Long has the question of homework plagued both students and teachers alike. While it is a helpful tool for reinforcing learning or teacher material in content heavy courses, it can prove useless or even detrimental to students. Is it better to assign homework and risk the overall health of students or abstain from requiring homework and risk the students not learning the material?
We decided to consider these questions together. Read our thoughts on this controversy. We identified our individual opinions with our initials: TN= Tycho Ngo and IG=Isaac Gruneich. At the end of the article, answer our poll to share your views on homework.
TN: Homework raises several fundamental problems; such as negatively affecting kids at home. Stanford researchers say that too much homework degrades the quality of education provided and is counterproductive to learning. Additionally in a study involving 4,500 students many had health issues such as sleep deprivation, exhaustion, headaches, and weight loss which were tied back to homework. This shows that homework can not only be tedious but also dangerous to the students it is meant to be helping.
IG: While it is true that an overbearing amount of homework can be detrimental it is also true that homework is imperative in effectively learning a course’s material.
“I don’t think that homework is a necessity, but you are at the mercy of the calendar,” says Mr. Anderson, a teacher of American history and macroeconomics in New Hartford High School. This brings up a good point, content heavy courses often have very little time to get through all of the material. So while homework may feel overbearing it is often a necessity in higher level courses that in all likelihood was accepted by the student the moment they joined the course.
TN: Although using homework to help students learn the material in the course may sound like a good idea it often poses problems.
“I think that assigning homework (especially graded homework and homework geared towards mastering challenging material not thoroughly covered in class) is an equity issue. The support students have at home to help them be successful (parents or siblings and access to certain resources such as the internet) is disparate and in some cases homework can actually be an academic disadvantage for some students,” said high school teacher Mr. McNair in response to the question of problems homework presents.
Mr. McNair raises good points as students who have these resources to support them at home do have a definite advantage over those who don’t. Which makes assigning homework that is meant to help catch up on the course unfair to those who may be struggling at home and have more responsibilities outside of school.
IG: In the interview with Mr. Anderson, he stressed the importance of molding the homework to every individual class of students.
“The moment I’m not worried about adjusting is when I should retire,” Mr. Anderson said.
Thus it is clear that teachers are aware of the difficulties found within the home and are actively working towards leveling the inherent inequality of homework, but it is undeniable that homework has shown beneficial trends. In an article written by ProCon.org they cited that students that did homework outperformed students who didn’t by 69%, in addition students typically can typically only retain 50% of what they learned in class leaving homework as a valuable option to reinforce material.
TN: While homework is one option there are superior methods that can circumvent some of the downsides of homework. Homework presents problems with restricting the time of those who it is assigned to.
“I feel awful about it. It’s very tedious. I need more time to unwind and understand the info I just consumed for 7 hours straight. I also feel like I have no time for my relationships outside of school with both friends and family members. Instead of homework I believe teachers should put the task on the student to prepare themselves independently by rereading notes or simply studying content done in class,” highschooler Donovan Mirabal said.
Donovan presents an interesting method of study that would rid students of some of the burdens felt by homework. Many students agree with him as Stanford researchers also said that many students weren’t meeting their developmental needs or cultivating important life skills like communication due to the sheer amount of time homework takes after school.
Additionally this method of studying independently and putting the burden on students to go back over coursework will help students to prepare for life outside of schooling. When students go on to have jobs and other responsibilities oftentimes they won’t be given a rigid assignment telling them what they need to do and by adopting this method of study it will help to cultivate greater independent thinking and problem solving skills.
IG: “The kids that do their homework practice the problem-solving techniques needed so that they can answer questions in a timely fashion,” said Mrs. Roth, a math instructor at New Hartford high school. So whilst it is possible that students could use self study to learn the material it has been proven time and time again that without homework to keep students motivated at home there is little done.
As for the time requirement there has been a movement among departments to lower the amount of problems assigned and only assign the valuable questions. “We thoughtfully assign questions so that they gain the skills they need to be a better math student and a logical problem solver,” said Mrs. Roth. So while homework may still feel like a large requirement it has been very cut down, and the remaining homework is just the product of taking higher level courses.
Homework also provides an effective cushion for students who may be struggling in tests. When asked about this cushion Jack McNair, a senior at New Hartford, agreed saying “Yeah I think so, if they struggle with tests it can be a really important way to get along in class, interact with the teacher, and learn.” Jack brings up an important point, homework can be a valuable way to interact with teachers and let the teacher know who is struggling.
TN: While homework can keep students motivated it can also demotivate them. For example a student who might be excited by the content they learned in class could very easily become uninterested after doing hours of homework on the same subject. This is another reason why independent learning is superior to the traditional method of doing homework. Students can review what they need to rather than going over additional material they feel confident in over and over again.
In response to homework padding grades Mr. McNair said, “I do my best to provide resources for students to review on their own time, but I don’t grade them. The incentive for homework completion should never be an inflated grade. That just distorts the task at hand.”
This is important as homework assigned only for inflated grades can often become pointless as the task transforms from helping students understand the content into students only doing it for an easy grade. If teachers were to assign homework just to assign homework it would quickly kill the motivation of students who are doing well in classes and simply want to learn more about the topic at hand. By forcing repetitive info down the throats of students it will harm them in the long term as when a student is less interested in the topic they often do worse in it and retain less.
IG: While leaving homework ungraded would be good in a perfect world, grades function as an effective way to motivate students regardless of whether they’re doing well in class or struggling. In many cases students end up entirely unmotivated to do any work at home which will stunt their growth worse than doing extra. However, I agree that an overbearing amount of homework is a detriment to the motivation of the student, but in this case it becomes a necessary evil. Homework functions as a way to not only reinforce the material but also encourages students to try and grasp it in a way that goes beyond mere comprehension and into mastery.
By forcing students to take some of their individual time to focus on the material, and silently encouraging efficiency, homework gives the foundation for test taking which is a prominent determinant of worth in modern education. In the end the worth of homework isn’t decided solely on its existence, but rather on how the student chooses to engage with it on an individual level. Teachers are doing their best to ensure that homework is only assigned to a bare minimum to allow students to form their own relationship with the material, and that bridging the gap between the student and the teachers attempts to teach the material is why it is ultimately the better choice.
TN: Overall, while it is a traditional method, homework may not be the best method of study in order to cultivate young minds and help students who are taking difficult courses. With the potential health risks as well as the equity problem with students who may be struggling at home homework simply doesn’t make sense as the go-to option for teachers. Additionally alternatives to homework offer students a better outlook for the future with independent study preparing them for the world outside of the classroom.
IG: Homework, despite the inherent grudge common to most students, is a necessity that allows not only reinforcement of earlier topics, but also a chance for students to engage with the material on an individual basis and signal to the teacher their level of proficiency. When push comes to shove, there will be no replacing homework due to the human need for knowledge. The increasing amount of material that needs to be fit within the same time frame makes homework an indispensable tool for covering large amounts of information quickly. That isn’t to say that homework is inherently a bad option however, in fact it is the most effective way to encourage the majority of students to grasp the material in a way that will give them an important advantage in test taking and forcing them to connect with the material in a way that is individual to each student.
