homework #1

Is homework harmful or helpful?

Homework is defined as an out of class task assigned to students to help them practice and prepare for their future. It is set and traced as a tradition of having teachers assigning work and students completing it. However, the system is scrutinized when students spend average time of two to three hours a day doing homework rather than spend with their family. This has drawn utter attention from parents and schools. Since it has no link between homework and achievement, I strongly agree that homework can be detrimental to student as it can lead to frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and loss of interest in study.

Homework is a burden that can spark frustration and tears. There is some difficult homework that seems far-fetched to be done by the student. Children can be certainly disturbed and bothered with the thoughts of having punishment on the following day. Children will be extremely fatigue with their load of homework after having half day class in school. Some parents may keep on nudging their children just to remind them to complete their homework in time. Having hectic life at both school and home, children may not have a healthy growing process. It is too much to overwhelm a child who is still in the process of shaping their future.

In addition, doing homework reduces the accessibility of other activities. It contributes to the opportunity cost of other more beneficial activities such as exercise and social interaction. Children spend less time outdoors enjoying nature or a good round of sports and physical activities. Children are being physically inactive, and this can pave way for obesity and other related diseases. It may also take time away from families having fun together. This will lead to frail bond between children and their family.

Moreover, homework extinguishes children’s interest in study. Homework is just a mere chore that a typical student had to do. It does not play upon any intrinsic desire to learn things but just to force learning that can even make students hate certain subjects and learning in general. Student is not practicing smart study but barely memorizing facts and formulas without understanding the genuine meaning. Besides, the flawed thinking of teachers and school districts believing that homework correlates to academic benefit treat students as experiment. More homework is being piled on children despite the absence of its value. To no avail children do everything they are assigned, they become dispirited and apathetic towards studying.

In a nutshell, I stand at the side claiming that homework is harmful to children as in causing frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and loss of interest in study. Most of what homework is doing is driving kids away from learning. Most children dread homework, or at best see it as something to be gotten through. Thus, even if it did provide other benefits, they would have to be weighed against its likely effect on kids’ love of learning. Some naysayers may claim that less or no homework can lead to lower grades. Then lower grades were indeed a small price to pay for getting back curiosity and emotional health.