The People's Bulletin

Should teachers give homework?

by Christine Ahmad

Most students dread the time of class when teachers tell them they are receiving homework. Teachers tell their students it shouldn’t take long, but of course it won’t take long when you know the answers or know exactly how to do it. Here at Newton, we have up to 9 classes a day, and many teachers do give homework. Is the relationship between homework and success significant?

I think it is fair that if students do not use their class time productively and need to finish their work, finishing up at home is a good option. However, I do not think that teachers need to assign homework that is separate from any class work. GoodRx Health, Should homework be banned? states,“Spending more time than recommended on homework has actually been linked to lower test scores and higher rates of anxiety and depression.” If teachers cannot complete content within a given lesson, they could continue that work during the next lesson. If the whole class needs more time to work on the lesson or complete an activity, it is more than likely an activity that needs to be focused on through multiple lessons.

Many students are involved in sports or other after school activities while maintaining a job. Students are extremely busy and the school work should stay at school. The article, Education Inequality: Homework and its Negative Impact on Students states, “Adding homework into the mix is one more thing to deal with — and if the student is struggling, the task of completing homework can be too much to consider at the end of an already long school day.” The article goes on to conclude that students have a life outside of school that they need to attend to and doing homework is not always easy for them to fit in which then results in bad grades and is not a correlation to their potential. Ultimately, is homework worth it?