Is Homework Beneficial?

Homework: Beneficial, or just a waste of time?

Momie, today mi techr had i rite yu a letr. does yu lik it? Luv, Jmez

To either the teacher or parent of even a second grade student, the letter above would be unacceptable.

To measure a student's progress academically, an educator uses standardized tests. To prepare a student for a test, the teacher uses a planned curriculum. The most proven method of learning this curriculum is ROTE. This is how we learned our ABC's, multiplication tables, and spelling. Over, over, over, over, and over again our parents used flashcards in an attempt to get us ahead of our classmates.

As we progressed in grade and our studies became more complex, it became necessary to incorporate the ROTE method without the use of elementary educational aids.

How on earth was our teacher going to prepare us for progress test, when he/she had no idea how far we had progressed? How could a parent know what a child was doing in class, without waiting one half a semester? How was a teacher to use the ROTE system in a forty minute class with twenty five or so students?

WA-LAH!!!! HOMEWORK. Lay it on them. Make them think. No T.V. Or childish fun. HOMEWORK HOMEWORK HOMEWORK.

Homework, just uttering this word makes any self-respecting student dread the forth coming evening. After all, there is ball practice, hanging out, the mall, chores they forgot to do, and, I will wager if you gave them ten minutes any fourteen year old worth his salt could expand this list ten-fold.

But realistically, they could not print the list of excuses without having done their homework. By writing the word list, twenty-five times they learned how to spell the word list. They would not know that a $32 tee shirt would cost them $35.20 after tax is added on without the ability to multiply.

Very few students care at all why George Washington crossed the Delaware, or that Montana became the 41st state in 1889, but because we addressed points like this fifty times or more in our homework assignments we can remember this type of obscure fact.

Contrary to student belief, urban legend or school yard rumor homework is not simply a devise invented by lazy teachers to lighten their classroom work load. More often than not the more homework an educator assigns equals more homework for the educator. Research, printing , copying, and grading are task's performed by the teacher directly related to your homework.

So while you are at your bedroom desk complaining about some lame Survivor episode you are missing, your teacher is missing dinner with their family, a meeting at church, bowling league,