For years there has been debate on whether school children should have homework or not. At lot of it depends on what grade the child is in, or the class they are taking. I always felt that homework should be the material that you didn’t have a chance to finish in class. Homework should not be material assigned at the very end of the class to do at home that evening.
I remember getting homework early in my grade school years, perhaps maybe as soon as first or second grade. It wasn’t much, but it was required that students spend some time in the evening going over materials that were taught at school earlier in the day.
I never minded homework, as long as the expectations of the time spent on the material was reasonable. An hour or two in the evening was fine. I do remember having a discussion with a math teacher once about getting too much home work. His answer to my concern was they he was only expecting an hour to an hour-and-a-half of time spent on HIS class every evening. Well, that’s all fine and good if HIS class were the only class I had. If you take that 60 to 90 minutes per class, and then multiply it by the 5 or 6 classes you had — that’s 5-8 hrs of additional school work every evening — on top of the time you already had spent in class.
As a high school student, I was taking some pretty involved classes — physics, chemistry, calculus, and trigonometry. I also tried to hold down a job and get in as many hours of working as I could. I knew if I wanted a car, or to go to college, or even have some spending money — those were my financial responsibilities. With 11 to 14 hours a day devoted school and homework, plus then trying to work 5 or 6 hours, didn’t leave much time for sleeping. I guess it was good training for me in my adult life…as I still only get about 5 hrs of sleep a night.
A teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, is getting some attention after she sent home a note with her second grade students stating:
“After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year.
Research had been unable to prove that homework improves student performance, Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eating dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.”
The teacher, named Brandi Young, has sparked much debate on “homework vs. no homework”. I do think that some homework teaches you responsibility and prepares you for college and beyond, however, I think some teachers really pile on more homework than is really necessary.
So, homework or no homework? What are your experiences as a student? As a parent how do you feel about your child bringing home work to do at home? Please submit your comments below.
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