By Quincy Bohne
We all know what it feels like. Getting home from 7 hours of school and then if you do something after school that might be an extra 2 hours of things to do. You are already exhausted by the time you get home but you can’t go to sleep yet, you have homework and that might be a time consuming part of the day. It’s something that has been structured in your routine for a very long time but to what extent does it actually benefit you and your learning?
So what are some benefits of having homework? An article published in the magazine Bostonia, written by Sara Rimer says, “Teachers assign homework in school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they are older-to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills.” These are all very important things to develop these abilities for our life. The article continues by saying, “Beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.” All of this evidence supports the idea that we truly do need to do homework or else we won’t grow our expertise in certain areas.
Now what are some of the ways that homework is falling short for some people? It actually depends on your age. Multiple websites showed that between grades 1-4 it is helpful for the routine of homework to be implemented into the students schedule. Between grades 5-8 the academic benefits improve significantly and when it comes time for high school, homework strongly relates to higher test scores. But all of this is only good in moderation. If you have students doing 3-4 hours of homework every night that is going to lead to an academic burnout.
Reading, writing and repetition homework has been proven to help scholars improve on tests and quizzes but that is a completely different thing from busy work. I personally always hate when the teacher hands us a coloring page and wants us to color for homework and I end up spending more time on that than writing an essay. Homework can also affect your sleep schedule. According to a survey conducted by the Better Sleep Council reports, “We’re finding that teenagers are experiencing this cycle where they sacrifice their sleep to spend extra time on homework, which gives them more stress-but they don’t get better grades.” This shows that homework can tax on sleep which is a must needed part of a teenagers life.
So I know that this might just be my bias because I myself am a student but I find that homework only actually helps students learn if it is done in moderation, and if it doesn’t conflict with anything that might be more important in someone’s life including their sleep schedule and mental health.
