Homework: Helping or Hurting?

by: Natalie Klasinski, Journalism I

Homework is given to students of all ages throughout their school life but is it really helping us?  Many studies have been conducted on if homework can give a child that “step” ahead but many have found mixed results. Although homework does help define; study habits, self-discipline and time management skills in students. Some studies show that there is some benefits to doing homework. Others show that there is either no benefits or even negative effects. 

A few people and their works that have studied or researched homework affects are Alfie Kohn with his “The Homework Myth”, Time Magazine’s Claudia Wallis with her “The Myth About Homework”, and Dr. Harris Cooper’s research on homework. “According to a 2004 national survey of 2,900 American children conducted by the university of Michigan, the amount of time spent on homework is up 51% since 1981”(Claudia Wallis). In dozens of Cooper’s analyses he found that homework did help improve student’s scores on standardized tests but in high school doing more than 2 hours could actually lower scores. Jada Simmons said that she does “on average 3 hours of homework a night while getting home from school at about 5 o’clock”. She believes that homework can be helpful but “too much can hurt rather than help”. Cooper created a rule of thumb: 10 minutes of homework a night per grade level. 

Teachers were asked what there views on homework were. Mr. Simms the journalism teacher said that “homework enhances and gives experience to the students”. Ms. Niederkorn said that “only things that are necessary should be assigned”. 

After asked about their views, the teachers were asked if they consider how much homework their students are getting besides what they get from that class. Majority of the teachers said that they didn’t really think about it too much they just assigned what is necessary for their class. 

So is homework actually benefiting us or are we just shedding blood, sweat, and tears over scrape paper? This question has puzzled many for years and may puzzle them for many more to come.