Homework+Revolution

Homework has always been portrayed, in movies, as the after school activity no child wanted to partake in. Some say it has a positive impact on the life of a child while others say it is a negative attribute. I will state the positives and negatives of homework as well as my side of this whole “homework revolution”.

A recent controversy has arisen where people are saying that homework is in fact has a negative impact on the life of a child. One reason for this is students these days are up to their knees in homework. Teacher Jessica Lahey says, “I hate seeing my middle school aged son miss out on the afternoons of his childhood”. So sure homework is good in all but it eats up precious time of the day. Children need time to be quite, play, read and imagine. These are key elements to making a happy healthy child, but homework is disabling this fundamental time. As one administrator said, “parents want their kids back”, so homework is not only taking away kids alone time it is also robbing them of their family time as well. Okay sure homework reinforces subjects covered in class but with today’s homework this is not the case.

Now days most, if not to say almost all, homework is extremely repetitive. This is a problem because teachers are assigning big and unnecessary loads of this type of homework and students are not learning a thing. As Principal Ms. Cushlanis says, “how many times do you have to add seven plus two”? So as you see teachers are just assigning a whole bunch of busy work. So why do teachers assign this so called “busy work”. Well teacher do this because the US is trying to keep up with China and other high academically ranking countries, so they think tons of homework is the answer. But all this homework is just wasting children’s time and ruining their irreplaceable child hood. But others disagree and say homework is nothing but positive effects in a child’s life. Homework has been a part of America’s education system for many years, why should we stop now just because a couple kids and teachers are complaining about something that has been a major factor in American culture. Homework is an essential in a high achieving education. As one student says, “If I didn’t have homework, I don’t think I’d do very well. Its practice for what we learn in school”. See, kids need this extra practice to perform better in their academics, cause without out they feel like they haven’t practice enough. Cause as they say practice makes perfect. Also homework teaches children basic study skills which are essential for high school and/or college.

Okay so people “think” homework is an essential in an academic career but these days we need homework more than ever. As mother of two Karol Ball says, “Most of our kids can’t spell without spell check or add unless it’s on a computer”. So as you can see we desperately need homework to reinforce these basic education skills because on a test they are not going to have “spell check” or “calculator”. Karol Ball also says, “If we coddle them when they are younger, what happens when they get into the real world? No one’s going to say to them, ‘you don’t have to work extra hard to get the project done; just turn in what you got.’” Not only does homework teach children basic education skills it teaches them responsibility and time management. Okay, so where is my say in this whole “Homework Revolution”.

I personally believe homework can be positive, but at the same time be negative. Don’t get me wrong I HATE homework and I would love to be without it, but I don’t think I could. Homework an essential in an education and it helps tremendously. It teaches young children study habits and responsibility. For older kids not so much, but it does remind and give them practice on the subject they learned in class. I believe this extra practice also helps me achieve high scores on quizzes and exams. Okay sure I think homework helps, but it does not just have positive effects in my life, it has negative effects as well. For example my biology home work is almost always busy work, and busy work is just a waste of my time. The teacher assigns worksheets about the exact and I mean “exact” things we learned in class, and the homework makes us repeat this so many times. It defeats the purpose of homework. I believe homework like anything else should be done in moderation. A little homework is good, and has benefits but when it just becomes busy work is when it just defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.

There are many views on this “homework revolution” that could be considered either positive or negative. Some say too much homework causes a negative impact in a child’s life, while others say homework is essential in a high-achieving academic career. I believe a small amount of homework can improve a child’s academic career, but when the homework is repetitive, it just becomes busy work and this defeats the purpose of homework. Some schools have just lightened their homework load, while others have gotten rid of it completely. Who knows where this “homework revolution” will go next?