Less Homework, More Family Time

Persuasive Essay
Less Homework, More Family Time
How much homework is too much? How much homework is ok? Nothing? One hour per day? Two hours? Everyday students stay up very late to finishing their homework. After a stressful day in school, after hard practice for school or another sports team and maybe some hours of work, they come home and the only thing they want to do is going to bed. But they can't because they have to do a bunch of homework. The homework given in schools is too much. The homework assigned shouldn’t be an indicator for the academic performance of a student. Sure it is important like many people say, to review things you learned in school at home, but this can’t be forced by bigger amounts of homework, especially if students can’t process the information right away. “Homework that cannot be done without help is not good homework! Parents should be less involved in the actual homework task and more involved in communicating to the teacher when their child is unable to complete homework” (Vatterott). “More parents are fighting back against the homework status quo in an attempt to reclaim family time” (Kalish). With the excessive amount of homework given throughout all high school grades, (9-12) most students aged from 13-18 would agree that homework has increased more than the average they have ever had their past years. Even I would agree so. “Too much homework is actually sapping our children's strength, natural curiosity, and love of learning” (Kalish). The longer the hours are spent on homework, the less time children’s and teens get to spend with their parents and the rest of their families. The less time spent with families means that bonds begin to fall apart. “Practicing dozens of homework problems incorrectly cements the wrong method into his brain” (Kalish). Teachers give out so many lessons in class; sometimes students can’t process all the information at once. If teachers slowed down the pace of their lessons, explained in depth and not have students write notes the whole hour, maybe homework problems would be more understandable. Students enter class, write all hour and leave barely processing the majority of the lessons taught by the teacher makes homework more difficult than ever. “We know that students differ in their "working speed", yet many teachers assign the same amount of work to all students, expecting slower students to simply take the extra time to finish the task” (Vatterott). Responsibilities fall on the student themselves; teachers would only expect you to walk in their doors if you don’t understand their concepts. If teachers expect this of students, then students expect teachers to slow down. When homework is optional, most of the time students wouldn’t even bare to take a look at what the assignment is about or even try to attempt the assignment. “Teachers also must allow students who fail an exam to retest and give other students the option to do so if they want to improve their grade, even if they were caught cheating” (Graham). Options are just options. Homework is a matter of understanding, and if students don’t understand they would either skip or go on to the next question, or give up. Homework is like a test-prep on your own before the big exam. If you fail your exam, students have the options of retaking it, and then again students would always deny the options given to them because you’re spending more of your own time outside of class to prepare for a retake. “The district initially stopped counting homework because administrators felt it didn't measure students' actual learning as much as other assessments” (Graham). Counting homework towards your grade is usually 5-15% of your overall grade. It may impact your grade of not even at all boost up your grade. Homework does test your knowledge a bit without the help of a teacher, but if the assessments are nowhere near to the student’s homework, then homework should definitely not be counted whatsoever. We all can agree that we try our best in doing our homework efficiently, but if we try so hard and don’t get a single thing, all we do is over think, taking the time we could be able to spend with our families. So now, is homework really all that useful? “The longer the duration of the study, the less impact that homework had” (Kohn). Studying for hours may result in nothing impactful in a student’s brain. It’s all in the matters of understanding the lessons of the teachers and the understandings of the homework. Studying also interferes with family time, teachers should allow a whole class period either reviewing rather than having students ask questions on what they don’t get. Yes, you can blame that it’s the student’s fault because they had their chance to ask, but not all students have the courage to speak out. Reviewing everything all together helps benefits students test scores. “There's reason to doubt that requiring children to do homework has any meaningful academic benefit” (Kohn). What are the benefits from doing homework all day long? You either understand or you either don’t. With all the homework given out daily to students in this current year, we can conclude that most students understand up to half of the lessons or either close to everything. Homework has no meaning to the academic benefit, it only shows the teachers if you’re understanding it or not. And if you do, new lessons are made. What is the point of last night’s homework? Teachers need to spend two or more days on the lessons rather than preparing the next to making homework a beneficial meaning. Homework has historically been given to students to reinforce what they learn at school, and ultimately to help them learn the material better. However, too much homework is not helpful, and can be counterproductive. Excessive amounts of time spent on completing homework can take away from a student’s social life, family time, and limits participation in sports or other activities. The amount of homework a teacher can give to a student should be restricted, and only assigned due to necessity. Homework takes away from the small amount of time kids get to spend with their parents and siblings. If homework is limited in U.S., public high schools, this will allow more family time.