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Conner Neubauer

Dr. Cassel

ENG 1201

26 April 2020

How Homework can be a Much Bigger Hassle than it Turns Out to be

Homework is not a requirement in schools; homework is just a task we all accept to help

prepare for quizzes and tests. No one has to do homework but most likely those questions will be

on the test. Some explanation behind that is a student has a choice but they will suffer the

consequences if they don’t do the homework. In some cases, homework might not be on the test

but homework can be a substantial portion of a student’s grade. Homework has the ability to

reinforce new ideas and help students prepare to conquer difficult challenges. Homework is a big

part of students' life and this will hopefully answer questions many students have wondered for a

century. Is homework worth all of our time and does it really give a student benefit

academically? There are positives and negatives when it comes to giving homework and doing

the work assigned. There is not much choice a student has when doing hours upon hours of

homework every week. Students with easy and hard schedules are expected to do homework.

Less work can help a student's stress but might not prepare a student enough for the real world.

Teachers must consider how the amount of homework negatively impacts their students’ health

and day to day lives.

Many different sources have an Italian teacher named Roberto Nevilis as the inventor of

homework (Classroom-Homework). Of course, throughout history, other teachers and professors

have had to take the work home. As far back as ancient Rome, Pliny the Younger he asked his
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students to practice their speaking skills at home and not in a formal setting like school.

However, most people give credit to Nevilis as the inventor. Nevilis gave homework to his lazy

kids in his classes. He used it as a punishment to take away Italian student’s afternoons and

evenings for not paying attention in his class. He deliberately went out of his own way to take

away precious time to his students to try and teach them a lesson. During that time to present

homework has become more and more popular. There has also been an explosion in

technological advances since 1905. Maybe that could be because we have studied more and

worked more on getting the general population smarter? All of the discoveries and inventions

happened because of one teacher trying to punish his students. One can make this assumption

because when homework became more popular throughout the world all of these advances were

starting to occur.

A new common rule for homework is ten minutes per grade. Meaning in first grade it is

ten minutes worth, sixth grade is an hour worth of homework and so on. This rule can vary per

student though because some need more time and others do not need as much time (Terada).

Students might do better in some areas and might need more work in other areas. The ten-minute

rule is a good rule but not perfect. The ten-minute rule is just a suggestion not all teachers have

to follow the recommendation. If not following this rule or not even considering this rule

especially for elementary school kid’s bad things can happen. They will grow up resenting

school, doing any work including homework will be a big fight and struggle with parents and

teachers, and a child will lose inspiration and desire to be something great. They can feel

defeated and lost when they have so much homework. Since all kids are different and everyone

might need something different homework might never be agreed about how much we should

give children. When giving students too much homework bad things can happen.
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“Burnout is a negative effect of homework. After spending the entire day learning,

having to spend more hours doing too much homework lead to burnout” (How Does Homework

Students). Seven hours trying to learn five days a week for a student is a full-time job, almost

forty hours a week for each student. Then when a student comes home, they become a child.

They are expected to do chores and possibly play a sport. After all of this, they still have

homework to do, now this is turning into overtime with not much reward sometimes. When the

ten-minute rule is broken, burnout can occur. When a student feels overwhelmed typically a lot

will shut down and be turned off from school and not try to learn anymore. As you can see in

Fig. 1. The student is very frustrated and confused with his work. If that continues for that

student stress can take a toll on him.

Fig. 1. (Identifying and Addressing…)

It will be hard to inspire a kid to pick up a book, put down the phone, and work hard in school.

There needs to be a balance for children to have the ability to have fun, still be a kid, and also get

an exceptional education.

In life, rules would be nice to have like the ten-minute rule per grade. It does not sound

bad to students if you consider what they have been doing before. “A 2007 Metlife study found

that 45 percent of students in grades three to 12 spend more than an hour a night doing

homework, including the six percent of students who report spending more than three hours a

night on their homework” (Ryan). Spending so much time on homework is a lot for a child to
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handle. Almost all student’s kindergarten through twelfth grade have a thirty-five-hour schedule.

They come home and do three hours of overtime everyday including three hours each day on the

weekends. A grand total of fifty-six hours each week dedicated to school for each student with

more than three hours a week on homework. Having a fifty-six-hour day for any man, woman, or

child can cause burnout or exhaustion extremely quick. The amount of time students put into

school is a substantial number. More teachers and parents need to recognize this and ease off

with homework a little and parents must understand the stress involved with school. With all of

this responsibility, stress, and other health concerns this could occur for students at an early age.

When anyone is stressed for an extended period of time negative health problems can

happen. There can be good stress that can help an individual get motivated to get their work

done. When all of that stress gets put on a child bad things can happen. “Too much homework

can cause students to experience stress, anxiety, depression, physical ailments, and even cause

lower test scores” (P. Kim). Mental health issues are important to everyone especially when it is

a child’s life. The brain is an extremely complex organ and the smallest of thoughts or chemicals

can change how we think and act. So, if a child is on depression or anxiety pills because they are

not able to handle their stress because of homework. By that child taking pills they can change

their entire life so they can remember for their biology test tomorrow that the “mitochondria is

the powerhouse of the cell.” Physical pain is much easier to see than mental pain. The way a

person carries themselves can tell it all. No smile, slouched over back and neck pain. Homework

is made to reinforce lessons learned throughout the school day and in the following week it could

lower their score. They might have been able to work on something else or have fun but they

worked and got a worse score.

Homework can be a great tool in the learning process but many bad things can occur to a
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child that is detrimental to a child's health. Homework can raise test scores by using homework

in the right way but too much can do the opposite and lower students' scores. There needs to be a

balance between homework and school. Kids go to school all day and come home to do more

school work. That is hard having a full work schedule if you are a child or an adult. Thirty-five

to fifty-hour work weeks can be challenging for anyone to handle. Homework and school are a

big portion of a child's life. So much time is invested in a child’s life from five to eighteen

almost nine months of the year. All of the dedication and commitment to school stress can

become a serious problem if there is not much of a break in between days. Homework cancels

the mental break and the student will have to keep going until all of their work is finished. Each

day over and over school, homework, and sleep is boring and hard on anyone. Many factors add

up to make homework a negative experience rather than a positive one. Sometimes homework

can damage a child more than the benefits that they could receive.

The average student gets home around 3:30. If they were to have practice, chores, and eat

dinner all combined is around four hours total. Most kids have other responsibilities other than

school and with all of this work it is hard to do it all. Teachers must understand students are not

always students. Parents also must understand that we are not always children. There needs to be

give and take in a young child's life. After all of that then the student has three hours of

homework it is already 10:30 without much of a mental break and time to rest for the student.

For anyone to be a functional person in society or at home mental health and mental breaks is

just as important as physical breaks. Doing this every day five days a week can burn any person

out including adults. Teachers and parents are putting all this responsibility on children. Teachers

and parents also need to work better together to figure out the child's schedule so there can be

less stress on everyone. If all parties are on the same page then the child, teacher, and parent will
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be able to work together and make everyone happier. Children are supposed to be children, not

full-time adults with so many different responsibilities. When a child is stressed beyond their

limit, family problems can form between each other.

Family life can have ups and down just like all aspects of life. When a child has so much

to do and not enough time arguments over work and family experiences tension will rise.

“Excessive homework can cut down on productive family time. This is especially true in families

where the parents are incapable of assisting with the homework. As the stress levels increase,

fights begin, which takes away from any quality family time students can spend on school

nights” (P. Kim). By doing all of those assignments’ families can explode from within by not

seeing each other. When children get into more advanced classes some parents are not able to

help and they are not able to see their kids anymore. The work requires some to stay after school,

the student will be in their room all day finishing a hard assignment, or the child might be around

but not paying attention to anyone else while they focus on the work given. Too many families

are being split up because of stress from the parent’s side and the children's side. If some stress

was to be removed on both sides more families could stay intact. If all or most of these kids'

stress was removed by not doing as much homework it would be safe to say depression and

anxiety in kids would drop a considerable amount. The average child does not have much stress

in their life but when homework becomes an unreasonable amount to handle stress will slowly

rise until the student breaks and burns out. A big shift in homework now is online and online

homework.

In this time of crisis most of our classes have switched to an online setting. Some

students like it and others not so much. This could be more popular in the future with technology

becoming more and more stressed. Homework is becoming more digital and graduation rates are
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becoming better throughout the years. “Between 2011 and 2017, the U.S. graduation rate rose to

an all-time high of 85 percent from 79 percent” (Loewenburg). By students having more freedom

and doing more work online students are graduating at an all-time high. In the United States

graduation rates have never been this high before. This is also the time when online classes and

online homework is becoming the most relevant. This is when a student's time management and

organization skills come prevalent. A student needs to learn more professional skills in order to

complete online homework and classes. This work is almost done exclusively at home so time

management is crucial to learn.

Homework has their positives; this activity is not only a negative experience. If used in

the right way homework can be a great experience as long as it is not too much and the right

things are being studied. One of the most important things homework can teach is time

management (Lg). Time management and organization is becoming important in this busy world.

People are doing more things than ever before and if people want to continue to grow and live

their own life, they need to learn how to manage time. Pushing everything off to the last second

does not work in this society. People can get behind on bills or for children their chores. If an

individual is not organized, they can lose important items. Students if they are not organized,

they can lose homework or forget about quizzes and tests. Homework helps a student keep a

tight schedule, so the student will be organized and have time management skills. If students do

not adapt, they will struggle and stress even more. Students can learn better real-world skills if

they are able to conquer those two skills. Almost every job in the world requires some sort of

organization skills. Every competent person in the world has to have time management skills for

their jobs, family, and other activities. Children are able to learn this at an early age with

homework as their responsibility.

Everything with homework is not all black and white. For some there can be great

benefits and others it can be a big hassle. There have been a lot of questions to which grades

should have homework and which ones shouldn’t have homework. This can go along with

school starting times in our area. Popular theories suggest earlier grades should start earlier than

middle and high school students. This can go with homework students who should and shouldn’t

get homework. Since the little kids are starting earlier, they should not receive as much

homework if any. Older grades understand more and need that extra boost of knowledge

sometimes to help study for the test. In earlier grades when children are still developing, adding a

bunch of homework is not the best idea. Going over that ten-minute rule can turn off a kid from

school at such an early age. Elementary school teachers need to be careful not to overwhelm

students. Middle school and high school students can handle more responsibility than elementary

students. However, the ten-minute rule should not be ignored just because they can handle more.

It is a suggestion but students can be incredibly fragile and overwhelmed easily at the early

stages. Even though there is a small benefit some could question is the small benefit worth all of

those health issues and stress.

Homework is sometimes forgotten to be a learning tool for teachers and not just a

punishment. Teachers are able to get feedback about their lesson from the day before. Students

are also capable of giving their own feedback when doing their homework (Cunha). When

teachers are able to see how their students are doing, they can configure their lessons to help

individuals. More one on one time, focusing more on problems that the majority does

understand, and having that extra line of communication can open up more time to help students.

An important thing for a teacher to do is open communication. When a student gets flustered or

confused it is better to catch it as soon as possible. When the problem happens, they might shut
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down, then the student will fall even more behind every day. Teachers need to build a

relationship with all of their students to get the feedback that teachers need. A good relationship

with a teacher can help a student not only with the class they have but others that they are taking.

Advice can be given and different work strategies can be used. Teachers are also very smart

individuals some might even know how to teach the other subject in question. When a teacher

builds a good relationship with a teacher, a student could open up more in other aspects of their

educational career and social skills.

Students can improve themselves over homework not only academically but also into a

functioning adult. “On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that

study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort

and paying more attention in class” (Monitor on Psychology). Students are able to build

friendships and work harder because of their homework. Students will work together and try to

talk to other students to try and understand the homework given. Sometimes the best way to

learn how to do the homework is by talking to someone else who is also trying to do the work.

Building those friendships can go far beyond school over a few assignments. Friendships can

help anyone throughout their life. It might sometimes be rare or uncommon that childhood

friends build a company together and make millions together. But if it is just not being along for

a night or having people over to watch a sports game those are precious memories that anyone

will be happy to share. Those students will never feel alone and those friendships were able to

build over homework. All of these life possibilities could be from helping each other do

homework and building those bonds. Not everyone can control who they hang out with or what

they do as a kid but you can choose study buddies. These buddies can help you learn and become

an overall better person. Homework is not just about school and what you learn it can be a social
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tool or an ice breaker for others. Homework is not just teaching students how to do the work it

can also teach different social skills.

When most people think of homework, they will probably say kids need homework so

they can be smarter. There are a few homework strategies that could be incredibly helpful for

most students. After thinking and reflecting about all of these articles some individuals might

think differently. Not all cases will make a student smarter but it will most likely add stress and

health problems to a student. Homework has positives and negatives just like any decision or

work in this world. Some of the positives are extremely beneficial but the cons are just too

detrimental to a student’s life. The lack of sleep, stress, and possible health issues can hurt a

student's life at such an early age. Not many people are able to see a child’s pain unless you are

the person that is at that moment in time. It is hard on students at such an early age to take on so

much responsibility. Teachers are killing students with all the homework they are giving. Parents

are expecting too much from their child. More time needs to give needs to be dedicated to

children having their own time. Teachers need to understand how much homework they are

giving their students and what it does to their health, time, and day to day lives.
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Works Cited

College-Homework-Help.org. “Who Invented Homework and Why? Top Facts You Should

Know.” College, college-homework-help.org/blog/who-invented-homework-and-why.

Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Cunha, et al. “‘Homework Feedback Is...": Elementary and Middle School Teachers'

Conceptions of Homework Feedback.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 10 Jan. 2018,

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00032/full. Accessed 5 Apr. 2020.

“How Does Homework Affect Students?” Atlas of Science, atlasofscience.org/how-does-

homework-affect-students. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

“Identifying and Addressing Stressors in Your Classroom.” LD@School, 6 June 2018,

www.ldatschool.ca/identifying-addressing-stressors/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2020.

Lg. “20 Pros and Cons of Homework.” Vittana.org, vittana.org/20-pros-and-cons-of-homework.

Accessed 5 Apr. 2020.

Loewenberg, David. "A DIGITAL PATH TO A DIPLOMA: Online credit-recovery classes are a

lifeline--and ripe for abuse." Education Next, vol. 20, no. 1, 2020, p. 50+. Gale In

Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-

com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/A609585141/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=f880f175. Accessed 29 Mar. 2020.

Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association,

www.apa.org/monitor/2016/03/homework. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

P, Kim. “Negative Effects of Homework.” CreditDonkey, CreditDonkey, 8 May 2019,

www.creditdonkey.com/negative-effects-homework.html. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Ryan, Julia. “How Much Homework Do American Kids Do?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media

Company, 20 Sept. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/how-much-

homework-do-american-kids-do/279805/. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Terada, Youki. “What's the Right Amount of Homework?” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational

Foundation, 23 Feb. 2018, www.edutopia.org/article/whats-right-amount-homework.

Accessed 4 Apr. 2020.