinion, it depends on the class. I believe Mathematics, Science, English, Social Studies, and World Language courses should still give out homework, but for other elective classes, I think you could get away with not giving out as much homework. The core studies are probably the most important things you learn in school because they apply to real life the most. There are going to be times in school when core studies are challenging, and extra work is needed. Homework allows a student to get extra practice on things he/she/they may have trouble with in those core classes.
One way I believe you can make homework more effective is by making the incentive for doing it greater. There will be times when the homework you do will go in the grade book, and it won’t do anything to your grade because it isn’t worth anything. If homework is worth more in the grade book, it will impact the student’s grades more, especially if it’s an assignment that’s graded on completion. It’s free points in the grade book that actually mean something. If students know there’s a greater incentive to doing homework, then they’ll do it because it will make their grades better. That’s a way I believe that homework can be made more effective.
I don't think that we should fully get rid of homework, but I do think that homework is more important in some classes than others. Classes like math and science I feel should have homework because it could help you learn the material. Some other classes I don’t think you really benefit from doing the work outside of the classroom.
I would say that there is still educational value with homework. Like mentioned before, there are certain classes that really help you learn from homework. Take pre calc for example, having homework in that class really helped me understand some of the things that just weren’t making sense to me. Homework helped me do better on the assessments in that class. However, I could also argue that the educational value is dropping for a lot of students because it is so easy for them to cheat. Like Spanish, it’s extremely easy to just use google translate to help you figure out what you’re doing without actually learning it.
I think that all teachers should give optional homework. This way students can choose if they want to attempt to learn outside of the classroom or not. I think it would also be beneficial for everyone if the homework assignments were shorter, this way the teacher can just add the needed material. Another way to make homework more effective would be turning the assignment into a game, this way it’s fun and interactive instead of just boring work that nobody wants to do.
Getting rid of homework entirely seems like it would be counterproductive for learning. Homework allows students to get extra practice on subjects they might be struggling with and can help improve their retention of the material. However, grading homework based on correctness is something that puts many students at a disadvantage in their classes as they don’t have the same resources as other students. We shouldn’t get rid of homework entirely, but reworking the way homework is given could be beneficial to many students. One way homework could be made more effective is that it could be graded more on completion than correctness. If a student is putting in the time and effort to complete the homework, they are naturally getting better at the material the homework is covering. There is no need to penalize students for wrong answers and hurt their grade in the class when it would be just as effective to simply show them the correct way to solve the problem. Homework still has real educational value and can be extremely beneficial for some students. But “some” is the keyword. Homework is not beneficial for all students and it can put some students at a severe disadvantage. Homework has real educational value, but not for everyone. Therefore, homework should be changed to be either optional or graded on completion rather than correctness.
I do not believe schools need to entirely get rid of homework. I think the main issue related to homework is that teachers unnecessarily assign homework that does not contribute to the learning of a particular subject. Currently, many teachers simply use homework as an opportunity to put more grades in the grade book, and not as an enriching opportunity.
While I agree that there are a variety of inequalities exacerbated by assigning homework, I do not believe it is entirely counterproductive to learning. Students are only given a short period of time in each class, so sometimes they are not fully able to understand a topic. Therefore, if teachers provide students with completion-based work, with the intent to expand on a given topic, they benefit from it rather than feel punished. While this still does not address the systemic problems that may prevent students from completing homework, I think offering it as a completion-based assignment rather than accuracy, would potentially mitigate the impacts of inequalities between students.
I do agree with Mr. Kang’s editorial, where he states that homework still has educational value. However, I do not believe it does in the current way it is assigned by many. It should strictly be assigned to contribute to classroom learning, rather than create busy work. I think if teachers attach homework to information that is valuable to class content, and applicable to life skills, students will genuinely benefit from it.
I don't think that this issue has to be completely binary. There is a perfect equilibrium where homework can be great practice that reinforces an important lesson and can solidify learning that was done in the classroom. On the other hand there are some considerably mundane tasks assigned by teachers which are busy work and somewhat of a waste of time. I feel with most things in life when done in excess it loses its best attributes. When a teacher assigns homework every night to make a class seem intimidating or more serious simply because there is a large workload outside of class. It becomes more stressful than beneficial as you see the workload as work and not practice.I feel like homework has helped me immensely in mastering stills in my math classes as I get a chance to look at it again outside of the classroom and consider in my own time what it is we are doing and the problems I need to solve. However for other classes it has felt like 30-40 minutes wasted rewriting definitions and answers from the internet.
In order to make homework more effective I would tie the lesson from class in with every homework assignment and only give homework 1-2 times per week(for high school students). I would offer optional homework for small amounts of extra credit points which would be further discoveries for students who are interested in the content in order to expand their knowledge of the subject beyond just what they are accredited for in the class.
I do not think we should get rid of homework entirely. I do think teachers should minimize giving homework that is more busy work than material that is important to what we are doing in class. But I think we should keep homework because personally if I was not told that I have to get an assignment done by a certain point, I probably wouldn’t do it. I do think homework is very beneficial because it is how you practice what you learn to become better at that certain skill. I think grade level really matters when discussing the value of homework because when you get older, you are in more challenging, fast-paced classes that don’t have the time to practice every skill in class. That is what homework is for, to practice those skills at home. If I was a teacher, I would not assign a lot of homework but I would assign homework for every new thing we learned. This homework would be short but effective, with only a couple of questions that really help you practice what we go over.
I don’t think we should get rid of homework completely but I think that it shouldn’t be required for everyone. I believe that if someone wants the extra practice if they’re confused on a certain topic then let them do that extra practice. But I think the people that are already understanding and excelling on a topic shouldn’t have to do pointless homework that would just be considered busy work for them. I think homework is an important part of learning in certain classes. For some classes, such as math, I think that homework is very helpful because I can gain extra practice if I’m confused about something but then if I’m understanding the unit already then most of the time it feels pointless. But then for other classes like language classes, sometimes it feels pointless because you’re learning and obtaining language in class already and that's where you should be understanding the language. If I was a teacher I wouldn’t require the homework for everyone and grade it. I would just have certain assignments and practice as a resource for the people that are struggling or just want that extra practice. I also wouldn’t assign busy work that doesn’t have any overall value to what we’re learning. I would just make sure to cover all the learning targets in class when I’m teaching.
In my opinion, we should not get rid of homework. The time we are given at school to learn is not sufficient enough to master concepts, especially in subjects like math, where practice is key. Assigning homework has value in that it produces a class that is stronger academically. Assigning homework allows teachers to use their class time for more productive purposes, rather than using it to help students achieve mastery, something which can be done at home. Students are also able to better participate in class if they’ve done the homework and know what is going on. Also, getting rid of homework might even exacerbate the gap between peers who differ socioeconomically. Without homework, it’s more likely that the students who have stable financial situations will have the support they need to practice the concepts they learn anyway.
However, not all homework is good. There are definitely some types that are better than others. If I was a teacher, I would not assign homework that requires learning a new concept from scratch. These assignments can often be discouraging and especially difficult without a good support system. Instead, I would teach the concepts in class and assign homework that forces students to practice and apply those concepts from class. That way, students can feel rewarded with their newfound understanding of a topic after they’ve completed their homework.
I do not think we should get rid of homework entirely. I think maybe we can change what we deem necessary for homework and if it is work that benefits the learning we are doing or if it is just busy work. I agree that homework still has educational value. I think homework helps students like myself who use homework to determine what they understand from what we are currently learning and what I still have questions on. I think homework is a good way to have students continue their learning outside of the classroom. Depending on the day I will do 30 minutes to 2 hours worth of homework. The days I have more homework are the days I am not as productive during class or I couldn’t focus well. Most days I will spend 30 minutes to an hour doing homework and I feel like that is an appropriate amount of time. I feel that the work I do at home or during my study hall time is beneficial to what I am learning in class because it helps me realize what I understand and what I need more clarification on.
I don’t think that we should get rid of homework as a whole but I believe it should be changed. In a few of my classes is homework beneficial. I either understand the concept or just don’t need the extra work. On the other side, there are classes in that I feel I need practice and help. Instead of giving required homework making sure that students get practice time in class with a teacher would be much more beneficial. When you don't have time in class to ask a teacher questions but then are required to do work on the same topic it can lead to frustration. If I were a teacher I would give optional homework. Things like practice problems and journal entries. That way the students don't feel pressure to get something done when they don’t have the time or need.
We should get rid of homework. Homework may have benefits for some who are actually trying to learn something, but for others homework is just something you do just because it is forced. In other words, homework can have benefits if someone does it properly; however, others do not try to learn anything and just don't want their grade to go down, so they are wasting time doing homework while also not learning anything productive.
If we should get rid of homework is more than just a yes or no answer for me. Homework does have good educational benefits that keep us improving and practicing our skills even when we are outside of school. Sometimes homework can be very overwhelming because teachers don’t always take into consideration we have many other classes that also assign homework daily. I know this causes students to then not put in there best effort for the homework because they are just trying to complete a task before the deadline instead of learning from the practice. I know there will never be the perfect balance because all students are different and so are the teachers you get every year. I think that it would help if teachers where more aware of how there class isn’t the main focus of every student just because it’s there own main focus. In the end homework does have many benefits with both helping us practice new skills and showing us how to manage our time better to make sure we get everything done. It doesn’t mean that it will be very enjoyable though.
I agree with Mr. Kang that homework does have educational value, however, taking advantage of the many benefits is not as common with students as what schools may hope for. Homework not only can help students truly understand what they know or not regarding the material they have gone over in class but it also helps students keep the information they learned more secure in their memories. Unfortunately, if students sloppily complete their homework, then there really is no value to it because, instead of paying attention to what they are actually doing, they are trying to get through it as quickly as possible so that they can go onto the next assignment. It is very easy to make a habit out of completing homework this way, since students are bombarded with homework and tests every single day. So, rather than completely get rid of homework, I believe that schools should narrow it down to the truly important topics. Hopefully, getting rid of any busy work will not only give students the time to complete more important assignments, but also give them more energy to appreciate the value of their remaining assignments.
In my opinion I think we should not get rid of homework because it can help students for practice and understand a subject more .And I do agree with Mr.king that homework still has some educational value to it cause it can give students a better understanding of the work they will have to do in class.But sometimes the amount of homework also can be very stressful to some cause it depends on how much homework their getting and the time they are getting to complete it . And there is a way to make homework more efficient by not over doing by giving homework everyday because it can be harder on the student .And if I were a teacher I would give out one good project or assignment every week just to give students time and not be stressed.
Homework is something I have very mixed feelings on, and the article accurately portrays the two sides I struggle between choosing from.
The article quotes research that examines how homework completion linearly decreases with stressful home lives and familial support. It's easy to look down on those with incomplete homework and punish them for it without knowing what prompted it's incompletion; taking care of a sibling your parents can't, part time jobs to support your family, etc. Student's grades can be contorted from grasp of the subject to completion of the work, a meritocratic narrative, as mentioned in the article.
Acknowledging this, there is a reason to support Mr. Kang's argument for homework, not mentioned in the article, and it is the importance of students advocating for themselves. Communication can be more difficult for some than others, as there is an aspect of vulnerability to it,but it's an important life lesson that will be prevalent in professional and personal relationships. This point would fit well in Mr. Kang's defense, as it fits with the idea that homework teaches kids lessons important in and outside of the classroom, such as practicing. I know many instances where seemingly pointless work allows me to develop skills to teach myself and hasten my ability to pick things up and synthesize information.
To conclude, I think homework is helpful in moderation, as it teaches kids lessons of communication, practice, and synthesizing of information.
As much as I would like to agree with the writer that homework is great and absolutely amazing for students in their academic journey, as a student myself, I really don’t believe so. Homework is terrible for the student’s mental health. School in itself has already become like a full-time job for students. Every day, we have to wake up early and sit in class for six hours, then come home and do more work. And on top of that, we might even have 6 classes to study in the case of every teacher having the same belief that homework is important to do well in their class, and in life.
Beyond that, homework takes away all balance in a student's life. Every day, we have to get ourselves through hours of school and doing nothing but that, and then come home - to even more schoolwork. We don’t even have a light at the end of the tunnel where we can come home from school and do something that we actually like --like our hobbies and interests-- instead we are stuck in our rooms trying to get through loads work that should be done at school. Of course, I understand where the writer is coming from: “Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day.” However, I truly believe that kids also need the time to be kids.
After a long day of school the last thing I want to do is my homework that I received throughout the day, however I do believe it helps me practice whatever I am learning and become better at that topic. If Jay Caspian Kangs theory that homework is helpful, as I think he is, then we need to rethink the popular assumption that homework is a waste of time and should be taken away. Although this topic is controversial and as a student myself I would love to have no homework, I do believe that homework is necessary in improving students learning.
Homework currently is quite the debated topic. Most teachers believe that homework is the useful device to enforce ideas that they learned in class. On the other hand, most students, obviously, aren’t in favor of homework as it bogs down their afternoon with busywork that only repeats the things they have already learned and know how to do. I will agree with teachers on this argument, but not completely on all aspects. I will concede that a large portion of assigned homework simply reiterates many points that students already know. But in contrast, for a handful of students, homework provides them the practice they need to fully understand the concepts being taught. For students that learn better on their own or just need more practice, homework can prove to be vital in helping them fully understand the lessons so they can be more academically successful.
Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?
While some may find homework overwhelming and stressful I think homework is very useful tool to materialize what you learned in school into your brain. Homework allows for students to re-visit topics that they learned in school and help re-learn topics so that they dont forget. Also doing homework helps build proficiency in the work that you are doing.
You open your door, walk inside and sit on the couch and get ready to watch your favorite show. Then you remember one small issue with your plan -- you have 2 hours of math homework before you can do anything else. Do you see the issue with this? I do. Homework can be useful, if it’s work you should be finishing in school, but that’s all it should be. We are in class for 5 hours and 35 minutes a day, so it seems reasonable that the other 4 to 6 hours we’re awake should be spent doing fun things, like video games, sports, or art. Homework is just unnecessary, according to an article from ‘The New Republic’ homework has not been proven to help students improve grades. It also adds to the negative attitude students have toward school. In the article, the author notes she -- as a teacher -- gave homework that gave little to no academic value. This shows that homework, especially when it gives ‘no academic value’, does not help as much as teachers think. I feel that there should be extra credit optional work so that if some students are unable to do it, it will not affect their grades, but students that want to learn more and excel can get whatever positives homework gives.
Homework has always been something I've hated. It can come with pounds of stress and sleepless nights.
After reading Mr. Kang's essay I have decided to keep an open mind. In his essay he shows us the perspective of a parent and a teacher allowing us to see both sides. My personal experience with homework has definitely been more negative than positive. Homework has become a chore and something to check off of my to do list. As I want to take the value of homework I and many other teens have busy lives outside of school such as jobs or extra circular activities we are dedicated too.
Although these negative impacts out weigh the positive I do believe there is still some good in homework. Mr. Kang say that repeating problems in math can help you master them. I agree with this, assigning homework in moderation can definitely improve our understanding of the topic we are learning. When it is thrown at us in large quantities it becomes overwhelming making us want to run away from it and shut down.
In solution, I believe that all of the teachers teaching a certain grade should come together to know the work load expected to be put on students for the upcoming year. A common problem I run in to is teachers not knowing how much homework we are receiving in other classes making us end up with 3 hours of homework every night. This would keep the students and teachers connected and keep us both prepared for class the next day.
Do I like doing homework? It depends on if I love doing the subject or even if I understand it. I think sometimes homework can be beneficial if you need some practice on things or even if you enjoy doing it. Homework can sometimes interfere with my outside life at school like when I have to work, go to the gym or even just spend quality time with my family. After hours of sitting in a class and then having to go home and worry about if you have to do homework is sometimes hard. I don't think we should get rid of homework because it sometimes helps if the subject just isn't applying to your brain, but do I think there's a need for piles of homework in one place? absolutely not. some teachers just go overboard and just don't understand there's more then just there class we have to agonize about
Everyone likes the relieving feeling of having just to have a chill day after a busy day, but the next day might not be as much, and you weren’t prepared. Everything will just stack up. I do understand how everyone loves the feeling of freedom, layback, a fresh sizzling coke, a TV show waiting to be binged, snacks waiting to be eaten, to be notified on your phone – – Homework due tomorrow. I understand, but I feel that if you do stay caught up and used to having so much work and having the mindset of “Just do it” like Nike says then I feel like work or upcoming things that require extra time and hassle will be as easy since you already have built the habit and mindset to JUST DO IT. Being caught up with school and having no missing assignments will set you up for good and feel that the habit will help in the long run.
Banning homework is a useless solution to a problem not everyone has. Sure, if you are constantly in a situation where you can't assert X amount time to Y because of an issue/disability, it wouldn't make sense to stack homework on top of school work for said person. On the other hand, me and many others don't have those issues, homework sucks sometimes, but the ability to consume knowledge at a later time outside of school is beneficial. Most teachers at my school don't even load up on homework, or at least give time during class for such things. So to get rid of homework would require some specifics on who does and doesn't benefit from having homework.
@Christopher B. While I agree with your last statement, I disagree with your first. To start with the former, I think the quote "...to get rid of homework would require some specifics on who does and doesn't benefit from having homework." is very articulate, and a strong point; different people have specific situations that must be taken into account when advocating for homework. It's a welcoming and inclusive statement, alluding to the fact that as long as the downsides don't outweigh the upsides, it's a good idea. However, I find that your opening sentence lacks proper support for its extremity. The argument that "...me and many others don't have that issue..." lacks facts and can easily be countered with an argument of you and your friends experiences aren't everyone's, and in the article it even mentioned the statistic which states that student's homework production is linked to their home life and support. It's unfair to minimize and demean a solution just because it's a problem "not everyone has." While I agree with your stance, I hope constructively criticizing your argument is helpful to future responses!
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As a student, there have been times when homework has been beneficial, and has helped me understand the class material better. However, there have been other times where I've stayed up late to complete assignments, and they don't improve my understanding or confidence with the concepts or material in class. I don't believe we should eliminate homework, as there are benefits, but teachers should consider if the homework will actually be helpful, or if it's just contributing to the list of assignments from other classes that student will have to finish.
@Sarah S I completely agree, homework still has value in some cases but is often given as busy work. I can relate to when you said you have stayed up late at night to complete an assignment but did not help to improve your understanding of it. I also hope teachers will look into the assignment to find its value so we are not using our time to complete busy work.
With a deep breath and check list next to me I know it’s time to take a dive into homework for the night. Despite my occasional dread of completing homework, I’ve found an appreciation for it, but only very recently has that actually developed. It was sophomore year and time to select classes for the following school year, so I decided that I wanted a challenge. As a sophomore I had one Advanced Placement class which I succeeded in, so what could be the big deal with taking five of them? Now about three months into the semester the answer has become apparent…yes. With more homework than I’ve ever had before it’s become necessary to create a schedule for myself daily and stay consistent with my work. Although it may feel monotonous, it’s given me discipline and skills that I never developed before. I find myself in agreement with Mr. Kang, that teachers should still give students required homework, although I believe it must thoroughly reflect the class difficulty level and account for other expectations within the provided syllabus.
As a student I won't lie and say I am very fond of homework. It can be tedious and a bit time consuming but it has many benefits. Doing school work has helped me understand topics on my own terms. There are many moments where I don't quite understand what I'm being taught but when I go home and do my homework and practice I learn a new strategy. You learn to take short cuts to better understand your work which you can apply to other day to day situations. I have always loved math but it's also the class I tend to be the most confused in but when I go home and begin my homework I grasp a better understanding because I practiced different ways to get the solution. Homework may seem useless to some people but I agree with Mr. Kang when he says homework still has real educational values. I've learned much quicker from practicing at home and putting in the effort than sitting around and not trying. I'm in class the next day not sitting aimlessly but I'm ready for the next big unit ahead. I never believed people when they said "practice makes perfect" but I do believe practice makes better. While practicing at home at home I don't just understand the topic better I learned how to better my understanding of everything around me. Homework is made to seem as a waste of time, while it can be sometimes depending on the subject, it also has benefitted in many ways people don't realize. There are are pros and cons to homework but you must focus on the pros and not just the cons.
I believe there should be a balance to homework. As my mom often says, "Everything is good in moderation." Absolutely overloading students or not having it at all is deficient either way. In previous math courses, I've had consistent homework that took around 15-25 minutes a night. In my current course, I've had little to no homework. As an effect, I've not had the same level of understanding that I did. In another case, a previous English teacher overloaded the class with at least an hour of work every night, not including work from other classes. Freshman year was the first time I had ever gotten overloaded.
If I were a teacher, I would assign homework. From my experience, it’s an effective and valuable learning tool - when used correctly. The main problem I’ve seen in high school is students falling behind because they simply don’t have enough time to complete their work. Homework can add to that burden, and before you know it everything is snowballing downhill. As a student, it’s incredibly difficult to balance school work, home life, a social life, and for some a job. Teenagers are balancing all of this on their shoulders while trying to discover who they are and where they belong. It often seems as if adults forget their teenage years when they point at us and call us lazy for not completing our work.
Yes, I do think we should get rid of homework. As a student, I find my days much more productive and enjoyable when I am free of after-school assignments. Homework is just an addition to the eight hours of school that we already experience for five days a week, ten months of the year. A student needs to experience fun things before they have to commit to getting a job and being independent. Homework stresses kids out and sometimes causes them to stay up late at night, finishing their assignments, which deprives them of sleep. Homework is unnecessary. The only thing that is important for a student to complete is something they didn't finish in class or something they need to study for.
Yes, I think homework should be terminated because students already have to be at school for their day. For example, students with a job and school can find it challenging to balance out school and work . Having to go to school, then going to work right after leaves little to no time left to get homework done. Overall, no homework would allow more time for students to focus on enjoying their lives more, while they're still young.
Homework is complicated. It helps students develop responsibility as they grow. They have to be responsible to get all the work completed to keep up with their classes. Most want to get good grades, especially when it starts to really matter. When you hit high school, you could be setting your whole future up. Majority want a good future after they finish with school. Then again, teachers should be cognizant of how much they assign for students to complete for their homework. This is because we have a life outside of school. Even though we are still pretty young, we get busy. This can be from various reasons such as sports, leisure events, or even work. Speaking of leisure events, we love our free time. Almost everyone, young and old, like time to relax or indulge in something we really enjoy. We aren't allowed the time to do that when we have stacks of paper to work on, or when we have to hop onto the computer for a couple hours. You'll find that schoolwork is fairly easy if you focus and do as instructed, but the work shouldn't be flooding over the time we are given to work on it. That leads to much more homework and a lot less leisure time. Many teens and even kids can struggle with mental problems or problems at home which can also prevent them from doing any work at home. Lack of motivation can make their grade suffer. Everyone needs to think deeper about it and be considerate.
To a certain extent, yes, I think homework has some level of value. Everyone learns at a different speed. For the kids that need more time to comprehend a lesson, I think homework is beneficial. It gives them that little extra practice outside of school so that when they go back the next day, they aren’t behind. On the contrary, homework can add a lot of extra stress to a student. Lets just say a child has six classes, and in each class said student is given one sheet of homework with at least ten problems on it. That comes to a heaping six pages of extra work with over 60 questions. All this extra effort for a student who could’ve easily understood the lesson and could have been using that time at home to go over the subjects they truly struggle in. Loading a child up with additional projects has the potential to easily burn them out, leaving them with zero motivation to learn anything else. Homework has its fair share of both pros and cons, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the student determining whether that further load of work is effective to them or not.
I agree that homework should remain, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people still believe that homework is all bad. While it is true that some students get so much homework that they are up late every night, others get almost none, starving them of any practice on the material they learned that day. Homework allows kids to practice material that they learned in class. It also helps kids remember what they did, so they don’t forget anything overnight. However, if students have 4-5 hours of homework every night, it can become too much, causing kid’s brains to get tired. In this case, the student won’t get anything out of the homework. Plus, these kids will lose the ability to sleep, and there are studies that prove that information is better retained after sufficient sleep. Overall, I believe that homework should stay, but in lesser quantity. This allows for students to practice the material from that day, without losing sleep or relaxation time.
Homework can benefit students GREATLY-That is if they commit. I have found that people in my school who oppose homework usually don’t put much effort into other projects and assignments. Homework also depends on the teacher. In high school, with 6 classes, some teachers give a lot of homework and some never give any. My French teacher believes that if you pay attention in class you can pick up a language quickly, all you have to do is listen. On the other hand, in my math class, things aren't as simple as listening. Most math skills have multiple steps in one problem which take a lot of time and I strongly trust that repetition of those skills almost certainly makes you remember them. In my math class, we are given as many retakes on homework as possible and my teacher says students who continue to redo homework always have good grades on tests. As stated in the article: “but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” If someone claims it is harmful, I would check to see what they are putting their time into. How much do you really want to learn?
In the article, Jay Caspian Kang, a parent and former teacher, discusses that he doesn’t always assign homework of academic value, which is frustrating for me to hear. However, while I agree that homework may not always be the most productive, I don’t believe that it should go away. I live a busy life. I work, I play soccer, and things can get very overwhelming for me. As much of a struggle it can all be to manage, I know that homework will help me to enhance my learning by getting extra practice outside of school. After learning content in class, doing homework on my own provides an opportunity to master the lessons and feel more confident moving forward. Despite being so busy, I believe it is important to put extra time and effort into classes where improvement is needed. It reminds me that in life to continue growing, putting in lots of effort is essential. Beyond that, homework teaches me time management: more often than not, I have more than one day to complete an assignment so, in theory, if I manage my time well enough, I will be able to complete my work on time. Even though not all homework assignments are super beneficial, I believe there are built in positives that make the homework worth it.
I've never liked homework and always complain when I have it. Especially on weekends. Why should I have to do more work at home after I was just at school for the majority of my day? Then I start to think about it more and I realize that if I didn't have math homework some nights I wouldn't have understood the math and the next day's class I get the much-needed practice that ensures I understand the topic. As the article said, “that takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.” Sometimes after doing the homework from the night before I realized I didn't understand something I thought I did, so the next day in class I can ask the teacher for help. So yeah homework helps and I don't think we can get rid of it all together I just think sometimes it's the amount from example when I leave school on Friday with 30 math problems or homework for every class I procrastinate more waiting till 10 p.m. on Sunday night versus doing it when I get home from school on Friday because I only have five problems and it's easier to just get it over with.
I believe cutting out homework is so vague and so unaligned with the capabilities of every student in the nation that the results may not always be the same. For some people such as myself, I learn a lot more through practicing my weakest subjects, but due to my limited capabilities to understand the content, I do not always have the time to complete the homework even when I am still learning.
Instead of cutting out homework completely, I think homework should be tailored to each student's unique level of understanding rather than forcing students to meet standards that were only created to be memorized. I personally like short quizzes or assignments on quizlet. I do not enjoy staying up past midnight writing about a topic I was passionate about only to answer a three page review on factorials due the same day!
SCHOOLWORK - let’s talk about it. Students are encouraged every day for 6 hours to sit down at a desk and do multiple assignments for various classes. After a long day of work, kids like me go home and want to relax, but then remember they have plenty of things assigned as homework for them to complete by the end of the night, other work is just things we didn’t finish in class because of time. Some of us might have had a bad day - or struggling with mental health. Some people just simply can’t complete it due to plans or sports. We are only kids once, we should be able to chill and have fun after a long day of school. This goes for teachers too- they also have to stay back or wake up early just to get in school work graded. Leaving out homework would take a weight off of both teachers' and students' shoulders, and that’s the least the school system can do for us.
Throughout my career as a student, homework has been one of the few constants across all classes I have been enrolled in. For many of my early years in elementary and middle school, I was a perfectionist student, meaning I would complete assignments always on time and always one hundred percent correct. I fully believe that the benefits of homework depend on the type of student, and the type of homework. To expand upon this claim, not all students require repetition of concepts in order to become proficient in them. I have always been a very focused student in class, and especially in my early years I was able to grasp concepts the first time around. However, in certain subjects, such as math, I would need more repetition and practice to attain mastery. Beyond that, I subscribe to the line of thinking mentioned in the article that some busy work homework, although it aids in improving time management and responsibility, is otherwise useless. All in all I agree that homework has its benefits, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that outside of school assignments are a complete waste of time.
It used to be that students were the only ones complaining about the practice of assigning homework. 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, leading some adults to argue that homework should become a thing of the past.
Today’s parents are too busy with their responsibilities to run their families effectively. They are frequently unable to teach their students about the subjects. These factors leave a student alone to gather knowledge and do homework.
When these students return to school the next day, their teachers may punish or scold them for their poor presentation. We can’t say that homework is not important, homework also has its importance, but that does not mean that it is too much necessary. It creates many types of problems for students and their parents, that is why people demand to ban homework.
I agree with Mr. Kang’s idea that we should not get rid of homework. It is the best way for students to practice skills and be prepared for future assessments. However, students are being given a lot of homework from many of their classes. If the amount of homework students get is too overwhelming, then they will lose any desire to really practice what they have been learning- especially when they might go to college, where students work more independently. Therefore, all homework should be reasonable. Homework that is just assigned for kids to do more work will not help them with practicing skills, but a fair amount of meaningful work is perfect for students to be successful.
@Elise King As someone who's experienced overload, I agree with you. As someone who's experienced burnout many a time, I've come to realize a few things. There are several things that we are simply expected to know that we were never taught. Sure, we were given guidelines and instructions, but just telling someone to recite the preamble perfectly the first time is unreasonable. That's why you practice. But important skills, such as self motivation, time management and presenting to an audience. Despite the vitality of these abilities, they're often just preached to us instead of taught to us. I find it quite frustrating that so much is expected of students when we often aren't provided tools for success.
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@Elise King
I completely agree as you mentioned when given an excessive amount of homework students tend to lose interest and just won't do it at all versus if you give less they're more likely to complete it. That's way more beneficial than giving something super lengthy, then less students do it and don't get any practice at all but when you give something shorter your likely to have more students do it and get the practice in even if it's not as long or as much as you wanted, they're still practicing some and it is beneficial.
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I don't think we should necessarily get rid of homework, I think teachers and educators should take another look at the quality of their homework. They should ask themselves, Is it really worth it? Are they gonna use this in the real world? If so, then the homework isn’t that bad. I normally do homework before I go to bed. After a long day of school, most kids don’t wanna go and do more school work. They wanna do activities and then return to school work later. If I was a teacher I would assign homework if they didn’t get it done in class, or if the homework has real-world value. For example, I don’t believe there is much value in having 30 math problems assigned to you for homework.
In the intro to Jay Capsian Kang’s essay, he clarifies that as a former teacher and parent, homework can appear to have: “little to no academic value,” and “exacerbates inequalities.” As a student, I agree with Kang's beliefs. While many people may say that it is beneficial practice for the “real world” where people have to get used to doing trivial tasks, and is useful as a sense of practice, I tend to agree more with Kang. Personally I don’t feel it is representative to say students should spend their time on meaningless assignments because that is how society functions. Beyond that, homework tends to reflect more upon students’ circumstances and intrinsic characteristics, rather than as an equal source for education. I know so many students who just rush through assignments—not even caring to fill them out accurately—simply because they do not care. In doing so, there is no educational value. Additionally, many students have to deal with different circumstances and often do not have equal time or opportunities to apply themselves. I feel it is a more accurate representation to assign ungraded work, and instead leave it up to the students on whether or not they do it; that way, if students feel they need more practice, they can, and those who feel they are not benefiting from it do not feel the overwhelming stress and anxiety which loads of homework bring upon them. Which is ultimately why I support Kang’s primary point, and feel homework tends to cause more harm than good.
I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with homework. For many of my classes, it’s a major part of how I learn the material and prepare for tests. But as Kang admits, he does occasionally assign homework that has little to no real educational value. I have to agree—I often feel as though teachers will assign homework just for the sake of giving us homework, not to help us learn. While I do think this system could be improved, and that these essentially meaningless assignments should be avoided, homework as a whole is by no means harmful. For many students who struggle paying attention in class, homework is good way to review what was learned that day, or to build on the topics discussed.
While I agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value because of my experience with the system, I think that this is only true if it is done right. Homework is a part of my life, whether I like it or not, but I do have to acknowledge that it helps me learn the content with repetition. Practice problems and quizzes that I have feedback on can really help me learn. The main issue I have with it is not that socioeconomic status may play into inequality of homework quality, like many people in the article believe. I think the main issue is when the quantity of work is prioritized over the quality, because students have to focus more on getting everything done over doing everything well. Beyond that, some homework will not be very beneficial because you need to know if you are right or what you need to fix, and oftentimes you don’t get any feedback on assignments other than the grade. When the amount of assignments stacks up, you may not have time to go back and revise and relearn such a small component of your grade. In summary, homework can be beneficial educationally if we fix the problems related to it, however, those problems may not be solely what the author is prioritizing. Some of these problems are less obvious, but may be easier to solve and just as important.
Homework should only be enforced if a student doesn’t finish their in class assignment. Students experience lots of stress with the overwhelming amount of homework they receive after their long day of school. On the other hand homework offers extra practice outside of school to excel the students knowledge. One former student states “Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel”. I agree because in my own experience homework just felt pointless throughout my middle school and kindergarten days. In Highschool so far I have found that study and completing homework is essential for me to excel my learning in certain subjects. My takeaway is students should still be assigned homework but it should be in smaller more controlled amounts so they still get the benefits, without feeling overwhelmed with their homework.
@James Gilbert I get where you are coming from with this. I honestly don't think homework is relevant for most students, not because we don't think that it gives us more knowledge on certain subjects, but like you said in the beginning we experience lots of stress with the overwhelming amount of homework our teachers assign us with. Personally I do want to succeed in my future life but I just don't think that homework is adding any type of boost to me. I'm not speaking for everyone but mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential to do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether. It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?
Homework can be helpful as an extension to the school day for kids that don't pay attention in school or teach themselves information better. However, I do think it can be excessive. After a school day of around 6 hours and an extra hour of extracurriculars for many kids homework can be very difficult to do. This is especially true for kids that take 6 or more classes and have around and hour of homework for some of their classes every day. Schools often promote sleep and mental health but proceed to give kids hours of homework when kids may only have and hour or two of free time after a long day. This is counter-intuitive and stresses kids out.
I don’t think we should get rid of homework completely, maybe not assign so much but I think it's a good thing to do overall. Homework teaches kids to get something done before a certain time. Everyone might not have time after school to do a whole load of homework but if it's just a little it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Currently, I work after school so I just do not have a lot of time to go home and do all my homework, but I still make time for it. Once I get off work I will go straight home and do some of my homework but I only spend maybe 15 minutes on it, because I still want to be able to just sit down and do what I want to do before I have to go to bed and do it all over again. I think it's a good time management lesson, because I know I have to fit it into my day somewhere and be able to get it done and be ready for the next day. I don’t like doing homework but I've had to do it this long. It's not that big of a deal. I think kids younger than me should go through the stress of trying to get it all done on time too. They will learn how to be able to deal with more than one thing and, whatever it is the homework is over they will be able to do it on their time in their own way.
My standing on this topic is that homework shouldn't be removed. It's a way to utilize the knowledge gained, in a sense that it provides a place to practice it. However, I'm aware that there's homework that doesn't really tackle lessons talked about in class and it makes students feel like, in that aspect, homework is unnecessary. But from my personal experience, I was only able to learn a broader sense of an academic lesson through homework. I believe that homework allows one to study through a lesson more than they might in their classes.
I agree with Mr Kang’s claim that homework still has real educational value. This is because homework allows students to actually put into work the concepts they have learned in classes, and in a possible result, give students the opportunity to explore. In learning to do homework, students are able to practice valuable skills that may be needed when they enter the next stages of life. I believe that without it, students would lack the proper amount of utilization needed in order to fully comprehend a concept.
In my opinion, a way to make homework more effective is to provide options for students. It might be a good idea to have teachers assign multiple-part homework that consists of certain aspects of a lesson. Students would only be required to do one part of a homework in which they want to have more practice on. This not only provides a better understanding of a concept, but also allows students to actually learn through homework.
Rarely do I ever learn from homework. If there is content I do not understand, I will not be able to learn unless I speak with the teacher. Homework is not an efficient use of time, as there are superior alternatives for any benefit it may bring.
Older students are more likely to be busy after school. Many work jobs, take care of siblings or have chores after school. Only students who have free time will be able to “digest Dostoyevsky”, which will only further create an imbalance between socioeconomic classes.
Homework could be something that will help learning through more examples on how to apply material, and/or be optional. This way, students could gain a better understanding without being stressed about a large amount of work from each class.
I would not assign “homework”. I would give students time in class to accomplish anything I give them. If they do not accomplish this in class, then they would finish it at home. However, I would do this cautiously, as misjudging the amount of time it takes to complete would result in most students having to work at home. If any homework must be assigned, it would not be graded by accuracy, as socioeconomic classes have different home resources to aid them. For example, upper-class students are more likely to have a private tutor than lower-class students, so grading based on accuracy would be unfair.
I come from a privileged position. I have been able to get my homework done on time since I have the time to spare to do homework. However, I can imagine that someone who has to work to help their family in one way or another doesn’t have the time to do homework on top of keeping themselves alive and healthy. In addition to this, those who might not have enough time to do homework might not even have the resources to do homework. So much of our homework is digital these days, and those in an economic situation that might limit time for homework might not have access to the internet or a computer at home.
Despite this, I think there is some merit to homework. Take learning a language. You need daily exposure to the language to fully absorb it, and if you don’t have classes every day, you need homework that is assigned to make you do the assignment. Having the homework acts as a little reminder to engage in the language. I think that some teachers do tend to assign busy work just to assign homework.
I think in order to make homework make sense and feel justified, the homework needs to be challenging (pushing what the student knows and building the knowledge) but have the opportunity to get help and do it in class. Allowing time in class for certain assignments might help those who don’t have the time after school to complete assignments to stay on top of the assignments.
Is homework helpful?
To a degree, yes, but I don’t think it should be required. Homework had been around for as long as anyone can remember, and I can say with a high level of confidence that practically no one likes it. As a student who always had homework, I can say it almost never helped my learning, although I can’t speak for everyone. Beyond that, I always hear people complain about homework, especially if every class is giving it out every day. Studies have shown that little amount of homework can or slightly improve learning, but large amounts of homework can actually harm learning, because of the stress it causes. I believe that we should either: make homework optional (like for studying tests) or-- completely remove homework altogether. There are benefits, but I feel that the negatives outweigh the positives, especially in higher grades like middle/high school.
I agree with Mr. Kang's article, "The Movement to End Homework is Wrong" in that I also believe that homework still has real educational value. I think that without practicing the topics we have been taught in school, most of what we learned would just be forgotten or deemed unimportant because we couldn’t actually use it. Students need to be shown that what they’re learning is important, and not just through examples that they are shown. When students apply what they learned to real situations, they remember what they’ve learned better and understand it fully.
When I get home after school, the typical homework load that I have is around 2 assignments that usually take me around 15-20 minutes to complete each. Especially with my math classes, this homework helps me to understand the material. It helps me review and summarize what I learned that day in my mind, and also helps to apply what I learned to real situations. In my opinion, homework is a good use of my time to do well in my classes.
One thing I do think that teachers could do to make homework more effective is having a purpose and intention for every assignment. When teachers create homework without a goal of what it is supposed to teach the students, the homework becomes busywork, with no real purpose except for keeping them occupied. Homework should be helping kids learn, apply, and review the knowledge that was taught to them in class.
I personally feel that homework needs to be reworked to be more accessible to all students and only assign homework when it is deemed highly needed and not busy work. In Spanish, doing the homework forces me to do my work on my own and then I can figure out which concepts are confusing to me. In government, when I have homework I feel that I come in the next day worried about my answers to the homework rather than zoning in on what my teacher is talking about at that time.
I feel that when I get home to do my homework the amount of homework comes in waves. The way our grade system is set up is that teachers tend to be on the same system that every other week to every few weeks having hard homework and tests so that they can enter grades in the grade book. Rather than focusing on learning and then posting grades with more time in between allowing for learning to happen without having tests and homework to be super heavy on these weeks.
If I was a teacher I would only assign homework when it is critical information and I would make homework only to help a student rather than if a student is unable to complete the homework which hurts their grade. So in conclusion I feel that homework should be reworked to support students' essential needs in classes and homework should only be used to help a student.
Right now, homework is a big stressor on a generation of kids who have been put through so much already. We've got what feels like the entire world on our back. With the pressure of individualism and finding our identities, and our economy being unfit for us to thrive in, the last thing on my mind is what derivatives are. So yes, we are a population of children breaking chains from old habits and outdated traditions, where mental health is a real concept, and not just an excuse to get out of responsibility.
I have teachers who weight homework much higher than they should. If you don't do your work outside of the classroom, that's risking your class credit and GPA. It feels like every little thing is tampering and limiting our reach for a not just successful, but sustainable future. If we got rid of assignments to be done outside of the classroom entirely, that would create a risk for neurodivergent kids who struggle without structure. Some kids would study more than others, and there would be no set standard to reach.
I believe homework could be more appealing and effective if teachers utilized it in the right way. I don't want to keep getting down on myself over wrong answers, I want to be taught how to get the right answers outside of the classroom too. I want demonstrations not problems. And I'm sure there are many teachers out there who do follow that desire of mine, but why can't it be the standard? So no, I don't want to get rid of homework, I want it to be useful.
I agree with the retired teacher at the start of the article--homework has little or no academic value. I’m a student in high school which means that I get a fair share of homework, and when that homework is something like doing a whole project or things that we should be doing in class instead of having to do at home makes me think that homework is useless and not needed because they could be substituted for the time in class, I also agree that homework is necessary because when you have missing assignments you can do them at home to get caught up which I think technically makes the assignment homework since your doing it at home. I have to make up quite a bit of assignments often because I play sports and sometimes I will have to leave school early to make it to a game so then ill have to do the extra work at home but it sucks cause I've already probably forgotten about it or I don't want to do it and would rather do something fun or eat or go to sleep
I have a fair amount of homework to do each night. For the advanced and AP classes that I take, homework is expected, though often time-consuming. However, I feel like many of the assignments I get in other classes could be done during the class period if teachers reorganized the lesson plans and allowed time to get work done in class. I’d argue that doing busy work for those classes is not a good use of my time, as I have many other activities and an after-school job that also takes up my time.
In order to make homework more effective, it needs to have a purpose other than serving as busy work. In classes like math, homework is vital for learning and practicing the material. Though for classes that are less self-taught, there is less purpose. Classes that don’t depend on homework assignments need to stop assigning them to students, as having homework in every class is far too much for many students to handle, and in my opinion, results in a lower completion rate than if fewer assignments were given.
If I was a teacher, I would assign homework only over material essential to the learning process, and it would be optional. This way, students that need extra practice have the opportunity to do so, and there would be incentives through grading the work that students turn in for a few points. Students who don't do the homework wouldn't be penalized, though test grades would be a larger percentage of their grade. This would help students take learning into their own hands.
This is an extremely wide debate everywhere in the world right now. The article shows two sides and supportive evidence to the impacts or importance of homework vs the uselessness of it.
Personally, I think that homework has done nothing for me educationally, all it does is cause stress to me and creates lack of motivation for other activities. When I choose to study on my own time, doing things my own way that I know I learn the best benefits my knowledge. Let's say I need to study for a history test. Instead of answering lengthy questions assigned by my teacher that will just frustrate me, I make a quizlet to memorize and learn the terms. This can be different for everyone. Customizing and using my learning styles allows me to excel in my subjects, but doing homework that isn’t catered for me only causes frustration.
For teachers, I feel like homework is something that we do need kids to do. To be able to excel in a certain subject you need to be on your own to figure things out for yourself. A Lot of the time teachers will have kids who never do their assigned homework, leaving a partial amount of the class to be much more behind and less understanding of the material. This can be a fuzzy area for people, maybe it's the kids fault for not doing it, but there's many personal aspects to peoples home life that we may not understand.
@Isabella, Block 2 The article states:” Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day.” And I disagree heavily. Sure some kids don't have extracurricular activities, but quite a lot have jobs to support themselves or their family, or even huge passions for sports or hobbies they want to continue when they graduate. Sometimes my friends can get home at 11-12 if they are working a closing shift. Why would I want to do my homework at 12 after I just worked a shift and went to school for 7 hours? There are so many aspects to debate about this topic that I can’t even come to a solution.
I think homework serves a very defined purpose, to reaffirm and practice concepts learned in class. It is very difficult for a teacher to effectively teach everything that is required for a class if they also had to provide work time for practice. While some teachers are prone to assigning busy work that has very little to do with reinforcing learning.
Every day I usually do about an hour to two hours of homework. I am pretty happy I don’t have too much more than this, with sports and homework I can usually have at least 3 hours of free time every night. Homework is definitely an important part of my learning at home, it forces me to not get complacent about concepts I need more work on. In addition, it also can help point out shortcomings in a teacher's lesson, so that I can use other resources to fill in the gaps of a unit before the test.
I think a decent solution would be to make homework shorter, or have less of it, in terms of questions or length, and instead have more intensive subjects. The worst kind of homework are the assignments where I come out of them not learning anything or reaffirming any knowledge and simply copy and pasting something or finding a pattern that I can abuse to get finished quicker
Required homework should not be assigned to be done outside of school. With an average school day length of 6.64 hours and recommended amounts of sleep roughly averaging to 8 hours, it leaves students with a little under 9 hours to fit in chores, meals, enjoyment, and often family responsibilities. Within the 9 hours, the variability of responsibilities at home greatly impact the amount of time students can designate for school work--time that shouldn’t be spent troubling over homework, especially after spending over a quarter of a day at school. Opportunities to understand time management and important responsibilities can be learned through mediums other than homework, that are often more effective when compared.
Given the circumstances, having the alternative of optional homework is a much more effective route. It gives students the option of understanding what they believe is impactful and beneficial to their learning, while simultaneously allowing them find a balance for their lives outside of school. These options allow for greater amounts of flexibility, which provide a much more strategic method to understanding time management than "mandatory homework."
I think that homework is important and beneficial in some classes but I think overall we should get rid of it. If we didn’t have homework some kids could have better grades (the kids who struggle in school and never do their homework). I think it could possibly push them to get to class more and not skip. I think that homework can feel impossible sometimes to kids in sports, when in a sport and school and a job you have no time for anything. In these cases, kids have school, practice, work, and then stay up all night doing homework to do the same thing the next day. Draining our students so they can’t stay awake in class isn’t what's going to motivate them to learn. When I get home from school I do at least 2 hours of homework a day, now that volleyball is done I have more time to do it, and I thankfully have a school schedule that allows me to do 2 hours of homework a day. I think that some of it is beneficial but I also think that some of it is just busy work and it’s not really helping my learning. If I was a teacher I would make it so there is designated time in class to work on assignments and if you waste your time in class you have to finish it outside of class on your own time. This way they could ask questions from me if they didn’t understand something, or check their answers to try and get as many points as possible.
I think that we should get rid of the idea of homework. I believe that there should be work assigned but time given in class to complete the assignment. if not completed in class then it will become homework. I believe that grade level matters a ton in the case of homework. If students are learning the basics such as multiplication and addition, they should have more homework than kids who are in calculus. If a topic needs to be drilled into someone's head, such as addition or something that they will use every day then there should be more homework for it. If I were a teacher, I would not assign homework to my students. I would assign work for them to do in class, if they end up not completing it in class it turns into homework. This makes it so they have the initiative to get the work done.
I think that we should get rid of the idea of homework. I believe that there should be work assigned but time given in class to complete the assignment. if not completed in class then it will become homework. I believe that grade level matters a ton in the case of homework. If students are learning the basics such as multiplication and addition, they should have more homework than kids who are in calculus. If a topic needs to be drilled into someone's head, such as addition or something that they will use every day then there should be more homework for it. If I were a teacher, I would not assign homework to my students. I would assign work for them to do in class, if they end up not completing it in class it turns in homework. This makes it so they have the initiative to get the work done.
My opinion on if we should get rid of homework completely is definitely not. I think this because throughout my experience at school homework is one of the things that has ended up being able to get me to learn. Doing things on your own at your house forces you to understand what you are doing by yourself.
I think there is a way to make homework more effective. To do this teachers could make homework assignments not required or assign less frequent “busy” work that doesn’t have any real academic value. Doing this gives the students the resources they need to learn and it's up to them whether they do it or not. This would leave it up to the students to take responsibility for their own learning. If I was a teacher I would assign homework for students to complete. Although I would not require the homework for a grade. This keeps students responsible for their end of the learning they are doing while as a teacher still doing the job. I would give assignments that are only beneficial to practicing what subject we were doing in class.
I do think homework is important in some cases. Homework has some pros and cons but overall, I think if there is a specific learning target to the homework it is beneficial. In math, for example, homework teachers assign is made to help practice the concepts we learn in class and is also a way to study for a test. I do think that homework that is just busy work shouldn't be given. Students are very busy, whether it's sports, work, family matters, and more, busy work isn't benefiting them at all. When I get home from school I will do about an hour of homework a day. I know that if I don't try to stay caught up I will fall behind. During this time period, I am also studying. I do think some homework helps but it's frustrating if you have to study for a big test and also do random homework assignments that have no purpose. For the classes I'm taking I think that it is an appropriate amount. If I was a teacher I would only assign homework that was very beneficial to the class and that would help students prepare for a test. I wouldn't assign homework that would have no purpose.
Homework would be more effective if the time it took was reduced. If each student only had up to one hour of homework each day, it would be far more manageable, while still increasing their learning outside of the classroom. This means that in general, each class should only assign 10-15 minutes per day. While it can harm other aspects of students’ lives, homework does deepen their understanding of subjects, if done correctly. The educational value of homework also tends to decrease as the length of the assignment increases. While I believe homework does have value to learning, I do agree that it can increase inequalities in the home lives of students, as students with lots of outside stress would have a far harder time completing homework. Another way to reduce the impact of the strain homework brings to some students is to make the homework optional/ungraded.
Homework can create a divide between students who have the outside resources to utilize the practice best, and students who don’t have outside resources, turning in half-finished assignments, and being viewed negatively by their teachers.
What if a student's parents both work full time, and the student isn’t in the classroom while completing questions, what do they do if they are stuck? Learning shouldn’t be filtered down from other students, or asking the internet, but should be taught directly from their teacher so as to least confuse the student, and best prepare them.
I agree that later in life we will have to do busywork we don’t like, but if thats why we’re doing homework, how is it benefitting real learning in the classroom?
Grade level shouldn’t matter when creating healthy natural habits that truly assist the student later in life. If a student gives high value and effort to homework from the beginning of their learning journey, it helps reinforce how much the value of hard work and time spent can benefit the student, not only on their next test but to build up the habits they need to succeed in college and beyond.
This is a difficult topic because of all the different factors that play into homework completion: required help, jobs, family time, extracurriculars, and time. Some kids do not require the extra help homework can provide. Therefore, the busy work that teachers assign these kids takes time away from their family and extracurricular activities/jobs they may have. In general, even if they find time to fit the homework into their schedule, it does not provide enough of a benefit for it to be worth it. Their time would be better spent doing something else that brings them happiness not frustration. On the other hand, if a student is struggling with material in class, optional homework could provide the help required that could benefit them in class. However, notice how I said optional; students should not be graded on homework because they may have more pressing situations or commitments at home such as divorced parents or having to work to provide for their family. Like the article says, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.” So, in terms of an answer, I don’t have a definite one, simply because there are too many factors playing into this topic for a simple “yes or no answer.”
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Homework can take many shapes, endeavors and time spend.
From what I have witnessed with my 12 year old son, many of his teachers give him homework every night. He spends anywhere between one - two hours a night. When my son comes home from school (8am-6pm) the last thing my son can do is sit at the computer and answer questions. How can you blame him? Homework does not teach material. Yes, it teaches discipline if it is done properly, but school day is a discipline. When my kid gets home, he needs to eat, relax and go to bed. Homework with this amount and age, only creates resentment and eventually rebellion. And when do kids get to play these days? Play is essential for all children, yet completely overlooked in the educational system. Homework should be used to reflect, not compensate for teaching. And, at this age, should never go beyond 30 minutes.
If I'll be honest, I hate homework and wish I didnt have to do it. BUT I will admit that sometimes it has made me better at some of my classes depending on how it is done. I've had classes before like english, history and especially science with homework and thought it wasn't teaching me anything but just having me go over the same things I already know by heart, and I believe math is this way too, but better, IF it is done right. I had a math worksheet for homework one night after my teacher spent all day teaching us the work and when I got home I started off rocky but the rest was a breeze, I finished all 20 problems in under 30 minutes and felt like I was getting better at the equations because it was repetative, the same thing over and over again further cimented the things in my brain, the only problem was that I didn't have anybody to explain me anything if I had a question, which is why I would have rathered we did the worksheet in class. It would have been much easier if we had just gone over it instead of having us do it for homework and it was like this for a couple weeks, almost every day we had another worksheet and I started to get tired, I stopped doing them as much because I was burnt out and had better things to do, especiallly on weekends because I have a life and want to do things other than schoolwork especially when I am out of town with my family. So in conclusion, I dont think homework should be comepltely abolished but we don't need as much as we have.
I agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value.
I think this because when I'm at home I have time to further research the topics. Also, I can discuss assignments with my parents to get their advice and better learn about the topics.
When I was told that one of my writing prompts was about getting rid of homework, I automatically thought “yes”. Although I’d love to say that getting rid of homework would be the best thing ever, it wouldn't be. Homework can actually be useful and it has an educational value like Mr. Kang explained. It helps me stay engaged in class by going over and practicing what I learned. There have been times where homework has helped reassure me that I’m on the right track. Or just remind me how lost I am and where to improve. I’ve also been given homework disguised as busywork. It infuriates me when I’m given homework on things that I won’t ever need to know about.
Homework needs a time limit just like having fun does. I’d say homework for 20-30 minutes and 2-3 days a week is enough, with the work not being an overload either. No need for busy work or too much homework. Cause then what's the point of having a class and class time just to do a bunch of homework when you get home. Students have things to do after school and sometimes make plans, they obviously don’t know when the teacher’s going to assign homework. Their plans shouldn’t have to be ruined by homework. I’ve had that happen to me before, I did the homework as fast as I could and went on with my plans. The work definitely wasn’t accurate and I was stressed out about it.
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@Laura, Block 4 I completely agree with you, there have been many times that I've had to cancel my plans because of how much homework I have had and while I agree sometimes it's a good thing and helps me understand the material better, sometimes it just gets in the way.
Should we get rid of Homework? No. But is there really anything could that we could possibly get out of it – Discipline. This is very important in life. Now there are other arguments for and against Homework but I am not here to fight those fights. When we get home and we want to play video games or read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, and many other things, we learn the skill of Discipline. To put these things aside and, in a sense deny are selfs these privileges to get what we know we have to do, done. It allows us to grow the skill of complete focus on a task and to say no to other things until that task is done. As Mr, Kang argues we get to learn how to practice, but in doing this we really practice Discipline. A skill that can be very helpful wouldn't you say?
I think that homework should only be classwork that you don't finish in class. Homework a lot of times is busy work that teachers assign that do not better the student or help them better understand what they are learning. I think that homework takes up time on weekends and holiday breaks that student could better use resting and taking a break from school instead of working on homework. Homework that is given if you don't finish in class is different to me because you did no finish it in class because you were not working or paying attention. However if you never get to it in class because of a teacher getting sidetracked and never getting to that part of the lesson, to me is different. In conclusion I think that homework should not be given unless it is classwork that a student did not finish.
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We should not get rid of homework. Homework strengthens students understanding on the material while also allowing the teacher to see what their students understand. This could help teachers plan out what to teach or go into depth for their curricular for that week. There has been countless times that I had no idea what I was doing in math but started to get the hang of it because I got to practice doing it for my homework. Repetition is a big part of learning so any chance we have to better understand what is happening in class we will take. At the same time, teachers shouldn't send students home with work at the very end of class. They should, instead, leave the last 15 minutes of class to work on the homework. That way if students don't have a clue what they're doing, the teacher is readily available to help them. Homework can be very helpful as long as it is given with the right mindset and with the time they need to do it.
Homework is always talked upon by parents, teachers and students. I think homework is definitely something kids should get, to practice what they are learning in class to become better like Mr. Kang said. Although, sometimes I feel like the work they give is just too much work, because some nights I'm doing 2+ hours of homework. Which for me is too much work on top of a 7 hour school day. According to the effects researched by a Stanford researcher, I think many teachers need to take into account what he/she found. Seeing that many students from the data he/she examined; they spent 3.1 hours on homework each night. That's just way too much work, it causes a lot of stress when trying to complete the work and puts a lot of pressure when trying to complete. Which is why many students or 56% of students don't do well when it comes to homework and then into class. I think the number one cause of students not doing well in school is because of the reduction in sleep caused by the time spent doing homework late at night. Whereas this can lead to an effect on your life in a bad way: exhaustion, weight loss, headaches, and sleep deprivation. I disagree with Mr. Kang because when homework is like this, it has no educational value. You are doing more harm to yourself than good, because it has such a great effect on anyone's daily life, causing students to learn less since they are less focused.
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Most students would say that we should get rid of homework because it takes time out of our after school activities, or the time they spend with their family and friends. People use that time after school to relieve stress from the school day and when the students are given homework, they don’t have time to relax with their friends or families because they were too busy trying to finish all the homework they had to complete before their next classes. I think it would be better to get rid of homework and that the only way we should end up with homework should be if we don’t finish our assignments in class. I think that this will help students to stay on task during school because they don’t want to have to worry about homework after school and they can relax with their friends and families.
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As much as homework seems like a tedious task, practice is important, however I feel like it should be regulated and not be too much especially because as kids school really isnt our entire lives. We ourselves are humans too with daily needs and tasks that must be met, we already spend 7 hours in school and to focus at most 3 more on homework that in total is 10 hours of school time, which is so much more than needed.
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@Rae I agree with you! Homework is very helpful, but we should be able to have that time after school to relax and enjoy our afternoon activities.
Honestly, I hate homework. I would love to get rid of homework. I have so much other things going on after school that I don’t have time for homework. Although, it is some extra practice. For certain classes like ones I don't understand I wouldn’t mind homework, but I get tons of homework for unnecessary classes.
@Rumalia I agree with this many teachers give homework just so their student have something to do. I agree though that sometimes the extra practice is good.
I genuinely don't like doing homework. I don't think homework has benefited me in the slightest; I've gotten used to somehow hiding the fact that I don't know what's going on. I think the only homework that has done something is TRFs in Avid Because I work through the problem with others my age. Other than that I can't say that doing homework has done anything but stress me out. The only life skill I learned was bad habits like procrastination and somehow making an 8 hour assignment 8 minutes and an 8 minute assignment take 8 hours. I haven't learned anything new from homework. I've had more of a negative experience with homework. Homework stresses me out and makes me fall behind in classes. I think sometimes homework can help but not when it's just busywork; it was to be something genuinely helpful. I agree homework has some real educational value but that homework is outdated and harmful. When I get home after school I'm usually exhausted and go to sleep so I never get homework done at home which sometimes means that I don't get what I need to done. I think grade lever matters when discussing the value of homework.
I don’t believe anyone likes homework, even teachers who have to go back and grade it. Practice does help me learn but when I am at home I rush through and don’t even think about it because why would I? Most teachers give completion grades anyway so it’s only a set up for failure. There will always and forever be the argument of how much time it takes. However, even more than that it does not help me with a single thing, even if you want to look at it as time management. I usually am doing my homework a couple of hours before class anyways because of how busy I am. I even think it would teach me more about the subject than any life lesson and I do not learn from homework at all. So to answer the question, yes. School work should never have left school in the first place. The only reason I believe homework should happen is if it is on your own motive if you are behind or need to make something up. After reading the article I do not agree with Mr. Kang. It holds no educational value and doesn’t make you learn anything except the websites teachers buy their papers from and how to get the answers. When I get home I usually have what I would say is a relative amount of homework compared to in the past. Grade level definitely does matter in terms of homework but not the way stated in the article, teachers used to give home “assignments” that would make you want to learn. If I was a teacher I would tell my students their homework is to enjoy their afternoon.
@Jake, Block 4 I agree with your overall message but I do believe with certin ages homework can be really helpful and an educational tool.
As a sophomore in high school, I have had my fair share of homework. Although it isn't always my favorite thing to do, I believe it holds an essential role in one's education. Homework is where a student gets to practice skills that are learned in their classes. When I don't have classwork apart from in-class lectures, I do not retain the information well. At times, homework can be really ineffective and useless, but that all depends on the type of assignment. Assignments like "copy and paste these terms from this book" or "find these answers from this book" are extremely inefficient and hold no academic value. Personally, I do not gain anything from these types of assignments, and they require little to no thinking to complete. Every single student is different, but I learn best with assignments that make me think and reflect about what I am learning. Depending on how I balance my time, I have about an hour to two hours of homework every night. I feel this is reasonable since I am in all AP and honors classes. However, when I was a student-athlete, this kind of schoolwork schedule was incredibly hard to manage. Due to my late practices, I would go days without getting more than 4 hours of sleep. Students should not get more than 2-3 hours of homework a night. Overall, homework is an essential component that enriches the value of education.
@Alivia Good I agree with your overall message. As a student-athlete myself, I too have had to adapt to figure out a way to manage work and extracurriculars. Do you think there are other parts of someone's life that could play into not completing homework? i.e family issues, jobs, etc. Do you feel that in the long run, students will look back and be glad they did homework? Or do you think it may be a waste of time for some students?
I believe sometimes homework isn't necessary to give out. We spend a great amount of time in school for us to get homework that may last more than an hour. We should at least get some time to ourselves and our mental health after school. But also, homework can be useful if kids need more practice in the subject. Homework is useful and can help you understand and master the subject which can lead you to do great in the class/test. Furthermore, homework that can lead to more than an hour shouldn't be given out unless you are studying for a test.
@Evelyn I agree, we are still kids with a need for time for ourselves, mental health is especially important especially for kids. Our lives should not revolve around school, but rather school should be a simple part of our lives.
@Evelyn I think homework is a great way to check out understanding of the materials we learn while at school, but I agree that it can get overwhelming. I always try to do my homework on weekends, as my week nights can be so busy.
For me, I think we don't completely get rid of homework. Doing homework is a good way to check have you understand in class or practice skills, and makes you grow up when you do homework. The premise is that its meaningful work, not busy work for boring and repetitive things. In Taiwan, students not only do homework but there are also other examination papers and lessons.
Whenever students leave school, they must go to cram schools or after-school clubs. There's a teacher who will supervise your homework, so the homework must be completed. The teachers of the cram school will be ahead of the school's class progress to ensure that the students can understand faster when they are in school. Giving many homework and quiz to students and also doing the same things that make students feel very stressed.
What we should be left with is meaningful work, from which we can learn something. Not a lot of homework or exams, it's more important about whether students have acquired knowledge than completing homework.
@Joshua Pierce yes I totally agree with your overall message. I was thinking the same thing.
@Joshua Pierce I agree. I think homework is a great way to check out understanding of the materials we learn while at school.
Thanks for teaching me about "cram schools" in Taiwan. I had never heard of that before.
I think homework is essential to education, and getting rid of homework will be hurting a student's educational growth. Homework helps reinforce what students learn in a day, and allows students to become self-reliant. By doing homework a student must learn how to overcome problems on their own. Without homework, a student will not be practicing what they learned in class making the class unproductive.
@Annabelle Mass
I definitely agree with you on how "homework is essential to education", but I think sometimes as many students/friends I know, will just ask others for answers or look online. Not getting anything out of the homework, except cheating, which doesn't get you far in life, especially from what I've learned. I'm kind of on the verge of agreeing and disagreeing with you when you said, "By doing homework a student must learn how to overcome problems on their own." because when students do homework and they get stuck on a problem, the only way they will figure it out is by looking it up. Whereas in class, having a teacher will help you and not just give you the answer but give you hints or ideas on how to solve the problem, like in math. Which is way better for educational growth.
Even when clear evidence of homework’s benefits students is present, clusters of people voice their dissatisfaction. These people view homework as “old fashioned” and a waste of precious time. Homework is a good source of practice for students. When faced with a complicated subject, our minds need to spend more time on the subject to understand the topic. Some argue that students may not need practice and can get along fine without it. The problem with this statement is that homework is a general term. I agree that homework should not be assigned just for the sake of completing the work. Instead, it should be a tool to sharpen students’ abilities. For example, I have played Cello since the 2nd grade. The Cello is an instrument that requires a lot of precision, and without practice, I would not be able to achieve confidence in my work. Another idea brought up is to make homework optional. However, this action allows students to be lazy, and over time, even hard-working students will slack in their studies.
Simply put, homework is one of the essential functions in everyday school life.
No and yes, I think homework plays a big role in life and helps the brain develops it also plays a big role on kids planning to go to college definitely gives them a jump start . I don’t think homework just be thrown to us and we should be assigned 10 assignments a day that’s just to much I think at school work is nice but not necessarily outside homework because I feel like we learn and do so much at school that should be our time for homework. There’s a lot of kids that don’t have time for homework not Necessarily because they are lazy most kids have jobs, have to watch there siblings etc so there’s not much time, I also think that outside school they should have there time and not be so stressed because the amount of homework they are getting .
The very controversial debate of “homework” comes with a huge variety of pros and cons. While it may seem shocking to hear from a highschool student: I don't feel as if homework should be completely compulsory, but it should be lessened. Much of school is just busy work: no learning is being done, simply just a waste of time and thought, So why carry it to your home, just to spend every last hour of your free time after school working on more useless work, if it won't be bettering us academically?
People have very busy lives outside of school, there’s a lot more a kid does than sit in class filling out worksheets. I personally feel as if no child, no matter the circumstance, should have more than 2-3 hours of homework per night. Being in school for 7 hours, then going home to piles of homework on top of: sports, work, extracurricular activities, etc. causes a lot of stress to teens. Typically, parents are working all day while kids are in school, afterwards there should be time strictly dedicated to only spending time with your family, telling stories about your day, and bonding. Homework easily disrupts these bonds: sitting in your room, at your desk, stressing to finish your pile of assignments on time, while the rest of your family is hanging out, maybe watching a movie in the living room together. How is that fair? To me, it's not.
While the cons of homework are very crucial, sometimes homework can be a good thing.
@Mia Block 4 I said some similar things to what you said. However I think home work teaches me more how to cheat than anything. What you said really put it into perspective for me. Especially when you talk about how many hours at the most a kid should have homework. 2-3 hours is still a lot, that's 10 hours of school per day. 7 hours is more than plenty.
Homework is needed in a student's life. Yes, it is tiring and a ridiculous chore but it is a way to practice what we learn in class. For me, this applies especially to math. In class, we go over the lesson and then get sent home with homework. If that homework wasn’t there I wouldn’t intake anything from the lesson. The assignments are very annoying and seem pointless at the time being but overall they are much needed for me to learn. On the opposite view of a student, teachers need homework too. How would a teacher know whether a student is retaining what was taught in class or not? Teachers need homework to know when to give a test, if they need to go over the lesson again, or even if a student needs one on one help. Without homework, the teacher is clueless as to what the students are comprehending or not. Overall, homework is a necessity for students to apply lessons that were taught in class on a test, or in their everyday lives.
We should get rid of homework completely because homework is a huge factor in stress throughout countless students' lives. I believe homework is ineffective because it takes up massive amounts of my out-of school time and limits the amount of time I can spend with my family or friends. Many students get far more homework than they should. When I get home I have at the very least, one hour of homework. Some days I may have up to four hours of homework if all my teachers give out an assignment on the same day. This is horrible. Homework doesn’t provide the benefits that some teachers may believe. It feels as if you are mindlessly reciting the problems you just did in class. Though homework can be helpful in practicing the newly learned skills. It simply doesn’t provide enough value to make up for the negatives of homework. In all, I believe we should get rid of homework or at the very least find a way to be able to review and practice skills from class, without all the adverse consequences.
I think that homework should be a chose This is because if you do it you will be learning more but if you don’t then you won’t know as much. At the same time it shouldn’t take hours to do only lurk maybe an hour tops. Thai because at a certain point you just stop trying.
(part 2 of 2)
Like Mr. Kang said, homework does still have real educational value, just not always. Necessary homework to me consists of math practice, reading, little bits of writing, studying, and unfinished class work. Aside from that, I don't see anything else that is necessary. Over an hour in class is plenty of time to teach a lesson and at least get a good start to an assignment that goes along with it.
Homework could be made so much more effective if teachers put more effort into deciding whether or not that worksheet is really worth a child potentially losing sleep over. Is it really going to educate the student and create a better performance in their work? Is it really worth the time they are putting into it? Are they really learning something crucial for their future? I'm sure the majority of times the answer to those questions is a no. If teachers really feel like the miscellaneous assignments are effective, why not create a study hall class, so kids have the opportunity to lessen the amount of time spent on homework after school? There's many ways to make this more effective for teachers and students, but I do believe the large weight of homework should be lessened.
I believe homework plays an essential role in students' learning processes and thus, should not be removed from schools. Not only does homework offer students additional academic practice, but it also allows them to assess their own proficiency independently without the guidance of a teacher. Homework builds reasoning skills and challenges students put what they have learned in class into practice. While at times tedious, homework is imperative for the continuous development of students' minds and independent thought. Additionally, homework is beneficial for teachers because it allows them to evaluate which skills students need to work on as well as the concepts they have mastered before administering an assessment. However, homework is only as effective as the effort put into it. Without the constant direction of a teacher, homework requires a level of self-discipline and only offers purpose if the student is actively putting in an effort. Furthermore, the importance of homework is determined by the types of assignments distributed. For example, homework assignments that ask students to reflect on what they have learned in class and implement this knowledge into their work outside of the classroom, are much more effective than simply assigned busy work that has little value. Overall, homework is a valuable tool in that it allows students to practice what they have learned independently, however, homework's effectiveness is highly dependent on the quality of the assignments.
@Audrey Kinnear
I agree with many points you made, homework is very affective if used correctly. When not used correctly it's just a waste of the teachers time, for creating the assignment, and the students, for putting the effort into completing the assignment. Homework that requires students to use thought and reeducate themselves on a lesson from class, to make sure they're getting a full understanding, can be very effective, like you said. Homework that is just 'busy work' does nothing, its ineffective and unnecessary.
Without a doubt, my younger self would have said that homework should be removed completely. Life outside of the classroom would have been way more fun: extra free time, less stress, and more happiness. Now that I’m in my last year of highschool I can only agree with my younger self to an extent. After taking honor and ap courses I realized that in order to succeed and fully understand the material I had to practice more outside of the classroom. Homework has pushed me into actually completing the practice since it affects my grades. With that being said, I think the amount of homework given to students is ridiculous sometimes. Many high schoolers have jobs, sports and responsibilities outside of school and there’s not enough time to complete loads of homework for all classes everyday of the week-including weekends. Teachers want students to have fun once classes end but they fail to understand that their homework is multiplied by seven every night, keeping many up past 11pm. Homework can really be draining: sleepless nights, vast amounts of assignments, and hours stuck inside.
@Itzel yes totally agree it’s helped so much is the process of succeeding and learning a lot more, but some teachers just give a ridiculous amount of homework. If you’re giving out work and most of the class is not doing half of it it’s because its to much. Kids have other things other than school and to much homework can be draining and can cause very deep depression. I mean most parents all they care about is grades and for as child to be to overloaded with work and try to get all of it done while having to make sure they good As and having a job it’s a lot .
As a student in high school, it should be implied for me to believe that having no homework is the correct way to go. However, I strongly believe that without homework, I would pay less attention in my classes and as a result would have much lower grades. Although I think homework is beneficial to students, I still believe that there is an extent to which teachers should go when assigning homework. For example, I should not be getting home from school everyday and starting my homework at 4:00 pm to still be finishing it as late as 12:00 am. I think that is absurd. In that case, the homework simply does not benefit the student since all that is hoped to achieve is to finish the workload and not actually learn or grasp the material. The main issue regarding the homework load is that most teachers forget the fact that each student has many other classes who are also assigning as much work. Moreover, I think that if homework wasn’t made to be seen as such a chore by educators, more students would complete as well as spend more time on it. It is the education system’s responsibility to change that view students have of homework, in order for it to actually start benefiting them and shift their view of it to become a positive and learning ability.
For me, I think we don't completely get rid of homework. Doing homework is a good way to check have you understand in class or practice skills, and makes you grow up when you do homework. The premise is that its meaningful work, not busy work for boring and repetitive things. In Taiwan, students not only do homework but there are also other examination papers and lessons.
Whenever students leave school, they must go to cram schools or after-school clubs. There's a teacher who will supervise your homework, so the homework must be completed. The teachers of the cram school will be ahead of the school's class progress to ensure that the students can understand faster when they are in school. Giving many homework and quiz to students and also doing the same things that make students feel very stressed.
What we should be left with is meaningful work, from which we can learn something. Not a lot of homework or exams, it's more important about whether students have acquired knowledge than completing homework.
Although I don’t believe homework should be eliminated entirely, I firmly believe that the amount of homework assigned to students should be reduced. Too much homework could be counterproductive because it diverts students from learning fundamental skills by distracting them with menial tasks that take them on meaningless tangents. When regarding homework, teachers should focus on the quality of the skills assessed rather than the quantity. By attempting to tackle too many topics at once through several homework assignments, the student only gathers a superficial understanding of each one respectively. As a student, I could admit that I have wasted countless hours on worthless homework assignments simply for a grade rather than knowledge. In conclusion, the homework system has to be adjusted to focus more on what’s important rather than a variety of obsolete subtopics.
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While most students growing up would love to get rid of homework for good, it is beneficial to a certain extent. In my opinion, I think that it is a great way to study and practice skills, especially for exams or even class discussions and an understanding of the topic at hand; however, I think that an excessive amount of purposeless work does nothing but waste a student's life and time. When teachers assign homework, they don't necessarily understand their students' workloads from other classes, outside activities, and extracurriculars such as sports. However, when a balance is found, and a teacher understands the need for a healthy lifestyle outside of academics, they assign practical and straight-to-the-point assignments where the student might benefit more from it without feeling like they are wasting their time. I do, however, feel that homework is a valuable part of a child's understanding and crucial for practicing for a future assessment; I also believe that too much of anything will not do anything and instead might overwhelm a child’s psyche.
I don't think that we should completely get rid of homework but I do believe it is only beneficial in some cases. Although it is necessary in some classes to have homework every night, it should only be material that is essential for the student's success in the class, not busy work. When a student is given busy work they complete it for the sole purpose of maintaining their grade and usually nothing is genuinely learned. I think the issue is not with the amount of homework but rather how it is assigned and the value of the material it contains. If homework was made optional, it puts more responsibility on the student to make sure they stay caught up in class. This teaches important life skills that should be developed in high school because once you graduate there is no one forcing you to do your work, it is your own decision whether you choose to succeed or not. Then, students would stop complaining about homework grades and start doing their work to understand the material, not just to get it done for a grade. For example, in my math class, homework is not checked and at first I thought that was great, but after a few days I realized it is impossible to do well in that class unless I do the homework and actually spend time to truly grasp the concepts.
Yes, but it depends on which type… I think when it comes to homework it falls under two main categories, busy work, and meaningful work. Busy work is work that takes time and effort to complete, yet gives little to no value and is very repetitive. The article sheds light on this issue in the beginning, “Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?”. Meaningful work on the other hand, is work that takes time but gives value and a better understanding of whatever material you are working on in class during that time. As a sophomore in high school, I still feel like I get a good amount of busy work, I have classes that require me to just write definitions of words and long pages of notes that I end up using only a few times. On the contrary, I have classes that don’t really assign homework, to put it simply, what the do is whatever material you don’t finish within the class time given, is homework. Then when it comes to tests, the teacher provides notes, definitions, flashcards, etc. that way you can go straight to studying without spending time on writing them yourself. I find myself thriving in those types of classes better, and end up with less stress. So as far as meaningful homework, it should stay, but busy work homework (the majority of homework now) should be terminated.
I do not believe that we should completely get rid of homework, but I do believe that home work is only beneficial at certain times. There are times that teachers only give homework as busy work, which only leads to more stress for students. I believe that if homework is not necessary to give, then it should not be assigned. When students are bombarded with an abundance of homework I believe that it is counter productive and will only hurt the student. As a student I see the value in homework at times, but I don't believe that homework should be an every night thing that take multiple hours to complete. When students get home they should have time to relax and not worry about school
Assigning homework can be useful in some cases, but it doesn't make sense to use it as busy work. I find it useful when homework is given to actually help students learn about a topic, as it will help them in future tests and quizzes. I think students will be busy with work and it can have a negative effect on students. Also, after school homework can take hours to complete when given a lot of work.
@Zizrael I agree that it shouldn’t be busy work. This is because it can take hours to do. But at a certain point you stop paying attention and just want to mess around.
In my opinion homework is only beneficial in some situations. I think that homework can help with test and quizzes sometimes, but is not helpful when busy work is given. When busy work is given I think it can lead to a lot of students getting stressed out because the homework for all classes begins to pile up. As well, when these types of homework assignments are given out it can take hours to do the homework after school. That is why I believe that homework is only helpful in some cases.
@Natalie Jacob I agree. Everyone has a different way of learning, and not all assignments cater to their style. So when given busy work that isn't necessary instead of spending your time on challenging assignments that are worth your while is aggravating.
Even with four classes a semester, work can pile up. If it is not completely helpful for your educational value, I don't think it should be assigned whatsoever.
I think that being given homework can be beneficial in some cases, but is pointless if it is used as busy work. When homework is being given to actually help students learn about a topic I think that it is useful because it can help with upcoming tests and quizzes. Even though homework can be useful at times I think that when teachers give homework that has no purpose it can effect students negatively because they will be overloaded with work. As well ,when busy work is given homework can end up taking hours to do after school.
@Natalie Jacob Exactly, homework should only be given to students when it's necessary because its a waste of time for both the teachers and students to do busywork. When they could be relaxing from a long stressful day.
As a senior in high school, I have had my fair share of homework over the years. When I was younger I was just like my other peers who did not want homework. I've grown to see that when homework aligns with the principles of an exam given in the course, then it can be extremely useful to students. However, when a student is just given "busy work" it is of no real value.