The Burden of Homework
During time spent at home, people can "lay down [the] burdens for the day and enjoy the fruits of our labors" (Borgman). This is a belief most parents hold despite the amount of homework that students are given. Homework used to be a time where students could finish work that needed to be finished or to go over things that needed to be enforced. This is no longer the case now. Homework has become something where "worksheets and other assignments [are] assigned merely out of a sense of obligation to dole our homework to students" (Graham). Some teachers are giving out pointless homework that is not necessary and begins to pile up into an all night affair. Those teachers feel obligated to give homework out to students. When every teacher feels this obligation. Despite the popular beliefs held by school districts and government officials, homework should not be assigned to students because homework takes away free-time and puts exceeding stress on students.
Homework is taking away from free time excessively and needlessly. Research has shown that homework reduces "the time students have for family activities, social life, cultural or religious enrichment, and leisure pursuits" (Jerusha 493). Homework takes away from the time that students could use doing actions that build character, spending time on hobbies and, relaxing from an already long day of work at school. Excessive homework leads to kids giving up joining other groups like Matt Nakamura who gave up on joining groups "like Italian Club, because [he] knew [he] wouldn't have enough time to honor the commitment" (4). Students are beginning to have to give up on activities they were interested in. Students are so backed up with homework that they are forced to give up on fun activities in order to finish their homework and get a decent amount of sleep. In Jennifer Hayward's paper, she provides multiple graphs displaying the relationship between homework and test grades (37-49). In these graphs all of them end up pointing to the same conclusion: there is no correlation between homework grades and test grades. Isn't homework supposed to improve one's grades? The truth is, homework does not affect test grades and in the end is pointlessly taking away from students' time. In reality though, homework does not actually affect those test grades. In the end this homework is just uselessly taking away free time without actually improving grades. Free time is a rare thing to find in this day in age and now, with so much homework, it is harder for students to find such free time where they can do activities they actually want to do.
Homework also puts a lot of extra stress on students. Even people in support of homework believe that "too much [homework] can frustrate children and cause stress" (Haury 11). The idea of homework is to help a student, not to put stress on the student. Homework has gotten to a point now that teachers are starting to feel obliged to give students homework without knowing how much stress all the homework from different subjects puts on the student. One person compared school to work and said that "by the end of a seven hour workday, [students are] exhausted. But like a worker on a double shift, [students have] to keep going once [they get] home" (Kohn 11). Students already work during school and then are expected to go home and do even more work that ends up taking so long that it becomes school at home. Along with that, students, especially high school students, are expected to do so many activities for college application. The combination of these two things adds up to a pile of stress on a student. The students want to get home to relax and forget about the problems. Without that relaxation time, the stress continues to pile on the students who will eventually break. The excessive homework is what leads students to become stressed.
Though many deny it, it is becoming increasingly evident that homework is a cause of students' lack of free time and their stress. People need to realize that "questions about homework as simply busy work or knowledge work, mere content distraction or content extension, ambivalence toward importance, or discipline of character all cloud any conclusions about homework, good or bad" (Stevens 80). There is no black and white to the problem that homework has become, but homework has definitely become an issue that needs to be known. Some people who defend homework do not really know it's effects. Homework has become such a problem that at this point there is no way of fixing it and that schools need to stop giving students homework. Studying on the own student's time is okay. If a student wants to do extra work on his or her own time, okay, they can do that. Forcing students to do a worksheet just to give those students homework is something different. Give students a choice. If homework was not given then maybe the relaxed, not stressed students would have motivation to study for that test or quiz. Students' grades may go up as the students realize that some work outside of school is necessary to succeed. When homework is pushed on students, those students do not get to make their own discoveries. Instead, homework should not be given to students.
Works Cited
Borgman, Jim & Jerry Scott. "Zits (Ah Dinnertime!)." Zits Comics, 18 March 2001. King
Features Syndicate, zitscomics.com/comics/march-18-2001/. Assessed 19 Jan.
2017.
Conner, Jerusha, et al. "Nonacademic Effects of Homework
in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools." Journal of Experimental Education, Vol. 81, No. 4, 2013, pp. 490-510. EBSCO, eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/
detail?sid=703a70fa-2a5f-43ee-b32b-90819d226290%40sessionmgr120&vid=0&hid=104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=89980043&db=f5h. Assessed 15 Jan. 2017.
Graham, Edward. "Should Schools Be Done With Homework?" National Education Association,
13 May 2014, neatoday.org/2014/05/13/should-schools-be-done-with-homework/.
Assessed 18 Jan. 2017.
Haury, David & Linda Milbourne. "Why Is Homework Important?" The ERIC Review, Vol.
6, No. 2, 1999, pp. 11-12. Academia, 2017,
academia.edu/1770264/Why_is_Homework_Important. Assessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Hayward, Jennifer M., "The Effects of Homework on Student Achievement". Education and
Human Development Master's Theses, No. 120, 2010, pp. 37-49,
digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1119&context=ehd_the
ses. Assessed 19 Jan. 2017.
"Is Homework Out of Control?" Scholastic Magazine, Vol. 32, No. 4, Scholastic Choices, Jan
2017, pp. 2-5. EBSCO,
eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=17&sid=667dc997-1afa-4c72-b5da-2ff237185d9c%40sessionmgr102&hid=104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=120312901&db=f5h. Assessed 15 Jan. 2017.
Kohn, Alfie. The Homework Myth. Alfie Kohn, 2006, pp. 6-24, 37-40, 54-57, 72-76, 102-118,
121-125, 151- 155, 158-160.
Stevens, David and Paul Watkins. "The Goldilocks Dilemma: Homework Policy Creating a
Culture Where Simply Good Is Just Not Good Enough." Clearing House, Vol. 86, No. 2,
March 2013, p80-85. EBSCO,
eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=947eb469-1006-4e9a-b6b2-fcda3bcc888
1%40sessionmgr4008&vid=8&hid=4108&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN
=85221661&db=f5h. Assessed 17 January 2017.
