After spending a long hard-working day at school, students just want to be able to come home, sit on the couch, and rest. But instead, we have piles and piles of homework from eight different classes, keeping us up late at night.
Studies show that homework does not help us learn at all, it does nothing beneficial. Homework is actually proven to be bad for you. Giving students homework is not helpful; it simply stresses us out more. In an article published in Parents Magazine, “The Case Against Homework” by Alfie Kohn, literacy expert Harvey Daniels said, “Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning.” In the article, one mother said that homework had permanently damaged her relationship with her son because it forced her to be an enforcer rather than a mom.
Most WHB students agree that we are given too much homework! Sophomore Alyssa Jacino said, “Homework totally stresses me out because there is way too much to remember from school; it goes in one ear and out the other!” Freshman Erik Nidzyn agreed, “Homework stresses me out because I get home at 8 o’clock from volleyball and then I have about three hours of homework. Then I end up staying up till around midnight and have to wake up at 6 am.”
Some teachers assign more homework than others. According to the students that I spoke to, Mr. Broich and Mr. Hilly assign the most. Sophomore Seth Peyton said, “Mr Hilly gives about 10 hard questions a night and reading which takes me about 45 minutes.” Sophomore Dylan Holmes and freshman Erik Nidzyn both agreed that Mr. Broich assigns the most homework. Erick Nidzyn said, “Mr. Broich gives about 30 minutes of homework every night!”
Most teachers are understanding that students don’t want or enjoy homework but that won’t stop them from assigning it! Ms. Juma said, “I can understand that extra work would drive students away from learning, however some subjects lean them selves to having to do homework.” Students would agree that sometimes there is no purpose for homework in classes. Ms. Juma said, “If I didn’t give homework in my class than we would need to spend the whole class period reading so if I assign homework ` than students can come to class with the materials read.” Mrs. Donahue agreed, “The purpose of my assigned homework is to reinforce what was covered in class.”
Mr. Hilly said, “HW should be used to reinforce concepts. The idea in social studies is to read the text. We don’t always have time in 41 minutes to fill in every detail. The reading allows for students get the appropriate details and reinforce the lesson from earlier in the day.” I guess you can say teachers are only assigning us homework to try to help us understand more, but they still don’t get how much stress it puts on us students.
Students aren’t asking for no homework, but rather, a reasonable amount. Teachers should put themselves in their students’ shoes. If homework were assigned only when it was truly needed, students would be more inclined to do it. Students would come to class less frustrated, and the environment would be favorable to learning. Maybe if students were only assigned homework two times a week we would be less frustrated and learn to enjoy school a little bit more.
