3 reasons why we should have homework

It is also a question that has become divisive. Some people feel that homework is an effective way to reinforce the concepts that were learned at school. Others feel like the time that homework demands would be better spent with a meaningful activity that brings the family together. Is homework important? Is it necessary? Or is the added stress that homework places on students and parents doing more harm than good?

Why is Homework Important to Children, Parents, and School Teachers?

It is also a question that has become divisive. Some people feel that homework is an effective way to reinforce the concepts that were learned at school. Others feel like the time that homework demands would be better spent with a meaningful activity that brings the family together.

Is homework important? Is it necessary? Or is the added stress that homework places on students and parents doing more harm than good? Here are some of the key pros and cons to discuss. It encourages the discipline of practice. Repeating the same problems over and over can be boring and difficult, but it also reinforces the practice of discipline.

To get better at a skill, repetition is often necessary. You get better with each repetition. By having homework completed every night, especially with a difficult subject, the concepts become easier to understand. That gives the student an advantage later on in life when seeking a vocational career.

Looking at Common Core math can be somewhat bewildering to parents. By bringing homework to do, students can engage their learning process with their parents so everyone can be involved. Many parents actually want homework sent so they can see what their children are being taught in the classroom. It teaches time management skills. Homework goes beyond completing a task. It forces children and parents, to some extent to develop time management skills.

Schedules must be organized to ensure that all tasks can be completed during the day. This creates independent thinking and develops problem-solving skills. It encourages research skills. It also puts parents and children into a position where positive decision-making skills must be developed. Homework creates a communication network.

Teachers rarely see into the family lives of their students. Parents rarely see the classroom lives of their children. Homework is a bridge that opens lines of communication between the school, the teacher, and the parent. This allows everyone to get to know one another better.

It helps teachers understand the needs of their students better. Together, an educational plan can be developed that encourages the best possible learning environment. It allows for a comfortable place to study. Classrooms have evolved over the years to be a warmer and welcoming environment, but there is nothing like the comfort that is felt at home or in a safe space. By encouraging studies where a child feels the most comfortable, it is possible to retain additional information that may get lost within the standard classroom environment.

It provides more time to complete the learning process. The time allotted for each area of study in school, especially in K, is often limited to 1 hour or less per day.

That is not always enough time for students to be able to grasp core concepts of that material. By creating specific homework assignments which address these deficiencies, it becomes possible to counter the effects of the time shortages. That can benefit students greatly over time. It reduces screen time. On the average school night, a student in the US might get hours of screen time in per day. Homework might be unwanted and disliked, but it does encourage better study habits.

It discourages time being spent in front of the television or playing games on a mobile device. That, in turn, may discourage distracting habits from forming that can take away from the learning process in the future. It can be treated like any other extracurricular activity. Some families over-extend themselves on extracurricular activities.

Students can easily have more than 40 hours per week, from clubs to sports, that fall outside of regular school hours. Homework can be treated as one of these activities, fitting into the schedule where there is extra time. As an added benefit, some homework can even be completed on the way to or from some activities.

Children benefit from playing. Being in a classroom can be a good thing, but so can being on a playground. Low levels of play are associated with lower academic achievement levels, lower safety awareness, less character development, and lower overall health.

It encourages a sedentary lifestyle. Long homework assignments require long periods of sitting. A sedentary lifestyle has numerous direct associations with premature death as children age into adults.

Obesity levels are already at or near record highs in many communities. Homework may reinforce certain skills and encourage knowledge retention, but it may come at a high price. Not every home is a beneficial environment. There are some homes that are highly invested into their children. Parents may be involved in every stage of homework or there may be access to tutors that can explain difficult concepts.

In other homes, there may be little or no education investment into the child. Some parents push the responsibility of teaching off on the teacher and provide no homework support at all.

Sometimes parents may wish to be involved and support their child, but there are barriers in place that prevent this from happening. The bottom line is this: no every home life is equal. School is already a full-time job for kids. An elementary school day might start at am and end at pm. Add in the extra-curricular activities that schools encourage, such as sports, musicals, and after-school programming and a student can easily reach 8 hours of education in the average day.

Then add homework on top of that? It is asking a lot for any child, but especially young children, to complete extra homework. There is no evidence that homework creates improvements. Survey after survey has found that the only thing that homework does is create a negative attitude toward schooling and education in general. Homework is not associated with a higher level of academic achievement on a national scale. It may help some students who struggle with certain subjects, if they have access to a knowledgeable tutor or parent, but on a community level, there is no evidence that shows improvements are gained.

It discourages creative endeavors. Students might like to play video games or watch TV, but homework takes time away from learning an instrument, painting, or developing photography skills as well. Homework is difficult to enforce. They can achieve adequate grades without doing it, so they choose not to do it. There is no level of motivation that a parent or teacher can create that inspires some students to get involved with homework.

There is no denying the fact that homework requires a certain amount of effort. Extra time in school does not equate to better grades. Students in the US spend more than hours of extra time in school already compared to high-performing countries around the world, but that has not closed the educational gap between those countries and the United States.

In some educational areas, the US is even falling in global rankings despite the extra time that students are spending in school. When it comes to homework or any other form of learning, quality is much more important than quantity. Accurate practice may not be possible. If homework is assigned, there is a reliance on the student, their parents, or their guardians to locate resources that can help them understand the content.

Homework is often about practice, but if the core concepts of that information are not understood or inaccurately understood, then the results are the opposite of what is intended.

If inaccurate practice is performed, it becomes necessary for the teacher to first correct the issue and then reteach it, which prolongs the learning process. It may encourage cheating on multiple levels. For families with multiple children, they may decide to copy off one another to minimize the time investment. Too much homework is often assigned to students. There is a general agreement that students should be assigned no more than 10 minutes of homework per day, per grade level.

That means a first grader should not be assigned more than 10 minutes of homework per night. Yet for the average first grader in US public schools, they come home with 20 minutes of homework and then are asked to complete 20 minutes of reading on top of that.

That means some students are completing 4x more homework than recommended every night. Homework is often geared toward benchmarks. Homework is often assigned to improve test scores. Although this can provide positive outcomes, including better study skills or habits, the fact is that when children are tired, they do not absorb much information.

When children have more homework than recommended, test scores actually go down. Stress levels go up. Burnout on the curriculum occurs.

helps your child develop positive study skills and habits that will serve him or her well throughout life. encourages your child to use time wisely.

Homework isn't fun for students to do or for teachers to grade, so why do it? Here are some reasons why homework is good and why it's bad. So, homework is good because it can boost your grades , help you learn the material, and prepare you for tests.

It used to be that students were the only ones complaining about the practice of assigning homework.

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested.

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Homework should be a positive experience that helps and encourages all children to learn well and improve their final grade. Why is homework important? Every teacher assigns it to help a student apply, review, and integrate everything that children usually study in the class. If you complete assignments regularly, you achieve the following educational goals:. It has different facts and requires many learned skills.

Why is Homework Important — Importance of Homework in Learning Process to Student Success

Annoying, yes. Boring, usually. Important for your academic success? Very much so. See below for some important reasons why you probably should be doing your homework. Doing homework leads to more overall learning Read more Homework is practice. Doing homework on time leads to more learning which leads to better grades. In general, learning is probably one of the least impactful pieces of the high school experience on your life.

If they are unable to go school each day to acquire the skills they require to be successful in life, then they will be at a disadvantage for their entire lives.

Many educators have long criticized homework as a cruel and unusual punishment for kids. There are many amazing books to read on holidays.

Top 14 Reason Why Homework is Important

The benefits of homework has been debated by teachers and parents for years as the very word evokes very negative connotations to every involved, students, parents and teachers. Although many people think of homework as doing more harm than good by causing copious amounts of unnecessary stress to everyone, others believe that it has great advantages for children by encouraging them to think more independently outside the classroom. The first benefit of homework is that it allows students and teachers to work more closely together. They can discuss their assignments or any problems that they are having with parts of their textbooks, before or after classes. The second benefit is that it can bring families closer together as students may ask their parents or siblings for help on their homework. Not only will this help the students get a better understanding of their work with any parts they are stuck on, it will also allow parents to get more involved in their child's educational life. Thirdly, doing homework will prepare students for the big end tests. If a child does poorly on an assignment then they will learn what is necessary to do well on the next test without being punished. It also provides students with the opportunity to practice at what it takes to be successful in school. Like they say, practice makes perfect. Doing homework is also a great way to develop responsibilities. By being assigned work one day and knowing that it has to be done by the next day, they will develop a sense of punctuality by turning their work in on time.

20 Pros and Cons of Homework

When the novelty of school wears off after kindergarten, many children become disenchanted with this time-honored, but sometimes annoying mainstay of education. You might be surprised to find out that the answer is somewhat complicated. In recent years, the educational world has been rocked by school districts, parents, teachers, and educational researchers who have been voicing their concerns over the effectiveness of homework. On one hand, many districts around the country have been moving towards eliminating it altogether at the elementary level. On the other, researchers have shown that the right type of assignment can help students succeed academically and on standardized tests.