Homework+Essay

Should There Be Homework It’s been a lifelong question on whether homework is actually helpful in doing well in school or just taking away from a child’s childhood. Whichever group of people you ask you’ll get a different answer, such as parents would say its fine; a student may have a much different opinion. Studies have shown that homework isn’t necessary to do well in school and I sort of agree with that, though there are some elements in homework that are helpful such as in math and biology. On the other hand there is some homework that can be considered just a pure waste of time.

Why is homework bad? Well one of the biggest reasons is that it can train kids to simply hate school; especially reading. When a kid is forced to read for homework it can turn into a chore and not just a fun thing to do. This solution to this is quite simple actually; let the kid read on his own. Though reading should not be so much of the responsibility of the teacher, but the parent, most kids should be reading with their parents nightly. By doing this the kid can learn the value of books before they discover computers and TV. Another thing homework can do make you hate school is taking away time from friends. Homework can be the thing to blame because no one would prefer homework over friends. Adults are ok with this because they remember having homework, the only difference is that now we have considerably more homework then they ever had. But as some adults say,”Part of growing up is having a lot of homework every day.”

Another problem that people have with homework is that there are times when the majority of it is purely busywork, useless crap that can do nothing for you. This homework can be described by students as “A stupid waste of my time.” Most teachers will assign busy work just to seem as though they teach the kids something valuable. The sad thing is that all it does is ruin childhoods. “Children need time to play, read, and imagine.” Or for most high school students just catch up on some sleep.

On the other side of the argument though homework can be considered to be a good thing in society, it can make us smarter and help you get into a decent university. By accepting that it is homework that makes us knowledgeable then I would say that it is completely needed. Nowadays it is difficult to get into college and a “B” average doesn’t get you anywhere, even a 3.5 GPA isn’t much better. With challenging rates for colleges now, great grades and class ranks are what counts. Without homework it is very possible to fall behind and not get into a college. As this one student says, “If I didn’t have homework, I don’t think that I would do very well.”

Another great reason to have homework is to connect the parent to the classroom. I feel this reason is important because when the parent can know what goes on in the class they can be better prepared to help if a kid starts to do bad in a class. Even principal Donna Taylor agrees and “views homework for children under eleven to primarily benefitting the parents.” Is this true? I believe yes it is. Throughout elementary school class consists of mainly reading, writing, and mathematics; of course there is a possible chance of history or science, but not usually. Reading only lasts them around a half hour; that leaves over an hour for math and writing per day; nearly twice as much as the average middle school student. What the children do at home is just practice to help the parents understand more of the subject. As studies have revealed, “there is little relationship between how much homework young kids do and how well they test.” With that what else could homework be used for.

One other reason that makes homework helpful is point value in class for your grade. This is helpful if you have done bad on tests that with homework the points in class can get so high it won’t matter if you lose a few. This can hinder you if you’re not the best at homework but do great on tests. With a system like this, if the class grade isn’t weighted, then you could get D’s on tests but A’s on homework and make it out of the class with a B. Sounds great doesn’t it, however it could work oppositely as well where you get D’s and F’s on homework, but A’s on tests you’d probably leave the class with a C. To conclude this factor of the problem homework can actually just benefit the dumb kids and hurt those who don’t feel the need to do the homework.

My opinion on why we should have homework in math is I actually feel that it is helpful, granted you’re on algebra or past it. There really is no reason to have homework in elementary and middle school mathematics because it’s generally the same thing: second grade its 2x2, fourth grade its 13x12, and seventh grade it’s just numbers like 112x143. In middle and elementary school math is just repeated so after third grade you have all the knowledge you need to start classes such as algebra. Because of this and having concepts just repeated homework can be useless because we all know what to do. There is a good reason to have homework in algebra and above though and that is because you haven’t learned these concepts, I’ve found homework to be helpful in reinforcing what you learned so you can be prepared to go into a test and do fine in it.

Though I have a different opinion on my biology class with my teacher Mrs. Anderson who assigns just about only coloring, I find it to be no help at all just coloring things such as DNA. The only homework I’ve found to be of any help in biology would be the study guides; they provide information to learn for the coming tests that you may have forgotten after those few weeks into a section. But personally I don’t find coloring to be of any help as it doesn’t teach you concepts or really anything at all since most people don’t want to take the time to look at what they’re coloring. Now I may be a bit more grateful for the coloring if the test was on coloring, but sadly it’s not, so too bad.

But enough about high school, let’s jump back to the good old days of kindergarten. From having a sister who was in kindergarten last year and volunteering in kindergarten class rooms for community service I’ve kind of got the just of it. The elementary school I volunteered at was called Will Rogers; personally homework seems to be taken just a bit too seriously there. In the class that I in there was daily homework to complete, if you didn’t complete it you would lose your recess, unfair for kindergarteners if you ask me. My younger sister, Tiffany, went to the same elementary school but was in a different class than I volunteered in, and she had tons of homework, so much that our mom had to pull out pages of it. Every Monday her teacher would give every kid in the class a packet of 30, if not more, pages of homework to do due by Friday. Most of this homework wouldn’t even be helpful to the child, just busywork like most teachers assign.

My overall thought on this matter is that we definitely need some homework, such as study guides, just to help us prepare for a test. However, busy work is a must not, as it serves no purpose there’s no need. Another thing is to just relax the overall amount for younger kids, how many times do you need to do the same math problems over and over again. It should be limited to around a half hour for elementary students a night.