HOMEWORK IS CRUCIAL PART OF STUDENT'S LIFE

Homework is described as a class task assigned to students to help them practice and prepare for their
future. It has been around for a very long time, and it is set as a tradition having teachers assigning work and students
working on it, but these days, there are disputes about whether homework should be banned. This controversy turns
into arguments and inconsistencies. Some individuals argue that it helps learners practice more with what they learn
at school; some claim that it puts too much stress on students. Homework is helping learners in their studies, therefore
it should not be banned.

Homework helps to reinforce learning and develop good study habits and life skills. Homework enables
students to acquire essential abilities they will use in their lives, such as responsibility, discipline, time management,
critical thinking, and autonomous problem-solving. According to the ProCon.org. (2018), a study of elementary school
students who were taught "strategies to organize and complete homework", such as prioritizing homework tasks,
gathering study materials, taking notes, and following instructions, showed enhanced grades and positive feedback
on report cards. Nowadays, students don’t have study habits, and they tend to play and use gadgets after school but
with the use of homework, they can develop good study habits. Homework is the responsibility of the student and
completing the homework on time helps the students learn accountability and time management.

Homework provides more time to complete the learning process. Learning anything takes time and
practicing a lesson is the best way to improve students’ abilities. Natalie Regoli (2019) mentioned that the time allotted
for each area of study in school, especially in K-12, is often limited to one hour or less per day and that is not enough
time for students to be able to understand the key ideas of that lesson. By creating homework which addresses these
deficiencies, it becomes possible to counter the effects of the time shortages. Students can have time to research
and review the lesson.

Homework allows parents to be involved with their child's learning. Homework allows parents to see
what’s going on at school and learn about their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses. Harris Cooper (2016)
noted that two parents once told him they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework
revealed it to them. With the used of homework, parents can have a clue into the existence of any learning disabilities
their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed. Moreover, it encourages
parents to communicate with their children more.

Homework is a crucial part of students’ life, thus it should not be banned. On the contrary, too much
homework can be harmful to students. So, instead of banning homework in schools, DepEd should review and modify
existing homework policies to ensure that they achieve productive goals. Homework should have clear academic
goals and it should not cause undue physical and mental burdens on students and families. Those standards can be
achieved without banning homework entirely, and still ensure that the youth are well prepared to take on the
challenges of a competitive world.
https://www.procon.org

Is Homework Beneficial? - Top 3 Pros and Cons by ProCon.org.

September 27, 2018

What are the pros and cons of homework? Is it beneficial? From dioramas to book reports, and algebraic word
problems to research projects, the type and amount of homework given to students has been debated for over a
century.

In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists decried homework's negative impact on children's physical and
mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15. Public opinion swayed in favor of homework
in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union's technological advances. Today, kindergarten
to fifth graders have an average of 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders have 3.2 hours per
teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders have 3.5 hours per teacher, meaning a high school student with five teachers
could have 17.5 hours of homework a week.

Is Homework Beneficial?

Pro 1 Homework improves student achievement.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the
likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between
31 and 90 minutes each day on homework "scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their
peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average."

Pro 2 Homework helps to reinforce learning and develop good study habits and life skills.

Everyone knows that practice makes perfect. Students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide
in class, and they need to apply that information in order to truly learn it. Homework helps students to develop key
skills that they’ll use throughout their lives, such as accountability, autonomy, discipline, time management, self-
direction, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. A study of students who engage in self-regulatory
processes while completing homework, such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, are
generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.

Pro 3 Homework allows parents to be involved with their child's learning.

Thanks to take-home assignments, parents can track what their children are learning at school as well as their
academic strengths and weaknesses. Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that
parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged
African American and Hispanic students.

Con 1 Too much homework can be harmful.

A poll of high school students in California found that 59% thought they had too much homework. 43% of respondents
said that homework was their greatest source of stress, and 82% agreed that they were "often or always stressed by
schoolwork." The American Educational Research Association says that "whenever homework crowds out social
experience, outdoor recreation, and creative activities, and whenever it usurps time that should be devoted to sleep,
it is not meeting the basic needs of children and adolescents." High-achieving high school students say the amount
of homework they have to complete leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as headaches,
exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems.

Con 2 Homework disadvantages low-income students.

41% of US kids live in low-income families, which are less likely to have access to the resources needed to complete
homework, such as pens and paper, a computer, internet access, a quiet work space, and a parent at home to help.
They are also more likely to have to work after school and on weekends, or look after younger siblings, leaving less
time for homework.

A study by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation found that 96.5% of students across the country said they needed to
use the internet for class assignments outside of school, and nearly half reported there had been times they were
unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, sometimes resulting in lower
grades.

Con 3 There is a lack of evidence that homework helps younger children.

An article published in the Review of Educational Research reported that "in elementary school, homework had no
association with achievement gains" when measured by standardized tests results or grades. Fourth grade students
who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math
exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night
actually did worse. Temple University professor Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, says that homework is not the most
effective tool for young learners to apply new information: "They're learning way more important skills when they're
not doing their homework."

https://ed100.org

Pros and Cons of Homework by Natalie Regoli

2019

Homework. It’s a word that sends a shudder down the spine of students and parents alike.

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.

List of the Pros of Homework

1. 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.

2. It teaches time management skills. Homework goes beyond completing a task. It forces children 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. It provides more time to complete the learning process. The time allotted for each area of study in school,
especially in K-12, 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.

List of the Cons of Homework

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. School is already a full-time job for kids. An elementary school day might start at 9:00am and end at 3:20pm.
That’s more than 6 hours of work that kids as young as 5 are putting into their education every day. 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.

4. It discourages creative endeavors. If a student is spending 1 hour each day on homework, that’s an hour they
are not spending pursuing something that is important to them. 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.
Although some homework can involve creative skills, that usually isn’t the case.

5. Homework is difficult to enforce. Some students just don’t care about homework. 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. Sometimes a child just doesn’t want to put in that effort.

6. 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. At the same time, the
amount of time children spent playing outdoors has decreased by 40% over the past 30 years. For high school
students, it is even worse at high performing schools in the US where 90% of graduates go onto college, the average
amount of homework assigned per night was 3 hours per student.

https://www.newsobserver.com

Yes, teachers should give homework – the benefits are many by Harris Cooper

September 02, 2016

A second-grade teacher in Texas recently rekindled the annual debate over whether kids spend too much time on
homework.

The teacher said she did not plan to assign homework this school year because it has not proven to correlate with
achievement and because no homework would allow families to eat together and read together, and children to play
outside and have an early bedtime. If only dropping homework could make these things happen! Research
overwhelmingly supports the notion that students who do homework do better in school than those who don’t. But
research also suggests the amount and type of homework must take into account the child’s developmental level.
Teachers refer to the “10-minute Rule” – homework time on any given school night should be equal to the child’s
grade level times 10. So a second-grader should have 20 minutes of homework. The National Education Association
and the National Parent Teacher Association agree with this philosophy.

My internet searches have never uncovered a school policy that differs greatly from the 10-minute rule. If a second-
grader brings home two hours of homework, that’s not good. If an 11th-grader does five hours, that’s too much. The
amount of homework kids bring home generally does not diverge from those school policies.

The perception that American kids do too much homework is also belied by a national survey that asked parents, “Do
you think your child’s teachers assign too much homework, too little homework or the right amount of homework?”
Sixty percent said just the right amount, 15 percent said too much and 25 percent said too little.

Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher at Godley Elementary School, tells parents there will be no regular homework.
Students should have dinner with their families, play outside and get to bed early. (Star-Telegram/Rodger Mallison)
BY MCCLATCHY
Beyond achievement, homework can also lead to the development of good study habits and a recognition that
learning can occur at home as well as at school.

Homework can also foster independent learning and responsible character traits – essential skills later in life when
students change jobs or learn new skills for advancement at work.

And homework can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and learn about their child’s academic
strengths and weaknesses. Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until
homework revealed it to them. Maybe that 20-minute assignment should involve parents and replace screen time,
not dinner or interactive play.

Opponents argue homework can lead to boredom with schoolwork because all activities remain interesting only for
so long. Homework can deny students access to leisure activities that also teach important life skills. And parents can
get too involved in homework – pressuring their children and confusing them by using instructional techniques
different from the teacher’s.

Regrettably, research on these effects of homework are rare. In the absence of data, common sense suggests that
any of these effects can occur depending, again, on the amount and type assigned.

In my experience, the complaints over too much homework come from a definable but relatively small segment of the
population – parents with conflicting desires to have their children excel in school and lead balanced lives that include
school, play, aesthetics, citizenship and spirituality. Homework is an easy target to express their anxiety.

Educators also find themselves caught between irreconcilable alternatives. To them, it is the same parents who rail
against homework who permit their children to load advanced placement classes into their academic schedules. More
homework comes with these classes.

Educators also question whether homework really takes five hours or whether that time includes hours clicking back
and forth between homework and texting, tweeting, Facebooking.

Time on homework reaches a point of diminishing returns; too little does no good, too much does more harm than
good. Teachers should base their practices on what sound evidence and experience suggest is optimal. If the amount
and quality are appropriate, parents won’t complain.

Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, is author of “The Battle Over
Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers and Parents.”