Homework: Harmful or Helpful

Homework: harmful or helpful

Homework is a way of life for many students in public or private schools, from kindergarten to graduation. Often students are overwhelmed with the pressures of school, each night students are required to do homework after completing school each day. Is there a reason or need for students to come home from 7 hours of school and then have hours of homework . Is it essential that students have homework, are they gaining anything by practicing the skills they learned at school. Or are students harmed by the negative effects that homework often comes with. Should homework be restricted or should it continue to be unmonitored and exceed the limits of students in school. Homework's negative effects far outweigh any of the positive aspects because homework often is busy work that does not seem to improve students learning, an extra unneeded stress which leads students to have little free time.

Since the late 19th century homework has been a subject of debate. Although at the time students were only asked to do small memorization tasks such as memorizing vocabulary and math equations, it was still a topic of debate. By the end of the 19th century the progressive education movement began. In the early 20th century many influential individuals and parents group reached out against homework. With the pressure of opposing views from organizations such as the Parent-Teacher Association ( PTA) forced some U.S school districts to limit or even ban homework assignments. For instance, in 1901 California lawmakers abolished homework in elementary and middle schools. With progressive education movement peaking during the 1920s and 30s, there were even move people branching out against homework. Even the American Child Health Association joined the campaign against homework, saying that homework was a leading cause of tuberculosis and heart disease for U.S children. However, in the 1940s homework gradually returned to U.S schools with many supporters. Causing high school students on average in 1948 to have three to four hours of homework a night. Even to present day in 2006 a study in a public high school in Needham, Massachusetts shows that one out of five students spend four hours or more a night on homework.

For most students homework is consider to be a little more than busy work, often students feel the work that they are doing is unnecessary. Students receive so much homework that they are not getting anything out of it. This causes students to focus more on getting the work done, then learning anything from the activity. It is unfair to expect students to do their best when they have more homework than the time they need to complete the work. Homework assignments tend to lack academic value leading students to simply get the homework done as soon as they can. With the burden of homework every night, reading and writing becomes a chore just as cleaning the dishes would be.