Is Homework Really Helpful?
Homework. Everybody has it. it’s just a fact of life for any middle school student. You go to school, and you work. You come home and you work some more. Work at home. Homework. it’s been given out and policed for so long that no one really questions it anymore. But now we are. Homework doesn’t help; it hurts. Middle schoolers in particular should not be assigned homework.
First of all, most teachers give out homework because they believe the practice will help kids understand and learn more easily, and it makes them better, smarter students. However, according to Connecticut Department of Education’s Manual on Policy Development, the few studies that have been done on the relationships between homework and student achievements have yielded varying, unhelpful results. Like Straight Talk About Schools Today says, school is like sports; “while players can go out and practice on their own hour after hour, the best learning occurs when the coach is right there, explaining and demonstrating new plays and skills and immediately correcting any flaws.” if there isn’t a teacher there, there is a good chance you are practicing wrong.
Another problem homework can cause is pressure. What parent doesn’t want to see their kid succeed? Yeah, getting into a good college is important, but pressure to perform well doesn’t solve anything. While this may not sound like a serious problem, it really is- there have been cases of suicide due to the pressure that homework brings. An article in the GuangDong News reported that a 10 year old from Foshan, China tried to poison himself. Luckily his parents found him in time and rushed him to a hospital. He said afterwards that the pressure of having to do so much homework everyday was just too unbearable. Although it’s not as drastic as death, another problem is that many pressured kids resort to cheating. People seem to forget that the purpose of homework is to learn, not just to get it done.
The third point we’d like to
First of all, most teachers give out homework because they believe the practice will help kids understand and learn more easily, and it makes them better, smarter students. However, according to Connecticut Department of Education’s Manual on Policy Development, the few studies that have been done on the relationships between homework and student achievements have yielded varying, unhelpful results. Like Straight Talk About Schools Today says, school is like sports; “while players can go out and practice on their own hour after hour, the best learning occurs when the coach is right there, explaining and demonstrating new plays and skills and immediately correcting any flaws.” if there isn’t a teacher there, there is a good chance you are practicing wrong.
Another problem homework can cause is pressure. What parent doesn’t want to see their kid succeed? Yeah, getting into a good college is important, but pressure to perform well doesn’t solve anything. While this may not sound like a serious problem, it really is- there have been cases of suicide due to the pressure that homework brings. An article in the GuangDong News reported that a 10 year old from Foshan, China tried to poison himself. Luckily his parents found him in time and rushed him to a hospital. He said afterwards that the pressure of having to do so much homework everyday was just too unbearable. Although it’s not as drastic as death, another problem is that many pressured kids resort to cheating. People seem to forget that the purpose of homework is to learn, not just to get it done.
The third point we’d like to
Bibliography: Bennett, Sara. "Homework does not = A 's." USA Today 3 July 2006: 08A. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. "Homework hysteria." Maclean 's 10 Dec. 2007: 2. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. http://ic.galegroup.com “Boy attempts suicide over homework.” Guangdong News. 18 Dec. 2006 http://www.newsgd.com Kralovec and Buell. The End of Homework. Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2000 Connecticut Department of Education. Manual on Policy Development. Feb. 2006 (revised April, 2009) Molland, Judy. Straight Talk About Schools Today. Free Spirit Publishing, 2007