Should homework be abolished?

[EasterJoy]

I just graduated high school this year. I don’t know anything about public schools, but, all four years at my Catholic college prep school, I’ve had averaged four hours of homework a night on weekdays. Add to that the fact that I took the bus an hour to school and another hour back for the first three years, I had no time to myself. It was just an endless cycle of get up, school, homework, sleep, and repeat. I couldn’t even find time to read a book for fun. I’ve spent a lot of late nights, my mom often walking in on me at 1:00 AM still working and telling me to go to sleep and I’d always refuse insisting on finishing it. My mom even offered to give me a “mental health day.” In reality, those in high school who took days off were the ones who needed them the least. For the ones with the most work, it was not worth it because it piled up.

What irked me the most were the “creative” projects. The artsy projects that teachers think would be fun, but, were more time-consuming than papers, especially those that involved groups. Personally, it should be a requirement that group work can only be done at school because it was a pain finding a time slot in which everyone in the group was available due to jobs, extra-curriculars, and work in other classes. Plus, many of us commuted long distances to get to school and had limited transportation outside of school. A lot of these projects were also pointless, like all the movies and skits we had to make for religion class and book movie trailers for English.

In all, I’d rather have had a few extra hours in the school day instead of homework or at least have homework be limited to reading and studying. It took a large toll on my health and I honestly think that all the work stunted my growth as a person that would have occurred if I had also time to do my own things outside of school. And, in case anyone is thinking I just wanted more time for Netflix or something stupid, I wanted time to read because there is so much that school doesn’t teach you. Since I wasn’t getting a religious education at my school, I wanted to catechize myself. I also wanted to read classic novels, histories, and biographies. I wanted to pick up hobbies to explore my own talents. But, that didn’t happen.

Yes–it should be a requirement that group work either be done at school or at non-synchronized times on the internet. For instance, I could see everyone making a contribution to a project that everyone can look at as it progresses, because it is kept on the internet.

As for being “pointless,” this is a function of one’s learning style. Some people think memorizing things is pointless. Some think integrating things into art is pointless. Others learn better that way. In that case, the “point” is to learn to present things in a way that will appeal to a certain target learning style or a certain presentation format.

I agree that excessive work assigned for out-of-school hours can impinge on both necessary rest and recreation and on other avenues for personal growth. The teachers should not be able to assume that all your free time belongs to them!

 

[Joko2599]

I’ll speak from personal experience here.

I live for volunteer work. On most days after school and on weekends, I can be found all over the community doing a bunch of stuff. Volunteering for Catholic Charities, helping veterans, registering voters, planning Red Cross activities, etc. I often do not get home until 9:00-10:30 PM. At that point, I simply do not want to think about completing a 35-question study guide on adenosine triphosphate.

Today, I would love to focus on planning for my Red Cross Club at school. Hours of homework (I’m in the IB program) will not easily allow that.

It’s frustrating. I am a straight-A top of the class student, who is diligent in all courses.The occasion is seldom where I miss a homework assignment. But it is boring and has proven to be a gigantic time waster. And don’t mistake me for being lazy or apathetic! I know school (and therefore homework) is required to move ahead in life, and I don’t shun my academic privileges as a citizen of a rich country.That doesn’t mean I cannot criticize the unequivocal absurdity of busy work assigned at the last minute.

 

[Rhubarb]

There IS homework that should be abolished. But not all homework. I saw little to no use for the busy work they sent home. “Take the word of the week, use it in a sentence, and draw a picture to illustrate it.” Was a weekly assignment I used to get in middle school. It was the most asinine thing ever. Anything like that, designed to just make the kids work for no real reason, irritated me. I failed so many classes in middle and high school because of this. But I graduated from University with honors once the busy work went away.

Homework that isn’t just busy work is fine. Papers that require reseaech, long term projects (so long as they don’t involve building a diorama or a poster or something), and such are all fine. The only other homework I approve of is math homework (or science homework that’s mathy) as the repetition is often necessary to get the techniques down. I guess logic and languages are like that too. That homework I think is important, even though it treads on busy work.

 

[JimG]

I’ll speak from personal experience here.

I live for volunteer work. On most days after school and on weekends, I can be found all over the community doing a bunch of stuff. Volunteering for Catholic Charities, helping veterans, registering voters, planning Red Cross activities, etc. I often do not get home until 9:00-10:30 PM. At that point, I simply do not want to think about completing a 35-question study guide on adenosine triphosphate.

Today, I would love to focus on planning for my Red Cross Club at school. Hours of homework (I’m in the IB program) will not easily allow that.

It’s frustrating. I am a straight-A top of the class student, who is diligent in all courses.The occasion is seldom where I miss a homework assignment. But it is boring and has proven to be a gigantic time waster. And don’t mistake me for being lazy or apathetic! I know school (and therefore homework) is required to move ahead in life, and I don’t shun my academic privileges as a citizen of a rich country.That doesn’t mean I cannot criticize the unequivocal absurdity of busy work assigned at the last minute.

You sure don’t sound lazy to me! But poor old adenosine triphosphate is feeling a little slighted. It just loves attention.

 

[EasterJoy]

You sure don’t sound lazy to me! But poor old adenosine triphosphate is feeling a little slighted. It just loves attention.

I heard an emergency physician say once that he has never found knowing the number of ATPs generated in each step of the Kreb’s cycle to be necessary to diagnose or treat a patient. In spite of this, he estimated that he had memorized and re-memorized the Kreb’s cycle three different times over the course of his academic career, LOL!!

Why? Because the Kreb’s cycle is just that cool, that’s why. That is the only reason I can think of…

 

[Wackotrad]

I agree, that obviously in elementary school, you don’t need to do homework for several hours but you do need to let them build up. they can’t just go to school for 7 years and suddenly start getting homework in high school without having done any before then.

Why not? This logic makes no sense. Should your kindergartener get a job at McDonald’s? After all, in high school he’ll probably suddenly have to go out and work somewhere. Maybe we should start teaching our second grader to drive now…how can she be expected to suddenly handle a car at 15 or 16?

I’m not opposed to meaningful, age-appropriate amounts of homework, but this logic is a good part of how homework got out of hand out of hand in many schools. Now we have preschools doling out worksheets for 4-year-olds to take home “in preparation” for elementary school, which in turn is “preparation” for middle school, and so on. Ridiculous.

 

[pensmama87]

Why not? This logic makes no sense. Should your kindergartener get a job at McDonald’s? After all, in high school he’ll probably suddenly have to go out and work somewhere. Maybe we should start teaching our second grader to drive now…how can she be expected to suddenly handle a car at 15 or 16?

I’m not opposed to meaningful, age-appropriate amounts of homework, but this logic is a good part of how homework got out of hand out of hand in many schools. Now we have preschools doling out worksheets for 4-year-olds to take home “in preparation” for elementary school, which in turn is “preparation” for middle school, and so on. Ridiculous.

To be fair, there are not a small number of children that absolutely love having “homework.” My son’s preschool doesn’t assign any (I wouldn’t let him go there if it did), but does he sit down sometimes and want to “play school,” sheets and all? You bet.

I think, too, that for some students, especially those who are bright or talented in a particular subject area, some assignments are busywork, but they aren’t for students who maybe take longer to get it. Different types of assignments happen because not everyone learns best in the same way, and you might get a math concept after doing one or two problems, but someone else might need 20 to really get what’s going on (that’s assuming, of course, they complete it with the intent to actually learn something.)

Teachers are in a hard spot when it comes to this kind of thing.

 

[Vanny]

I haven’t read through all the replies on this but:
I am of two minds on this.
My boys never struggled with their grades and so didn’t struggle with having too much homework. The older one did struggle with math a bit, however they had some friends who seemed to have hours of homework.
So too much homework can take away from the ability to take part in extracurrlcular activites, ect.
However on the other hand, if they go to higher education, such as college, they WILL have homework, lots of it, and if they never had homework in K-12 how will they know how to deal with it?
So no, I don’t think homework should be abolished, it can lead to good study skills for higher education.
both my boys are in college now and are able to deal with homework, writing papers,ect, because they learned good study skills in high school.
Plus it keeps kids out of trouble.
Also, The U.S. is already way behind some other countries, in math, science, ect.
We need to catch up.

 

[David2010]

Homework should not be abolished.

Appropriate amounts should be assigned for the proper grades. Obviously, the primary grades don’t need a lot. But as students get older, they should get more. However, it should not get out of hand, and not mindless make-work homework.

Around grade 10 or 11, I found that teaching styles changed. During the class time, teachers would present the new material, and we’d work through some of the exercises but, if we didn’t, the balance became homework. I think in the three years before university, high schools start preparing students for what it’s going to be like at university.

And some students still don’t go to university prepared. From my own background (engineering), my first year of university was filled with very bright classmates. In fact, some of them were a lot smarter than me. Unfortunately, many of them were completely unprepared for the workload. In engineering at least, it is not good enough to just be smart, you also need a strong work ethic. Half my class failed out the first semester. Half the balance failed out the second semester. First year is a real weeder year for students not serious about their studies. So I think developing a good work ethic, study skills, organizational ability, etc.-- starting these habits early is a good idea. And even if a person doesn’t go on to university, these habits are good to have in life anyhow.

 

[EasterJoy]

Homework should not be abolished.

Appropriate amounts should be assigned for the proper grades. Obviously, the primary grades don’t need a lot. But as students get older, they should get more. However, it should not get out of hand, and not mindless make-work homework.

Around grade 10 or 11, I found that teaching styles changed. During the class time, teachers would present the new material, and we’d work through some of the exercises but, if we didn’t, the balance became homework. I think in the three years before university, high schools start preparing students for what it’s going to be like at university.

And some students still don’t go to university prepared. From my own background (engineering), my first year of university was filled with very bright classmates. In fact, some of them were a lot smarter than me. Unfortunately, many of them were completely unprepared for the workload. In engineering at least, it is not good enough to just be smart, you also need a strong work ethic. Half my class failed out the first semester. Half the balance failed out the second semester. First year is a real weeder year for students not serious about their studies. So I think developing a good work ethic, study skills, organizational ability, etc.-- starting these habits early is a good idea. And even if a person doesn’t go on to university, these habits are good to have in life anyhow.

You do have to be able to carry out assignments on your own time in order to succeed in college or in professional life. High school does need to have an ever-increasing amount of academic work that is self-determined.

 

[savedbygrace71]

There is an excellent book on this topic called The Case Against Homework. It’s a thoroughly researched book which calls out the long held belief that homework = knowing more and learning better. It turns out to be mostly untrue. In elementary and middle school grades, there has been a huge upswing in the amount of homework.

I was in elementary in the 80’s and did not have ANY homework until 5th grade except for basic projects. My son has math, reading and spelling every night, and sometimes religion and/or social studies as well. He is in 3rd grade. When he had to do sentences for his spelling words, he would not be able to tolerate the work after his exhausting day and it could easily take an hour. He didn’t need more work. He needed less.

Kids under the age of 10 need to come out of school and PLAY. No, not on video games. They need to get outside, run, play, be on their own out of the supervision of adults for just an hour or two. Please, think about their growing minds. They do not need to be sitting quietly at the kitchen table trying desperately to practice their times tables. They need to be running, jumping, digging, exploring and riding bikes. It genuinely makes their brains stronger by making neuron connections! It is healthier and more educational for young children to play than it is for them to do homework. Read the book. It’s an eye opener!

I would not include personal reading as homework, though. We read together every night at bedtime, and that doesn’t feel to us like an assignment. We are readers, though. My sons would happily read for an hour before bed. The reading logs are always full!

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I would not include personal reading as homework, though. We read together every night at bedtime, and that doesn’t feel to us like an assignment. We are readers, though. My sons would happily read for an hour before bed. The reading logs are always full!

I had a teacher tell me once that if she could count on every parent to make their kids do 30 minutes of independent reading every night, she wouldn’t assign homework. Unfortunately, based on feedback from the parents and students, she believed that fewer than 10% of the kids read outside of school on any sort of a regular basis. A lot of her homework was reading and reading comprehension which had nothing to do with the classes she taught but she felt that was an important skill which people were ignoring.

As far as some of the comments on college, while I thought it was bad when I went, some of what we dealt with when our son was in college was shocking. He’s the sort who always needed our help to reinforce his discipline and study habits. Thankfully, by the time he graduated high school he had acquired some good study habits and didn’t nearly nearly as much encouragement. In college he had several classes where they only got through about half of what was on the syllabus because the other students were so incapable of handling the workload. These were all first year classes and none of them had aggressive schedules. The amount of material they were covering in one 10-week class was about 60-70% of what I covered in a similar class when I went, yet they barely made it to the halfway point by the end of the quarter. I’ve talked to former professors who retired early simply because they couldn’t cope with the consistently poor quality of the first year students.

 

[slh3016]

I have taught HS algebra and geometry in the past AND I’ve worked toward a Master’s degree in teaching that required a 15 page research paper on a topic of my choosing. My choice was homework and its benefits.

The overwhelming empirical data revealed that homework for the vast majority of students is worthless in all grade levels and particularly for children of low socioeconomic status who likely do not have the support structure or resources at home to be able to successfully complete the assignments. Children in median income homes benefited the most, but, research showed that that benefit was still minimal.

The goal in any classroom really should be differentiated learning. There is absolutely NO reason why a teacher could not assess student learning and knowledge in the classroom before they walked out the door (we call this formative assessment). The big push in my district was to give “exit slips” as a means of formative assessment. After presenting the material and doing several examples (with student participation), students were given 1-2 problems that they had to answer before leaving. This allowed me, after class, to p(name removed by moderator)oint which of my students “got it” and which ones didn’t. This influenced instruction the next day and once all students were mastering the content, summative assessments (tests) were given and counted toward grades.

Homework, if given, should never be graded and count toward a student’s grades. It is practice and if the student leaves the classroom with insufficient knowledge of the concepts, doing 20 homework problems incorrectly does not benefit the student. If he knew how to do the work beforehand, again, 20 homework problems does not benefit him either. Homework is only beneficial when there are parents at home who can correct their child in their errors, but that puts the burden on the parent and not the teacher and most parents don’t have time in their evening to sit with their child through 20 homework problems!

IOW, formative assessment should happen in the classroom. Mastery of content should be the ideal and when it’s not, students start falling through the cracks and are left behind. Homework does barely anything to solve this when the proper support structures are not in place.

Now that I’m a homeschool parent, the biggest benefit is that I can observe my kids while they are learning and we correct mistakes right then. We also have no after-school “homework” so our precious family time and time for outside interests are preserved.