Is homework helpful?

Trixie

Does homework lead students into success or disaster? There are ongoing debates on whether homework is beneficial or detrimental to students’ health. Some believe that homework can harm a student’s overall wellbeing. However, studies have shown that a limited but regular amount of homework can provide benefits such as teaching students responsibility, deepening students’ understanding of a subject matter, and allowing parents to get involved with their children’s learning.

First of all, homework shapes students to become more responsible by helping them develop independence, time management and prioritization skills. These fundamental skills are essential in the real world. Giving students consistent homework from a young age not only gives them practice on topics discussed in class, but also, in its substance, homework builds character. As kids age, the skills developed through homework will apply to other activities and aspects of life such as house chores, self care or in a future job. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Practice makes perfect.”

Additionally, homework deepens students’ understanding of a subject matter, thus enhancing students’ overall achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and even college acceptance. Even if students pay close attention in class, they typically retain only 50% of class discussion data. Therefore, homework is essential to jolt their memory in recalling the full information they would have gathered in class. Moreover, a study published in the High School Journal relating homework with SAT-Mathematics subtest scores concludes that students, who completed 31 to 90 minutes of daily homework, garnered an average of ~40 points higher on their SAT-Mathematics subtest compared to their peers who spent less time on homework.

Lastly, homework strengthens the bond between students and their parents, especially working parents. It provides opportunities for parents to interact with their children and get involved in their education. In fact, a study shows that kids perform better in school when parents help get their homework done. Johns Hopkins University states that TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork), a homework system where parents assist their children, actually enhances student achievement. "Students in the TIPS group earned significantly higher report card grades after 18 weeks (1 TIPS assignment per week) than did non-TIPS students." Furthermore, if students have learning disabilities, parents who help them with homework can sooner identify and accept such disabilities, enabling the students to receive help and adjusted learning strategies. According to Harris Cooper, PhD, a Duke University professor, "Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework revealed it to them."

In conclusion, homework of a limited but consistent amount provides important benefits to students of all ages. It teaches them to be responsible, deepens students’ understanding of a subject matter and allows for more opportunities for parent-child bonding. Through this, we can all agree that homework is more beneficial than it is harmful.

Chiara

Is homework actually good for you? Homework, the thing that we all dread to do when we get home, causing us to stay up late, do extra research and increase our stress levels, we are lead to believe is good for us. However, even though homework is supposed to help you learn and strengthen your understanding of certain topics, some studies have found that homework does quite the opposite. Some teachers don’t realize how much homework is too much, and as a result, an overload of homework can cause serious damage to teenagers. Overall, homework has a negative effect on students' health and well being.  

Firstly, an overload of homework can cause stress and anxiety to build up. According to research done by the Stanford News, 56% of students surveyed said that they found homework to be a major source of their stress. Not only can high stress levels result in bad performance on tests and assignments, but starting to load up with stress from homework at a young age can result in anxiety and depression when you get older. 

Also, free time is a crucial need in a students’ daily routine. Taking breaks every once in a while can be beneficial, as breaks can help students concentrate and reflect, make good decisions, and stay focused. However, a day without breaks is a day of chaos, and that is exactly what homework is creating for students. Free time not only benefits adolescents’ mental and physical health, it allows them to have time to practice necessary life skills, such as communication and social skills. If not practiced at a young age, these skills can be challenging to develop later on, and adults may struggle with such skills in the future.  

In addition, homework causes sleep deprivation. As I said earlier, stress is a major side effect of homework, and stress can result in students getting an insufficient amount of sleep. Furthermore, teens need a recommended 8-10 hours of sleep everyday. Due to the overload of homework though, many students get to the point where they will sacrifice their sleep to meet deadlines for assignments. Even Though some may say that if students were more organized and productive, they wouldn’t need to stay up late, that's not necessarily the problem. If teachers followed the recommended 10 minute rule, which states that for every grade level, you add 10 minutes of homework everyday, grade 7 middle schoolers would have to do 70 minutes of work daily, which is almost 6 hours a week. Although does it really work like that? I don’t think so. In fact, as an experienced 7th grade student at ISM, Natsuko said that she spends between 1 and 2 hours a day on homework. This therefore leads to students finishing their work late, therefore reducing the amount of sleep they get every night. 

In conclusion, homework is clearly proven to have a negative effect on children's mental, social, and physical health. As a result, we can clearly say that homework is harmful for students and that all or most work should be completed at school to ensure students’ current and long term wellbeing.