(Barkley, 2008)
(Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006)
(Olympia & Andrews,1994)
1
10 Minutes
--
10-45 Minutes
2
20 Minutes
--
10-45 Minutes
Despite the differences in the recommendations from these sources, the table shows broad agreement about how much homework to assign at each grade. At grades 1-3, homework should be limited to an hour or less per day, while in grades 4-6, homework should not exceed 90 minutes. The upper limit in grades 7-8 is 2 hours and the limit in high school should be 2.5 hours.
Teachers can use the homework time recommendations included here as a point of comparison: in particular, schools should note that assigning homework that exceeds the upper limit of these time estimates is not likely to result in additional learning gains--and may even be counter-productive (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006).
It should also be remembered that the amount of homework assigned each day is not in itself a sign of high academic standards. Homework becomes a powerful tool to promote learning only when students grasp the purpose of each homework assignment, clearly understand homework directions, perceive that homework tasks are instructionally relevant, and receive timely performance feedback (e.g., teacher comments; grades) on submitted homework (Jenson, Sheridan, Olympia, & Andrews, 1994).
You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.
Credit: August de Richelieu
Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.
By Vicky Hallett
The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.
But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.
"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:
Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.
If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.
At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.
There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.
Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."
Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.
Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.
We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.
Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.
Posted in Voices+Opinion
News network.
Sonya Kulkarni and Pallavi Gorantla | Jan 9, 2022
Graphic by Sonya Kulkarni
The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association have suggested that a healthy number of hours that students should be spending can be determined by the “10-minute rule.” This means that each grade level should have a maximum homework time incrementing by 10 minutes depending on their grade level (for instance, ninth-graders would have 90 minutes of homework, 10th-graders should have 100 minutes, and so on).
As ‘finals week’ rapidly approaches, students not only devote effort to attaining their desired exam scores but make a last attempt to keep or change the grade they have for semester one by making up homework assignments.
High schoolers reported doing an average of 2.7 hours of homework per weeknight, according to a study by the Washington Post from 2018 to 2020 of over 50,000 individuals. A survey of approximately 200 Bellaire High School students revealed that some students spend over three times this number.
The demographics of this survey included 34 freshmen, 43 sophomores, 54 juniors and 54 seniors on average.
When asked how many hours students spent on homework in a day on average, answers ranged from zero to more than nine with an average of about four hours. In contrast, polled students said that about one hour of homework would constitute a healthy number of hours.
Junior Claire Zhang said she feels academically pressured in her AP schedule, but not necessarily by the classes.
“The class environment in AP classes can feel pressuring because everyone is always working hard and it makes it difficult to keep up sometimes.” Zhang said.
A total of 93 students reported that the minimum grade they would be satisfied with receiving in a class would be an A. This was followed by 81 students, who responded that a B would be the minimum acceptable grade. 19 students responded with a C and four responded with a D.
“I am happy with the classes I take, but sometimes it can be very stressful to try to keep up,” freshman Allyson Nguyen said. “I feel academically pressured to keep an A in my classes.”
Up to 152 students said that grades are extremely important to them, while 32 said they generally are more apathetic about their academic performance.
Last year, nine valedictorians graduated from Bellaire. They each achieved a grade point average of 5.0. HISD has never seen this amount of valedictorians in one school, and as of now there are 14 valedictorians.
“I feel that it does degrade the title of valedictorian because as long as a student knows how to plan their schedule accordingly and make good grades in the classes, then anyone can be valedictorian,” Zhang said.
Bellaire offers classes like physical education and health in the summer. These summer classes allow students to skip the 4.0 class and not put it on their transcript. Some electives also have a 5.0 grade point average like debate.
Close to 200 students were polled about Bellaire having multiple valedictorians. They primarily answered that they were in favor of Bellaire having multiple valedictorians, which has recently attracted significant acclaim .
Senior Katherine Chen is one of the 14 valedictorians graduating this year and said that she views the class of 2022 as having an extraordinary amount of extremely hardworking individuals.
“I think it was expected since freshman year since most of us knew about the others and were just focused on doing our personal best,” Chen said.
Chen said that each valedictorian achieved the honor on their own and deserves it.
“I’m honestly very happy for the other valedictorians and happy that Bellaire is such a good school,” Chen said. “I don’t feel any less special with 13 other valedictorians.”
Nguyen said that having multiple valedictorians shows just how competitive the school is.
“It’s impressive, yet scary to think about competing against my classmates,” Nguyen said.
Offering 30 AP classes and boasting a significant number of merit-based scholars Bellaire can be considered a competitive school.
“I feel academically challenged but not pressured,” Chen said. “Every class I take helps push me beyond my comfort zone but is not too much to handle.”
Students have the opportunity to have off-periods if they’ve met all their credits and are able to maintain a high level of academic performance. But for freshmen like Nguyen, off periods are considered a privilege. Nguyen said she usually has an hour to five hours worth of work everyday.
“Depending on the day, there can be a lot of work, especially with extra curriculars,” Nguyen said. “Although, I am a freshman, so I feel like it’s not as bad in comparison to higher grades.”
According to the survey of Bellaire students, when asked to evaluate their agreement with the statement “students who get better grades tend to be smarter overall than students who get worse grades,” responders largely disagreed.
Zhang said that for students on the cusp of applying to college, it can sometimes be hard to ignore the mental pressure to attain good grades.
“As a junior, it’s really easy to get extremely anxious about your GPA,” Zhang said. “It’s also a very common but toxic practice to determine your self-worth through your grades but I think that we just need to remember that our mental health should also come first. Sometimes, it’s just not the right day for everyone and one test doesn’t determine our smartness.”
Lifelong friends
Future Problem Solvers place second in Texas with community project
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Raymond Han
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Mia Lopez
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Cordavian Adams
Humans of Bellaire
Senior strategies
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Sara Shen
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Shaun Israni
HUMANS OF BELLAIRE – Sean Olivar
‘Nerds playing air guitar’
The student news site of Bellaire High School
Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Anonymous • Nov 21, 2023 at 10:32 am
It’s not really helping me understand how much.
josh • May 9, 2023 at 9:58 am
Kassie • May 6, 2022 at 12:29 pm
Im using this for an English report. This is great because on of my sources needed to be from another student. Homework drives me insane. Im glad this is very updated too!!
Kaylee Swaim • Jan 25, 2023 at 9:21 pm
I am also using this for an English report. I have to do an argumentative essay about banning homework in schools and this helps sooo much!
Izzy McAvaney • Mar 15, 2023 at 6:43 pm
I am ALSO using this for an English report on cutting down school days, homework drives me insane!!
E. Elliott • Apr 25, 2022 at 6:42 pm
I’m from Louisiana and am actually using this for an English Essay thanks for the information it was very informative.
Nabila Wilson • Jan 10, 2022 at 6:56 pm
Interesting with the polls! I didn’t realize about 14 valedictorians, that’s crazy.
School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students
Updated: June 19, 2024
Published: January 23, 2020
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. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.
Why should students have homework.
Homework has been a long-standing part of the education system. It helps reinforce what students learn in the classroom, encourages good study habits, and promotes a deeper understanding of subjects. Studies have shown that homework can improve students’ grades and skills. Here are some reasons why homework is important:
Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .
Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.
Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.
Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.
Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.
Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.
While homework has its benefits, there are also many arguments against it. Some believe that homework can cause increased stress, limit time for extracurricular activities, and reduce family time. Studies and expert opinions highlight the drawbacks of too much homework, showing how it can negatively affect students’ well-being and academic experience. Here are some reasons why homework might be bad:
Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.
While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.
Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.
While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad.
School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.
Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.
The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.
It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.
Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.
The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.
On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.
The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.
It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.
What are the benefits of assigning homework to students.
Homework reinforces what students learn in the classroom, helps develop good study habits, and promotes a deeper understanding of subjects. It also encourages practice, improves time management skills, and encourages parents to participate in their children’s education.
Generally, it is recommended that students receive no more than 10 minutes of homework per grade level per day. For example, a first grader should have no more than 10 minutes of homework, while a fifth grader should have no more than 50 minutes.
Excessive homework can lead to increased stress, a sedentary lifestyle, lack of free time for extracurricular activities, and diminished family time. It can also create a negative attitude towards school and learning.
Too much homework can significantly increase stress levels and negatively affect students’ well-being. It can lead to anxiety, burnout, and reduced time for physical activity and relaxation.
Yes, homework can promote independent thinking and problem-solving skills by encouraging students to tackle assignments on their own, manage their time effectively, and find solutions to problems without immediate assistance from teachers.
Excessive homework over long periods can lead to chronic stress, burnout, and a negative attitude towards education. It can also hinder the development of social skills and reduce opportunities for self-discovery and creative pursuits.
Technology can provide interactive and engaging ways to complete homework, such as educational apps, online resources, and virtual collaboration tools. It can also offer personalized learning experiences and immediate feedback.
Some schools are adopting innovative approaches like flipped classrooms, where students watch lectures at home and do hands-on classroom activities. Project-based learning and personalized assignments tailored to individual student needs are also becoming more popular.
Educators can balance the workload by differentiating assignments, considering the individual needs and abilities of students, and providing flexible deadlines. Communication with students and parents helps to ensure that homework is manageable and effective for everyone.
In this article
At UoPeople, our blog writers are thinkers, researchers, and experts dedicated to curating articles relevant to our mission: making higher education accessible to everyone.
Two new reports debunk the notion that U.S. schoolchildren suffer from a growing homework load, with little time to play and just be kids.
The great majority of students at all grade levels now spend less than one hour studying on a typical day—an amount that has not changed substantially in at least twenty years, according to data analyzed by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation.
The research contradicts dramatic anecdotes of children overwhelmed with homework. The Brookings and RAND researchers collected and reviewed the best social science available on children’s homework, including data from surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, and the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.
Even at the high school level, where more homework might be expected to prepare students for the demands of college or the workplace, only about a third of seventeen-year-olds spend an hour or more a day on homework.
The Brown Center on Education Policy conducted the study after a wave of dramatic news stories over the past few years described a backlash against homework. Since 2001, feature stories about onerous homework loads and parents fighting back have appeared in Time , Newsweek , and People magazines; the New York Times , Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , Raleigh News and Observer , and the Tampa Tribune ; and the CBS Evening News and other media outlets.
“The stories are misleading,” writes author Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center. “They do not reflect the experiences of a majority—or even a significant minority—of American schoolchildren.”
“Excessive homework is not a common problem,” writes Loveless in the report. “The critics of homework need to produce some very powerful evidence before policymakers start mandating reductions in homework or even banning it altogether. To date, the evidence put forth by homework critics has been weak.”
Across three different age groups, the percentage of students with less than an hour of daily homework has actually risen since 1984, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which for two decades has been asking a nationally representative sample of students questions about homework.
In 1999, 83 percent of nine-year-olds, 66 percent of thirteen-year-olds, and 65 percent of seventeen-year-olds reported having less than an hour of homework per night (see figure 1). In 1984, 81 percent of nine-year-olds, 63 percent of thirteen-year-olds, and 59 percent of seventeen-year-olds had reported spending that amount of time studying.
Another survey, the Third International Math and Science Study, finds that American high school students have one of the lightest homework loads in the world. Of twenty countries, the United States ranked near the bottom, tied for the next-to-last position. Students in France, Italy, Russia, and South Africa reported spending at least twice as much time on homework as American students.
The University of Michigan research does show an increase in the amount of homework given to children ages six to eight. But the increase of ten to eleven minutes a day is largely due to the fact that the baseline was low to begin with—only a third of children ages six to eight spent any time at all on studying in 1981.
“Why is it important to get the homework study right?” asks Loveless. “Mainly because it is positively associated with student learning.” Research shows that the relationship of homework with student achievement is positive for both middle and high school students and neutral for elementary school students.
Moreover, homework is a “barometer of the success—or the limits—of movements to raise academic standards,” write Brian Gill of RAND and Steven Schlossman of Carnegie Mellon University in the fall 2003 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
“To succeed, academic excellence movements ultimately require students to invest effort in their studies; time spent on homework is a ground-level indicator of this effort,” say Gill and Schlossman.
Gill and Schlossman trace homework time trends of the past fifty years, finding that the only substantial increases in homework for high-school students occurred in the decade after Sputnik, when the nation launched an academic excellence movement motivated by competition with the Soviet Union. Homework time subsequently declined to pre-Sputnik levels, and the excellence movement of the 1980s and 1990s that followed the publication of “A Nation at Risk” caused surprisingly small increases in homework (see figure 8).
Ironically, the only increase in homework in the last two decades has happened precisely in the lower grade levels, where researchers believe it matters least for academic achievement, according to Gill and Schlossman.
Most parents feel the homework load is about right, and, of those who would like to change it, more parents would rather see more homework than less, according to a 2000 poll conducted by the Public Agenda Foundation. Only one out of ten parents believes there is too much homework.
When a homework problem exists, which can happen because children vary in their study habits, solutions should come from parents and teachers, not policymakers, Loveless says.
About the Brown Center on Education Policy and the Brookings Institution
Established in 1992, the Brown Center on Education Policy conducts research on topics in American education, with a special focus on efforts to improve academic achievement in elementary and secondary schools. The Brown Center is part of the Brookings Institution, a private, nonprofit organization devoted to research, education, and publication on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. The Institution maintains a position of neutrality on issues of public policy. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
For a full copy of the report as well as information about other Brown Center events and publications, please visit the Brown Center’s website , or call Tucker Warren at 202/457-8100.
About RAND Education
RAND Education conducts independent research and analysis on education policy, including school reform and educational assessment and accountability. RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.
Governance Studies
Brown Center on Education Policy
Sofoklis Goulas
June 27, 2024
June 20, 2024
Modupe (Mo) Olateju, Grace Cannon, Kelsey Rappe
June 14, 2024
Where endless possibilities for growth, fun, and lifelong memories await. Sat, Feb 10, 2024: Meet top camps & kids programs. One afternoon. RSVP for free tickets .
Evaluating the homework policies of schools.
In choosing a school for your child, you’ll want to look at its homework policies. You might be surprised by how much these vary between schools.
Figure 1: The distribution for the amount of homework assigned in Grade 6 among schools featured on OurKids.net.
There’s a long-standing and contentious debate over homework . Should homework be assigned to school-age children? If so, in what grades? And how much homework should be assigned? There’s no shortage of disagreement about these questions.
On the one hand, traditionalists are pro-homework. They claim that homework helps students learn. They also claim schools should start assigning it in Grade 1, and increase the amount in each grade.
Progressives , on the other hand, are anti-homework. They claim that homework is mostly ineffective, and that schools should assign little, if any, homework—especially in the earlier grades.
Understanding this debate can help you evaluate the homework policy of any prospective school. And this can help you decide if a school’s a good fit for your family.
Figure 2: The average amount of homework assigned by grade for schools featured on OurKids.net.
(2) the case against homework, (3) recent research on homework, (4) homework in public schools, (5) homework in canadian private schools, (6) guidelines for evaluating homework policies.
It has long been held that homework—assuming it’s well-designed—is crucial to learning and development.
In Cultural Literacy (1987), the traditionalist Hirsch argues for the value of homework. Homework, he urges, gives students more time to reinforce knowledge they’ve learned in the classroom. And this gives them a stronger basis for future learning.
For example, by memorizing the multiplication tables or the location of every country in Europe, students can learn important concepts and expand their body of knowledge. Coming back to material after a period away from it is a time-tested strategy for retaining information. Homework provides exactly that, supporters argue. And this enables students to move on to new material during class.
In addition, it’s argued, regular homework also helps students practice skills. Many skills require lots of practice to become ingrained habits, says Michael Zwaagstra, a well-known homework advocate. Why, he asks (in What’s Wrong with our Schools? (2009)), would academic skills be any different?
A pianist can improve by practicing scales and a basketball player can improve by spending hours in the gym. In the same way, students can improve skills learned in school through practice.
Basic skills like grammar, spelling, and multiplication tables require drill, says Barr (2007). Learning how to begin projects, searching for answers, and problem-solving are skills that adults use daily, and must be learned early through homework.
Homework not only helps with academics, but it also builds study skills and character.
This view aligns with the frequently discussed “practice principle.” According to Malcolm Gladwell, among others, one needs at least 10,000 hours of practice to master challenging skills, such as playing the guitar, writing a short story, or serving a tennis ball.
Sometimes homework can be frustrating for students and parents. Often, though, these problems stem from homework being poorly designed, it’s argued. In other words, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater:
The best way to address the homework issue is for teachers to ensure they have a good reason for assigning the homework. Homework should be meaningful and provide students with the opportunity to practice skills and concepts they have recently learned in school. Ensuring that homework is properly designed and relevant to what students are learning is the best way to alleviate concerns about its effectiveness. (Zwaagstra, 2009)
Figure 3: The average amount of homework assigned by grade for traditional schools featured on OurKids.net.
The case for homework seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not according to homework’s critics. In the last 40 years or so, homework has been criticized by many.
Critics claim homework can interfere with student motivation and family life. Alfie Kohn (in “ The Homework Myth ”), a well-known progressivist and homework opponent, sums up this line of thinking:
"The negative effects of homework are well known. They include children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities, and possible loss of interest in learning. Many parents lament the impact of homework on their relationships with their children; t hey may also resent having to play the role of enforcer and worry that they will be criticized either for not being involved enough with the homework or for becoming too involved."
Kralovec and Buell (in “ End Homework Now ”, 2001), two other homework opponents, describe how homework can be a major source of stress for families:
Homework squeezes family life. All parents have educational agendas for their children. They want to pass on their cultural heritage, religious beliefs , and important life skills. They want to teach their children how to be good citizens and how to share in the responsibilities of running a home. More homework makes parents put their own agendas on hold even as they often struggle to help their children cope with homework assignments. Additionally, families need time to constitute themselves as families. According to a 1998 survey by Public Agenda, nearly 50 percent of parents reported having a serious argument with their children over homework, and 34 percent reported homework as a source of stress and struggle. Parents often have conflicting feelings about homework, viewing it as a way for their children to succeed but also as imposing serious limits on family time.
Zwaagstra (2009), meanwhile, tries to address this kind of claim:
Perhaps the most specious and troublesome claim is that homework takes away time for more valuable activities for students, such as exercising or talking to parents. Using the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research data—often quoted by homework opponents—one quickly finds that the average television viewing for school-aged children is more than two hours a day. If there is anything that takes time away from constructive childhood activities, it is watching mindless television programs. (One wonders whether homework opponents plan to encourage governments to pass laws that restrict the number of hours that children are permitted to watch television during weeknights.)
But parent concerns over homework are real. In Canada, a 2007 study from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) showed that—at least in Ontario —many parents question both the amount of homework and the nature of homework.
The study revealed that much assigned homework seems unnecessary to parents, isn’t taken up in class, shared or evaluated, and when it is, it’s often not quick enough. It also revealed that many parents are concerned about the affect homework has on their family life.
“ I feel that my child is being asked to complete homework that is too difficult for her to do on her own. She needs the help of one or both parents. This seems to me to be inappropriate. I do not mind helping my child with homework, but it seems that at least she should be given at least some homework that she can complete on her own. ”
It would seem that the teachers are either too rushed or can't be bothered to communicate well what is expected from the homework assignments.
That there is so much quantity, I wonder if the benefits of learning from the work is being outweighed by the negative effects such as less ‘down’ time, less family time, stress of completing assignments, emphasis on completing work instead of learning something.
I think most of the assigned homework thus far has been either busy work and a complete waste of time, or it is part of the curriculum that the teacher has not had time to cover and is sending it home to extend the school day.
Homework starts too young. Children are in structured activities all day between school and daycare . For working parents —as soon as you get home you have to start in on all of the assigned homework. This is impacting the quality time you are able to spend as a family unit. Under the age of 10 I highly question how homework actually contributes to learning outcomes. I believe that if kids had time for free play, family time, and outdoor activity —academic results would actually be higher in the end.
Indeed, the argument against homework goes beyond the question of infringing on family time and being annoying. Homework’s critics also question how effective it is at improving grades—especially in the early school years (such as preschool and elementary school).
In fact, Kohn, one of homework’s harshest critics, has argued homework has no positive effects. This is a common view in the anti-homework camp.
Numerous studies conducted since the 1980s have looked at the benefits of homework, and according to Kohn (not to mention Kralovec, Buell and others), none have proven its value. In particular, they show no positive correlation between homework and high grades.
Assigning homework often turns into a way for teachers to offload the job of teaching students in class, critics argue. Students should be able to learn the required material and skills within class—even if that means finding more class time for practice and review.
Figure 4: The average amount of homework assigned by grade for progressive schools featured on OurKids.net.
So, who’s right? Is homework a good thing or not? And in terms of what academic outcomes? And, what does research say about the effectiveness of homework?
Well, there have been several studies on homework. One of the biggest was the Duke study , led by Harrison Cooper. In this study, Duke University researchers reviewed more than sixty research studies on the effectiveness of homework between 1987 and 2003. It concluded that homework does have a positive effect on student achievement, such as grades.
According to Cooper, the study shows the right amount of homework depends on the grade level. For elementary school students, no amount of homework—large or small—affects academic achievement.
For middle school students, academic achievement continues to improve with more homework, until assignments last between one and two hours a night. For high school students, the more homework, the higher the achievement, up to a limit of about two to three hours a night.
While the study seemed to show that homework’s a critical part of the learning process, Cooper noted it also showed that too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels.
The research appeared to be consistent with the “10-minute” rule, now quite commonly accepted, at least in traditional , academically-oriented schools. According to the 10-minute rule, teachers should add 10 minutes of homework for each grade a student completes, starting with the first grade. In other words, a first-grader would be assigned 10 minutes of homework, a second-grader 20 minutes, a third-grader 30 minutes, and so on.
Yet many have disputed these results. Kohn, for example, has argued that the results, taken as a whole, are inconclusive. At best, the research shows that homework can have minor benefits on the achievement levels of high school students:
There is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school. For younger students, in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement. At the high school level , the correlation is weak and tends to disappear when more sophisticated statistical measures are applied. Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.
The results of the Duke study have also been disputed for other reasons. First, many of the research studies were poorly designed. Second, the research focused mostly on academic achievement as the desirable outcome. Only a few studies looked at homework’s affect on attitudes toward school and subject matter. And no studies looked at other outcomes such as study habits, cheating, or participation in community activities.
Overall, research on the effectiveness of homework is less than conclusive. Some studies have led to different, and in some cases, conflicting interpretations of the data. Yet we can draw some tentative conclusions from the research. These conclusions include the following:
As a parent, it’s important to select a school that’s the right fit for your child. Part of this decision will involve looking at a school’s homework policy.
In both the public and private school system , homework policies vary widely. Different schools have different homework policies, and these policies can vary among classes and teachers within the same school.
Yet in public schools , unlike private schools, homework policies can be regulated by the government. If your child is in a public school, it’s important to know whether the government regulates homework policies in your school district, and if so, how.
Consider the following example:
One homework policy was recently enacted by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) , in April of 2008. This policy emerged in response to complaints from parents and students about the amount of homework assigned.
The new policy allowed teachers in Toronto to assign only a minimal amount of homework to elementary students: no more than one hour per evening to Grade 7 and 8 students (in total), and no more than two hours per evening to high school students (in total). In addition, the policy forbid teachers from assigning homework over holidays and from disciplining students who fail to complete their homework on time.
This policy has received mixed reviews, and it’s unclear whether it’s achieved its objectives. Some teachers claim that the restrictions on homework significantly slow down the pace of class. This results in more advanced students sometimes feeling unchallenged and unstimulated in class. This is because much in-class time is spent covering material that could be completed as homework.
On the other hand, some have defended these kinds of policies. They’ve claimed they tend to free up extra time. Children can spend more time with their families, participate in extracurricular activities, socialize with friends, and pursue other interests and hobbies.
In private schools, like public schools, there’s a wide range of homework policies. Unlike in public schools, though, private school policies aren’t regulated by the government. Private schools are normally free to come up with their own homework policies.
Yet, private schools vary in their educational objectives. And these objectives affect their homework policies.
Private schools can be divided into two main homework camps:
On the one hand, traditional, academic schools tend to be more pro-homework. These schools have a standard curriculum which is content-based and rooted in the core disciplines. Their teachers typically deliver a unified and tightly structured curriculum through direct instruction.
These schools also tend to have what we at Our Kids define as a rigorous academic culture . This means they highly value academic performance and use many tests and assignments to evaluate it.
Traditional schools view homework as essential to education. They assign homework to school-age students on a regular basis, increasing the amount and level of difficulty with each grade.
On the other hand, progressive schools tend to be more anti-homework. These schools include (but aren’t limited to) Montessori , Waldorf , and Reggio Emilia schools . They typically provide little direct instruction, and less objective evaluation than traditional schools.
Instead of teaching core subjects through transmitting factual knowledge, progressive schools place children’s interests and ideas at the heart of the learning experience. They also tend to have what we at Our Kids call a supportive academic culture , one focused largely on instilling a love of learning and lifelong curiosity in students.
Many progressive schools view homework as less essential to education and assign less homework to students than traditional schools, especially in the upper grades. In fact, some progressive schools do not assign homework in any grade.
Many of these anti-homework progressivist schools use a practice called classroom flipping . In these schools, students do more “sit-down” learning at home, such as reading or writing . Meanwhile, they do more applied learning activities in class, such as group exercises or in-class presentations.
Classroom flipping is similar to the way some university courses are taught. At this level, students often do “sit-down” reading and studying at home, and then have class and group discussions in school.
Because classroom flipping is a fairly new practice, there’s been little to no research done on it. We’ve begun, though, to compile some data on classroom flipping, including which schools featured on OurKids.net use this practice. Our main aim is to be able to draw some conclusions about its value, in comparison with more traditional approaches to homework.
Figure 5: The average amount of homework assigned by grade for traditional versus progressive schools, as featured on OurKids.net. Note that while traditional schools on average assign more homework than progressive schools, a significant difference doesn’t emerge until the high school years, from Grade 9 to 12.
The jury is still out on homework. Despite lots of research, there’s little agreement on the merits of homework, and its merits versus its costs. But research seems to suggest, if nothing else, that homework can enhance learning in many ways.
Part of choosing the right school for your child involves looking at schools’ homework policies. To start, you should find out whether your child’s current or prospective school has a homework policy. If the school doesn’t have a homework policy, you should find out whether any of its programs, classes, or teachers have homework policies.
If your child’s school (or program or class) does have a homework policy, you should ask for a hard or softcopy of the homework policy document. With this in hand, you can take a close look at the homework policy, and decide whether it’s appropriate and well-suited for your child.
Although there’s no such thing as the perfect or “one-size-fits-all” homework policy, good ones provide an explicit set of guidelines for assigning homework.
These guidelines should be well-supported by the relevant research. Ideally, they should also be clearly communicated to teachers and educators, and in some cases, students and parents .
Below, we provide you our own set of guidelines for evaluating a school’s homework policy. This is meant to help you decide whether a school's homework policy passes muster. Keep in mind, this list is not exhaustive.
The art of providing holistic learning environments for teens [ Read more ]
How school size impacts the student experience at TCS [ Read more ]
TCS’s service learning program provides the hands-on experience of giving back [ Read more ]
What language education at Alexander von Humboldt German International School Montreal provides [ Read more ]
How HTS is building a state-of-the-art online education platform that focuses on student relationships [ Read more ]
How The Linden School paves the way for global change through their STEM programs [ Read more ]
How a new on-site theatre will support Villanova College’s rich arts programming [ Read more ]
How St. Michael’s College School brings the real world into classrooms [ Read more ]
An one-of-a-kind program that promotes science and critical thinking [ Read more ]
Chase your passion with a one-of-a-kind sports opportunity at Académie Ste-Cécile International School [ Read more ]
ERA’s environmental and social mandate [ Read more ]
Well-being and belonging at Trinity College School [ Read more ]
Trinity College School’s financial assistance program [ Read more ]
The progressive Kindergarten program at Hudson College [ Read more ]
Learn about your U.S. college and university choices [ Read more ]
Cambridge International Academy innovates in customized student planning. [ Read more ]
Meet with admissions. Attend info sessions. Find the best-fit school. [ Get my ticket ]
In Canada, participation in AMI (Canada’s) MQA program ensures that a school is committed to the principles of Montessori pedagogy while aligning with current child development research (through the AMI Scientific Pedagogy Group). [ Read more ]
Rosthern Junior College High School has been answering that question for more than 100 years. [ Read more ]
From the moment a student walks onto the 50+ acre campus in Hamilton, Ontario, their journey begins. They grow up in a strong, healthy community whose members share their zest for learning. [ Read more ]
We spoke with Tara Silver about what girls need, how girls learn, and how the Linden School has pioneered in all of that. [ Read more ]
Tickets on sale now: private school expos..
Regina Christian schools Find the top private and independent Christian schools in Regina (May 16, 2024)
Concord private schools Find the top private and independent schools in Concord (May 16, 2024)
Kimberley private schools Find the top private and independent schools in Kimberley (May 16, 2024)
Riverview private schools Find the top private and independent schools in Riverview (May 16, 2024)
Balancing academics and social-emotional well-being The art of providing holistic learning environments for teens (May 13, 2024)
Ask a Question |
Ask a question and get it answered in our community Q&A section |
Get News & Updates |
Sign up for our free e-Newsletter to get news straight to your inbox |
Meet With Schools |
Come to our Canada-wide Private School Expos to meet with top schools |
Your FREE Our Kids account helps you manage your search, save your favourites, and RSVP for upcoming events.
Signing in allows us to save your selections and customize your experience.
NEW USER? Create an account in 10 seconds using the same path above.
Meet top schools, speak with current students and parents, and consult with experts. All in one afternoon.
By logging in or creating an account, you agree to Our Kids' Terms and Conditions . Information presented on this page may be paid advertising provided by the advertisers [schools/camps/programs] and is not warranted or guaranteed by OurKids.net or its associated websites. By using this website, creating or logging into an Our Kids account, you agree to Our Kids' Terms and Conditions . Please also see our Privacy Policy . Our Kids ™ © 2023 All right reserved.
Verify Code | |
H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?
With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.
How much after-school time should our schools really own?
In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”
My spirit crumbled along with his.
Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”
In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.
Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .
Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.
It’s time for an uprising.
Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.
Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”
It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.
Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.
But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.
Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.
That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.
As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.
We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.
Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”
Contact us at [email protected]
Advertisement
Supported by
Student Opinion
Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?
By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar
Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?
Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?
Should we get rid of homework?
In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:
Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”
Mr. Kang argues:
But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in .
Want all of The Times? Subscribe .
Kajsa Murphy , Staff Member | March 14, 2021
Students can be assigned hours and hours of homework every night on top of their already busy schedule, leading to late nights and unneeded stress.
For many students, homework is the most dreaded part of their daily lives. Staying on top of each class’s assignments — ranging from reading, note-taking, labs, projects and reports to studying for tests and quizzes — can be all-consuming and leave students with little to no free time in their day. While each person is built differently and can handle different amounts of homework, class expectations outside of the classroom can and often do add stress and anxiety to the daily lives of students. When students experience homework as an unrelenting daily demand on their time, their mental health can become impacted.
Due to the stress, pressure and lack of balance in students’ lives induced by excessive homework, the amount of work assigned outside of class should be limited or at least cut down from the size it is now.
Managing stress and maintaining a level of balance between school work and free time is difficult to achieve, especially considering the high volume of homework in high school. But maintaining this balance helps us to manage stress more effectively, which leads to better mental health.
That brings up these questions: How much homework is enough and what is too much? How much time should you spend on homework and how much time should you save for yourself to do things that enrich and bring balance to your life, such as participating in sports, spending time with friends (these days that usually means with FaceTime) and family, having some downtime and making time for things that re-energize you? . Homework is a major stressor in a student’s life and large amounts of it can negatively impact a student’s wellbeing.
Some teachers like Christopher Bronke, an English teacher at North High School just outside of Chicago, recently decided to stop assigning homework to his 9th grade class and justified it this way, “It just made sense. I got sick of a wide range of factors: overly stressed students, poor-quality homework.” He added, “They didn’t have time for it, and very little actual learning was happening. I made a very simple decision: I would rather get through less material at a higher quality with less stress than keep giving homework.”
The truth is, homework takes up the majority of time for most students after school. We all have different time management skills as well as different thresholds for how much is too much when it comes to homework. Oftentimes, especially at schools like LHS, students will load up their schedule with difficult classes because there seems to be an unspoken expectation and pressure to take many difficult classes to impress colleges. The workload of a rigorous academic schedule can push the amount of homework that a student has up to three, four or more hours per night.
In an article titled “Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools,” published in The Journal of Experimental Education, the authors explained the findings of their research study, which surveyed 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper middle-class communities. The survey looked at the relationship between homework, student well-being and student engagement in school. They found that the average amount of homework the students did each day was over three hours and, “Students who did more hours of homework experienced… more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives.”
If teachers chose to scale back on homework or eliminate it completely, more of students’ focus could be turned to in-class learning. Minimizing the amount of homework-related stress in a student’s life would have a positive impact on their overall mental health and would allow for more of a balance between their many interests and obligations. Each of us needs and deserves some time away from a desk and time to unwind. With less homework, learning in school would be elevated because students would be able to give their full attention to their schoolwork in school without having to deal with the stress of excessive after-school homework.
Ranking New York Times games
Bring back senior quotes
Finding the balance between academics and extracurriculars
Battle of the Bottles
Faced With Hate: Rising Islamophobia
The “slacktivism” phenomenon
Face off: Keep or Lower the Drinking age?
Do modern books still have substance?
Does Link Crew have substance?
The student news publication of Libertyville High School
Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Rachel Basinger December 19, 2018
Too much homework is the perennial complaint of students. When you are often hearing complaints of being overworked it can be hard to ascertain when it’s a legitimate concern or when students are just trying to take the path of least resistance. As a teacher, you want to make sure that you find a healthy balance — because if you give too little homework, students will be bored, but if you give too much, they will be overwhelmed.
In my years of teaching, I’ve found that giving less homework may actually produce better results. Here are a couple of reasons why you might want to consider reducing your students’ homework load.
The goal of school should be to teach students how to learn and to love learning. You don’t just want to hand your students fish; You want to teach them how to fish. Lectures, discussions, and readings should all engage students and encourage them to get involved in the material.
Too often, though, teachers are overwhelmed and assign homework to try to cover material that didn’t have enough time to cover in class. Educators should avoid letting the homework “teach” the class. Instead, it should be used to practice what’s been covered in class or to give a very brief introduction to new material.
Homework assignments, when given, should at least be engaging. Try to find assignments that your students might enjoy, like creating a Facebook profile or blog for a character from a Shakespeare play you’re reading. I’ve found that when students have a more manageable homework load, they’re more excited about school and learning in general.
Something that teachers need to remember is how very long school days can seem for students, especially for high schoolers, if they have hours and hours of homework. They normally arrive at school between 7 and 8 a.m., stay in school until 3 p.m., may have after-school activities until 5 or 6 p.m., and may not be able to start on homework until 7 or 8 p.m. after eating dinner. Even if your students have a homework load of just 1–2 hours, that means they won’t be able to get to bed until 9–10 p.m.
Sleep is incredibly important for growing children and teenagers. While students can definitely choose to pull all-nighters or stay up late for non-school-related reasons, teachers should strive to minimize the impact that homework and school have on their students’ sleep. Assigning less homework will likely mean that your students will have the opportunity to get more sleep, which means they’ll be more awake and engaged in class the next day.
Many students, especially high schoolers, associate school with a room they’re trapped in for a good portion of their lives, and they want nothing more than to be outside of that box. Obviously, students (and people in general) can use their free time unproductively, like spending hours at a time on social media and browsing the internet. But many students feel like their homework load prevents them from doing fun things that they like.
It’s important for students to have a life outside of school, and assigning less homework means that they have more time for such activities. Students should be well-rounded individuals; If they’re overloaded with homework, they won’t be able to develop in other areas. As a teacher, because you are so involved with it, it’s easy to just subconsciously act as if students have the same degree of interest in school. The reality is that students desperately want a life outside of school, and you’ll be a more successful teacher if you encourage them to develop that in healthy ways.
Students generally complain about homework because they are overworked. Overall, I believe many students are okay with homework, and reviewing and practicing what they learn in school. But because each teacher thinks their class is most important, students often end up with several hours of homework a night. That said, it’s important that you and your colleagues are in conversation about what assignments you all are giving each week. You don’t want your students to end up with 4–5 hours a day of homework.
I know when I was in college, I really disliked the homework load for some classes because there was just too much. I was a good student and always did everything I was assigned, but when I had to read forty 8.5 x 11 pages between a Tuesday and a Thursday for just one class, I was incredibly overwhelmed. It was just so much information to cram into such a short time — naturally, I really could not absorb it all. You never want to put your students in a position where they are floundering because of their workload. If you lessen the load just a bit, you’ll have less tired and more mindful, alert students.
This last point is often forgotten. Students should have the opportunity to hang out with their families in the evenings. With many couples now both working full-time, students often end up seeing their teachers more than they see their parents! While we can’t go back to the days on the farm where families worked together and saw each other all the time, teachers can at least encourage their students to spend some extra time with their families. And while high schoolers may not appreciate it now, they will appreciate it later.
If students did one less hour of homework and had one more hour of time with their families to play a game, watch movies, or just talk, it would contribute greatly not only to the health of the family but also to the wellbeing of the student. It also minimizes discipline issues as parents would be more involved in their children’s lives.
By assigning less homework, you’ll likely find that students will love learning, get more sleep, enjoy themselves more with outside activities, be less overworked, and have more time to spend with family.
If you want to give this a shot, you should think about practical ways that you can reduce your students’ homework load. For homework, I originally assigned five discussion questions that my students had to answer and three that they had to write short responses to. Later, I decided to change that to two discussion questions and two written-response questions. I found that the results were significantly better because the students were much more inclined to do the homework!
For you, maybe it’s reducing the number of questions like I did. Maybe it’s assigning fewer pages of reading. And maybe it just means being more diligent in class so you can cover more material. Whatever it is, know that giving less homework to your students will likely produce better results in class!
Photo credit: PhotoMIX-Company ; hdornak / Pixabay.com
Personalized Learning
The powerful impact of motivation in your PBIS program
How did Broadview Middle School lower their referrals by 33%?
There should be a limit on homework. As in only a certain amount of assignments per subject. There is a section in school agenda’s that tell us how much time each grade should spend on homework every day/week. But realistically, some students are getting WAY to much homework while other students in the same grade but another class are getting none. There should be a mandatory reasonable limit to homework, every student, no matter which class should have to spend approximately the same amount of time on homework. With this the kids could be getting their required homework, and having a social life.
Overwhelming, yes because…., yes homework should have a limit, yes, kids need to balance out mental and physical exercise., yes, it should., all the no points:, yes because….
Yes there should be some type of thing to do with that much homework. There are some nights where kids have none at all and then there are some nights where it seems like the kids have way to much. They should lower the limit to around 30 minutes for kids and then for high schoolers like 45 minutes. That way the kids can go outside or sit down and relax, rather than sitting doing nothing but homework.
Obviously homework should be unregulated. Children are a dangerous species and deserve to suffer at the hands of adult society. Too many children now adays spend their time going out and ‘shanking bare manz’. It is a well known belief that children should spend their time doing homework, for example look at Nick Clegg, he obviously never did any homework that’s why he ended up as a lib dem, but because of this he can put forward idiotic views in every conceivable area and hinder the progress of Britain as the worlds most powerful nation. God save the queen…..
Yes, but some may disagree, schools should limit homework because kids don’t have time. They are busy. Kids grades drop because of too much homework. Also, it’s way better to do class work then homework. It would just be better if schools limited homework. My first reason is that kids don’t have time, they are busy. Homework is important, although too much homework is unneeded and stressful and it also puts pressure on the brain. My second reason is that kids grades drop low because of too much homework. Believe it or not, if kids get to much homework, they get lazy & eventually don’t want do it at all. I researched……
Yes. I do think that homework should have a limit because sometimes homework can be overwhelming and you spend a lot of time on the computer or with a sheet of paper doing homework instead of spending time with your family and doing things. You do need to do homework but there is a point where you just have to stop. You can’t have piles and piles of homework isnt good but having some homework is good. Having no homework at all would leave you bored. Overal I think that having some homework is good but having a lot of homework isnt the greatest. So yes i think homework should have a limit.
Homework till an extent is good. Keeps the child busy and interested in studies. But however an excess of homework definitely leads to over burden on the mind of the child. I believe that their should also be plethora of time time given to the child for his physical development. If much of homework is put on him\er there’s less time for him\er to go out and play outdoor games. If the child after school is also busy with his homework, he finds less time for discovering himself , his capabilities and hobbies. Therefore I would like to end and say anything in excess is bad, everything should be balanced out in life for a better living.
Yes homework needs to have a limit because the children do have lives and don’t do work all the time. They come home and they do chores for their parents. They go to parties and family affairs and maybe even host their own. Some might be in sport leagues and will be very busy and they might have clubs. So they might not have enough time to work on their homework. Also if they do, they will spend at least a little bit of it in enjoyment. I mean, everyone does this. Even the teachers who assign the homework. We all spend time enjoying ourselves once we come home after a long day of working. Therefore, the children might not have enough time to complete massive amounts of homework. Another point would be that, if the children have that much homework they will be extremely stressed with the stress of completing it and making sure it has good quality. This stress is definitely not good for their health, and in turn they might just give up. They just will go like i just can’t do it and they won’t do it. This would decrease their grades. if teachers give so much, they will get worse quality work and there would be less effort put in. So they might as well give less homework, so we will all do better and do our absolute best. All resulting in better quality work for in which both teacher and student will be happy about.
Haven’t you got tired of doing loads of homework? Don´t you think that they should, limited homework? Well in my opinion I think homework should be limited. One we do have lives besides we don’t want to do work all the time. Many of us kids feel like their homework load prevents them from doing fun things that they like. Two is a lack of sleep. We come home from a long day from school as well we have to do chores furthermore then we are probably pulling a late nighter due that we have loads of homework. Next is we need time for ourselves and our family. If we did one less hour of work and had one more hour with our families to play a game, watch movies, or just talk, it would contribute greatly not only to the health of the family but also to the wellbeing of the students. We have lives too I prefer in my opinion that homework should be limited. My first reason is if students are doing loads of homework we will feel like it is preventing us from fun doing things we like. Like going outside, playing a game, or just listening to music. Another reason is we are so focused on doing homework all the time, we won’t be able to develop in other parts of ourselves. Next is that kids should not be, given homework is that they need time to relax and take their minds off work. Loads of homework can result from a lack of sleep. Something that teachers need to remember is how very long school days can seem for students, especially for high schoolers, if they have hours and hours of homework. We usually arrive at school between 7 and 8 a.m., stay in school until 3 p.m., may have after-school activities until 5 or 6 p.m., and may not be able to start on homework until 7 or 8 p.m. after eating dinner. Even if your students have a homework load of just 1–2 hours, that means they won’t be able to get to bed until 9–10 p.m.Sleep is incredibly important for growing children and teenagers. While students can choose to pull all-nighters or stay up late for non-school-related reasons, teachers should strive to minimize the impact that homework and the school have on their students’ sleep. Assigning less homework will likely mean that your students will have the opportunity to get more sleep, which means they’ll be more awake and engaged in class the next day. Family Time This last point is often forgotten. Students should have the opportunity to hang out with their families in the evenings. If we did one less hour of work and had one more hour with their families to play a game, watch movies, or just talk, it would contribute greatly not only to the health of the family but also to the wellbeing of the students need to have a life outside of school, and assigning less homework means that they have more time for such activities. In an article published by the New York Times, a mother explained how…, “The stress homework places on families start early.” The article also talks about how homework takes away from family time and family activities. The author also says that her kids “are fighting not just over the homework, but also over their share of my coveted attention and my unique ability to download and print images.” This shows how homework adds extra pressure and can cause tension in families. It takes away from family time and causes more stress on students and parents. It’s almost as if once children start school and the homework starts that it never stops and that more family time is taken away while more stress is added. SO yes I think homework should be limited.
it’s overwhelming and stressful expecially as a high school student. There are weeks I have close to none and other weeks ( like this one ) where I have had 19 sections for biology, a 20 page packet I did in class and at home, a vocab test, a 60 question benchmark, a te21, and another biology test. my head is pounding and I’m having to stay up later than normal.
We would love to hear what you think – please leave a comment!
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
The National PTA and the National Education Association support the " 10-minute homework guideline "—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students' needs, not the amount of time spent on it.
Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school. Their study found that too much homework is associated with:
Dr. Cooper and his colleagues analyzed dozens of studies on whether homework is beneficial in a 2006 publication.". Teachers believe that homework not only gives time management, but also perseverance and responsibility. Teachers in general should decrease the amount of outside-school work, and work more internally within the school, so that ...
Many districts follow the guideline of 10 minutes per grade level. This is a good rule of thumb and can be modified for specific students or subjects that need more or less time for assignments. This can also be helpful to gauge if you are providing too much (or too little) homework. Consider surveying your students on how much time is needed ...
It found that 57% of parents felt that their child was assigned about the right amount of homework, 23% thought there was too little and 19% thought there was too much. ... Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning by Etta Kralovec and John Buell, Beacon Press, 2001. The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, ...
For decades, the homework standard has been a "10-minute rule," which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 ...
A widely endorsed metric for how much homework to assign is the 10-minute rule. It dictates that children should receive 10 minutes of homework per grade level—so a 1st grader would be given 10 ...
He believes that research supports the 10-minute rule—that students should be able to complete their homework in no more than 10 minutes multiplied by their grade. For example, this would amount ...
In 1st grade, children should have 10 minutes of daily homework; in 2nd grade, 20 minutes; and so on to the 12th grade, when on average they should have 120 minutes of homework each day, which is ...
From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. []While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word "homework" dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home.
This framework is also endorsed by the National Parent Teacher Association National Parent Teachers Association. According to this rule, time spent on homework each night should not exceed: 30 minutes in 3 rd grade. 40 minutes in 4 th grade. 50 minutes in 5 th grade.
This month, Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Godley, Tex., let parents know on "Meet the Teacher" night that she had no plans to load up her students' backpacks. "There will be no ...
The upper limit in grades 7-8 is 2 hours and the limit in high school should be 2.5 hours. Teachers can use the homework time recommendations included here as a point of comparison: in particular, schools should note that assigning homework that exceeds the upper limit of these time estimates is not likely to result in additional learning gains ...
The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein, co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work ...
This means that each grade level should have a maximum homework time incrementing by 10 minutes depending on their grade level (for instance, ninth-graders would have 90 minutes of homework, 10th-graders should have 100 minutes, and so on). ... HISD has never seen this amount of valedictorians in one school, and as of now there are 14 ...
The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.
Moreover, homework is a "barometer of the success—or the limits—of movements to raise academic standards," write Brian Gill of RAND and Steven Schlossman of Carnegie Mellon University in ...
Figure 1: The distribution for the amount of homework assigned in Grade 6 among schools featured on OurKids.net. There's a long-standing and contentious debate over homework. Should homework be assigned to school-age children? ... There's an upper limit to the amount of homework that should be assigned to students at any level.
American high school students, in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found. It's time for an uprising. Already, small rebellions ...
The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students.
Homework Should Have a Limit. Kajsa Murphy, Staff Member | March 14, 2021. ... Minimizing the amount of homework-related stress in a student's life would have a positive impact on their overall mental health and would allow for more of a balance between their many interests and obligations. Each of us needs and deserves some time away from a ...
Assigning less homework will likely mean that your students will have the opportunity to get more sleep, which means they'll be more awake and engaged in class the next day. 3. Free time makes them well-rounded. Many students, especially high schoolers, associate school with a room they're trapped in for a good portion of their lives, and ...
Table of Contents. There should be a limit on homework. As in only a certain amount of assignments per subject. There is a section in school agenda's that tell us how much time each grade should spend on homework every day/week. But realistically, some students are getting WAY to much homework while other students in the same grade but ...