Discussing Homework

by Francis Atemo Maloba

An explanation of the topic

Homework is one of the issues that have been greatly debated over the years. There are many schools that give homework currently. That said, there is a new trend being observed where some schools are no longer giving homework. My focus for this Op Ed will be homework in elementary schools. Homework tends to increase when schools are under pressure. In 1883 for example, there was an introduction of payment by results for teachers. This led to the time being spent on homework to greatly increase. It was so much that parents and social workers campaigned for a reduction. It is obvious that homework was negatively affecting the lives of the students and definitely of the teachers and parents as well. The amount of time spent doing homework varies from two hours to twelve hours a week. But does homework really add value to the students’ lives?

A discussion of why the topic is interesting and important.

This issue is interesting and important because parents and schools are no longer geared toward child development. Their main focus is towards academic achievement. Some people feel that where homework is treated seriously, it has the potential to raise standards. This could mean better financial status in the future, better jobs and relating with people with high socio economic status. This is not particularly true. I have heard accounts from my fellow colleagues working in other schools of times when parents have come to their schools to meet with their principals. These parents felt that their students were not being given “enough” homework. Some teachers have even been labeled as “not an effective teacher” on the sole grounds that they do not give homework. There are so many disadvantages to homework. I feel that students, at least elementary age students should be given little or no homework at all.

Why I feel students should not be given homework

Homework can lead to children having negative attitudes towards school and motivation. School starts to feel like a burden that they cannot bear. However, they are still expected to go to school everyday and perform well. This makes the children come up with ways of coping like cheating and copying from each other. Homework thus fails to accomplish the purpose it was originally intended for namely, making students perform better in schools. When students start to copy from each other, there is division that is created between students from different backgrounds.

When teachers assign homework, many times it is because they want to involve the parents in the children’s learning. Parents therefore want to help their students with their homework. However, homework can create tension in the family because as the parents help the children, they start to compare them with their other children. They may give the impression that they feel one or two of their children are “better” than the others. Children do pick up on these impressions as developmentally they may be in the point of their lives where they are doing a lot of peer comparisons. Recent studies suggest that parents who spend hours helping their children with homework may be misguided. One found mothers' help had no effect on children's achievement. When homework is used as a learning tool, it often fails to impress because parents and other family members overstep their boundaries and end up completing any task assigned by the school at the expense of their children’s learning.

In elementary school, students are still developing physically. They therefore need time to be out playing. Already they are spending about eight hours in school working on school related stuff. Although they have lessons such as physical education and recess to move around, they need to move more and engage in more physical activities. They also need time to stop thinking about school and just relax so that they are ready for the next day in school. If children are given homework, homework significantly reduces the amount of time that a child can spend doing other activities like playing with their friends, spending time with their family and other enjoyable yet beneficial activities. Homework therefore makes the children to stress out. As they still want to do these other activities mentioned above and still have to do their homework, this can lead to anxiety and depression and other negative psychological effects can result. We know the importance of sleep for example. Sleep helps the protein in the brain to fold nicely and the neurotransmitters are therefore more effective in transmitting messages through the brain. When there is lack of sleep, the proteins in the brain do not fold as neatly and this may result to students not being able to process their thoughts faster or as effectively. Students lose their sleep time when they stay up late trying to finish their homework so as not to be in trouble the following day.

When we give the children homework, it may cause them to believe that learning and homework have a direct connection. The child may therefore avoid true and natural learning opportunities. The child would essentially limit curiosity. A true personal and intellectual passion towards a particular field from the child may be in jeopardy. A lack of curiosity towards learning may, in the future, result in the child exhibiting less enthusiasm in general as the individual would have shut the door of learning and exploring fascinating concepts as result of a negative primary educational experience.

As we know, not all students develop cognitively at the same time. Depending on the nature of the task and the students’ prior experiences, some students may find homework very difficult. Although they are still young, they judge themselves based on how they perceive others to be judging them. Many times, they end up believing that they are dumb and not capable of performing. When students feel this way about themselves, other issues come up such as loss of self-confidence and also these children start to engage in inappropriate activities just because they feel they are incompetent of being successful in academic based skills. Teachers may start to see behavior issues in these students as they try to find their place in the classroom. Children usually believe in ways that are consistent with what they believe about themselves and behaviors confirm self-perceptions. We also know that children seek out information that confirms what they already believe and seldom put themselves in situations where they believe they won’t succeed. Homework therefore becomes a negative thing in this sense.

The typical school day is filled with a lot of learning activities for the children. These activities already take up a lot of time and the energy from the students. When teachers then add homework to what is already a busy day for the children, this becomes overwhelming to the students and what is likely to happen is that they may lose interest in the assignment. This is likely to happen especially when the homework assigned is devoid of any value to the overall learning of the students. If a student has demonstrated that they understood the concepts taught in class through activities done in class, having them do more task to prove the same understanding is a waste of time. What is basically happening is that students are being asked to do one more item to show what they already know.

Of course, some people will say that homework is a good thing because it makes the students to take responsibility for their own learning. They argue that homework gives the students the opportunity to spend more time on a task therefore making them reflective beings. They also think that students have more time for independent study and they will learn how to manage their time. Sometimes, it is based on cultural grounds or the way the parents were brought up where the presence of homework was seen as an extension of school and an indicator of future success as it afforded the students the multiple opportunities to “practice” the areas where they needed help. Based on this, I am aware that many parents and other members of the community will argue that homework is important and schools should consider it more. However, I hope that my points above help you to understand why students should not be given homework.

In conclusion, I would like to state that considering all the advantages and disadvantages of homework is a good start to help many people to decide which way to go. It takes time to let go of beliefs that have been held for a long time, beliefs that may not be true and the belief that homework is critically important is one that has been held for a long time. As you all consider which way to go, one thing to do would be to have the teachers give homework that is of reasonable amount and that will actually add value to the students’ learning. If the students have already understood a concept, there is no need to give more tasks of what they already know. Piaget’s explains that no learning takes place if the tasks given are at the students level (zone of proximal development). They should be challenging to the students for them to be meaningful. Moreover, instead of written homework, teachers should give tasks or activities that would lead students to revise their day-old learning or to apply what they already know in real life contexts. This is because to the students, homework is one of the least interesting tasks. They tend to avoid written homework because it is repetitive and boring. Studies even show that exams are less stressful than homework because the students know that they are occasional and they will soon be over. If the idea is to teach the students how to manage their time and to be responsible for their own learning, finding other ways to achieve this will be more beneficial to the students.  Homework is not the only way to achieve this. It is therefore my hope that in the not so distant future, parents and schools will stop to focus on the academic achievement as the priority and focus on the children’s development. After all, if these young creatures do not develop well, whether physically, cognitively or socio emotionally, they will not be as productive in the future in the professions they end up getting into.