homework is not a waste of time debate

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Do kids need homework, october 30, 2017.

TFK asked two experts to weigh in on homework.

Janine Bempechat teaches human development and psychology at Wheelock College, in Massachusetts. Below, she explains why homework serves an important purpose for students of all ages.

Etta Kralovec teaches education at the University of Arizona. She is also a coauthor of the book The End of Homework. Here, she argues that homework is a waste of time.

By Janine Bempechat

Particularly for elementary school, homework has become a debated issue. That is because studies show that doing homework does not necessarily improve younger students’ grades.

Still, many teachers and parents are in favor of homework in elementary school. They view it as a way for kids to review what they are learning in school. They also see it as a way for students to develop the learning habits and study skills they will need later on. Homework helps you practice how to plan your time and manage distractions. It teaches you to keep trying when learning becomes difficult.

Research shows that homework pays off. Students who put effort into their homework are better at managing their time. When they begin middle school and high school, they are more positive about learning than other students. They also do much better in school.

This payoff may not appear during the elementary school years. But that doesn’t mean homework should be abandoned. Instead, educators should focus on designing high-quality, enjoyable homework. It should be challenging in the best sense of the word.

By Etta kralovec

I hated homework when I was in elementary school. And I hated it even more as a parent. I think my kids and I argued more about homework than about anything else.

Now that I’m an educator, I spend a lot of time in schools. When it comes to homework, there is still a lot of disagreement. And it’s not just students who are unhappy. Many teachers and parents tell me they think homework is a waste of time. I couldn’t agree more.

Homework has been around about as long as there have been schools. You may be surprised to know that it was not always popular. In 1905, California banned homework for students under 15. In the 1920s, doctors formed a group called Physicians Against Homework. They said homework kept kids inside. This prevented them from getting exercise and fresh air. More recently, researchers at Stanford University found that it causes considerable stress in students’ lives.

My colleagues and I have put together healthy homework guidelines. We hope these will spark conversation between teachers, parents, and students. We hope they will eventually lead to common-sense solutions.

Paired Text

The Homework Debate

In July 2017, families in Marion County, Florida, got some surprising news. “Traditional homework as we know it will disappear, at least for elementary students,” Heidi Maier said in a voice message to parents. Maier is the school superintendent. “Instead,…

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January 18, 2024

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Q&A: Does homework still have value? An education expert weighs in

by Vicky Hallett, Johns Hopkins University

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein, co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools, which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program.

For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions.

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education.

By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas.

To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way.

Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools, a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on 'no homework' policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level . "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement. However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school .

One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Provided by Johns Hopkins University

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TEACHING TECHNIQUES

Homework: Useful Teaching Tool or Waste of Time?

• May 18, 2021

• Helpful or harmful?

How is homework helpful?

• Does homework promote learning?

Downsides of homework

• Should students have homework?
• Stress free homework tips

Homework. How can one little word cause so much trouble? Almost all schools require homework , but should they? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of homework, plus what the research says you should really be doing after school. 

As a pupil in the UK, you will without a doubt encounter homework during your school years. Some kids love it, others… not so much! Many parents struggle to make their child complete their homework and to fit it into their family’s busy schedule, and many kids and teens find homework quite boring. But let’s put our feelings about homework to the side, and focus on a more important question – is homework really necessary?

Is homework helpful or harmful?

Well, it depends. There’s loads of debate about homework and whether or not it helps you learn. Researchers have been trying to find the answer to this question since your parents were in school!

It all comes down to the purpose of the homework and the age of the student, as well as their interest in the topic at hand. 

For secondary students, homework is useful as a "short and focused intervention .” That means something like a research project that you complete at home. 💻

For primary students, homework can help reinforce skills students are learning in school. It makes sense to practice spelling words at home or working on reading skills , for example. 

How does homework promote learning?

One way homework can promote learning is by giving older students a chance to read more content than can be covered in class. For example, a Literature student might read a couple of chapters of a novel at home and then spend the class time discussing its themes with peers. This saves classroom time for the part of learning that’s done with other students.

Research shows that the best homework is closely linked to what you’re learning in the classroom. It should expand your learning and always be something you can complete independently. ✔️

It goes without saying that homework takes time. The more homework you have, the less time you can spend outside or relax. 

Homework leaves less time for creative activities that are also very important for brain growth. 🧠

Studies show very little difference in test scores between students who spend lots of time on homework and students who do less homework. For primary school students especially, not many benefits have been found. 

So, should students have homework?

In an ideal world, primary students would not have homework. And secondary students would only have short-term homework assignments with a very specific goal, like a book report or a science project. 

Since students often do have homework, it shouldn’t take much time - the benefits are the same for a few minutes and a few hours of homework!

Stress-free homework tips 

At the end of the day, there may be very little you can do right away about your homework situation. If your teacher assigns it, it must get done – but here are a few tips to make it less stressful:

• It’s a great idea for you to be independent with planning and managing your work time rather than being hounded into starting your homework by your parents. As you get older, it’s up to you to manage yourself – maybe you’d prefer to divide the work up into manageable chunks, for example tackling one subject before dinner and another one after.
• You should have a distraction-free space to work at home. Turn off the television, and keep electronics out of sight to make it easier to stay focused.
• If you’ve had a long school day, it’s a great idea to take some free time after school before starting your homework. You may need a chance to relax and regroup before jumping right into homework. 
• If you find yourself struggling with your workload, you should have a chat with your teacher or speak to your parents about it. Homework should closely follow the in-class learning and shouldn’t take more than an hour.

Homework help with GoStudent

If you’re struggling to manage your homework, a GoStudent tutor can help. Our experienced, friendly tutors have a deep understanding of the content they teach, and your tutor can give you the one-on-one support you need to get back on track and be able to finish that homework in no time! 🚀

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We’ve all been there. Your child comes home from school. You eagerly await hearing about his or her day. Who did he sit by at lunch? How did her presentation go? What made him laugh today? And then they say it:

“I have homework tonight.”

Thud . Both your and your child’s shoulders sink in defeat. You dread the night to come, anticipating the struggles: over just getting started with the worksheet; over understanding the concepts or what is being asked; over how to help him “show his work” even when he knows he got the right answer in his head. You hope it can be completed before a crazy hour, but know it likely won’t given the backdrop of sports practices, making dinner, showers, and maybe, just maybe, a few moments of downtime.

Because of these dynamics, homework can have the unintended consequence of creating tension at home and  between the home and the school. Parents feel uncertainty about how to best support their children as they complete their assignments. The parent/child relationship is reduced to one of enforcement rather than collaboration. Further, parents at times resent giving up a large portion of the finite hours they have with their kids each evening. In this vein, homework–rather than creating a bridge between the school and home–ironically alienates students and families from one another, classrooms, and schools.

In recent years, several schools and school districts across the nation have acknowledged the stress that homework places on students and families, and have debated its function and benefits in their curriculum. Research on the effectiveness of homework is murky. Academic studies on its value have shown a spectrum of results spanning conclusions that homework is the key to academic success to those saying homework is a waste of student time that damages home life.

Some districts, seeing the issue only in binary terms, have chosen to place a blanket moratorium on homework. But, this reaction may be resulting in throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Rather than simply questioning whether teachers should assign homework, maybe schools and districts should ask: What if homework were different?

Shifting the Debate: Homework as a Tool for Inclusion and Family Engagement

Though studies on homework show contradictory results, the research on family engagement in education is clear: involving families in students’ learning increases academic achievement and student success for all students, regardless of race, socioeconomic background, or gender.

So, what if homework were a tool for both advancing student understanding and  getting families involved and excited about learning, rather than a source of frustration and exclusion? Re-framing how schools approach homework has the potential to make it both more meaningful and more effective. Pivoting the intention of homework to focus on ways to engage families in learning can expand student understanding in a powerful way.

Key Components of Family Engaged Homework

Family engaged homework is a way for teachers to extend or reinforce learning from the classroom, similar to the best intentions of traditional homework, but with some key shifts. Family engaged homework finds ways to involve families in active learning. It invites students and their families to create, collaborate, and think critically about the learning from school, while helping students bridge their classroom to the outside world.

With family engaged homework, it is important to note that less is often more . By assigning students limited work, families can focus their time and effort on the specific task, decreasing frustration while increasing student understanding.  This improvement results from focusing on the process  of learning, rather than the product to be turned in .

Family engaged homework can be bigger than one specific standard or skill. Students and families are empowered when they are given the freedom to work alongside one another and think beyond the confines of a worksheet or task. When students do family engaged homework, teachers can encourage a high-level of thinking on assignments. When students work with a family partner, they can debate, create, and connect. While there is still a need for students to practice their math facts and other rote skills, teachers can be creative with other elements of learning.

Family engaged homework also means that not all assignments need to be turned in as proof of completion. The value in family engaged homework is creating a structure for learning that is ongoing. (For teachers concerned that not everyone will do their homework, they are probably right! But even students who couldn’t make the homework happen will gain a lot of value from their peers’ learning conversations the next day.)

Homework Could Be: A Way to Engage Students in Active Learning

Family engaged homework invites families into learning, and creates opportunities for students to apply what they are studying in the classroom. Extending the learning ecosystem beyond the classroom to the home and community leads to increased engagement, reinforces relevancy, and brings multiple learning supports from parents, siblings, and others. The “asks” of family engaged homework are a form of active and applied learning.

While classrooms have dedicated instructional resources and a limited ability to provide real-life experiences, family engaged homework can bridge the lessons of the classroom to the everyday life of families. Families provide a small adult to child ratio, and since they are not confined to the walls and routines of a classroom, they can provide greater access to experiences. These experiences can be as simple as a trip to the grocery store or a walk around the neighborhood.

Part two of this article can be found here . 

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Homework is a waste of time. (Junior)

We all hate homework, but is it really important that we do it? Is doing homework good for us or is it simply a waste of time? This debate sets out the arguments on both sides.

Homework is an assignment that students are given to do at home. It might be a continuation of classwork or a new piece of work. It may also be preparation for the next class. The amount of homework school students get varies a lot not only from country to country, or from school to school, but often from day to day. For most the amount of time spent on homework gets longer as we go through our school lives. At the start of primary school we get almost no homework but it is often several hours a day by the time we finish secondary school.

The most important thing in this debate is not so much how much time is spent on homework but whether that time is wasted. If it is time well spent then having a lot of homework to do may not be a bad thing. The debate should therefore consider what else school children would do with that time. Another angle would be to look at whether school could replace homework with something that makes better use of time. For example in Britain the education secretary (the member of the government who controls education across the whole country) wants schools to scrap homework and instead have longer days in school. 

When out of school we should have time to ourselves

Time is valuable. We all need some time to ourselves. School already takes up a lot of time and it is necessary to have time which does not involve concentrating on learning. Education is not the only important activity in everyone’s day; physical activity, play, and time with family are just as important as all teach life skills just in different ways. The internet makes it possible to be learning at home, there are even many computer games that help with learning. Homework clashes with these other activities. It can damage family relationships as it means parents have to try and make their children do their homework.

We should expect to get a certain amount of homework per day and build other activities around the homework. Homework can be a useful part of time with family as it provides a chance for parents and other relatives to take part in schooling. 

Homework takes up class time

Homework does not only take up time doing the homework at home but also takes up time in class. First there is the time that the teacher takes when explaining the task. Then more time is taken going through the homework when it is done and marked. This time could be better spent engaging with the class to find out what they do and don’t understand. The answer to this is to have more time in class rather than boring homework.

When homework does take up time in class it is helpful for learning. And when it does not then it does not harm the classwork. Homework aids classwork by providing a space for those who have not finished the work to catch up and by helping us to remember what we did in class.

Homework wastes teachers time

We are not the only ones who take a lot of time on homework, our teachers do as well. The teacher needs to design the homework, explain it, mark each piece individually, and tell everyone what they got right and wrong. If all this is not done then the homework loses its value as we need to be told individually what our mistakes are to be able to learn from homework. Teachers could as easily use the classwork to find out who knows what they are doing and who are making mistakes and it would save them time.

Teachers will need to mark and go through work whether it is classwork or homework. It is better that the teacher should spend their time in class teaching so leaving practising the methods taught to homework. 

Homework puts students off learning

Especially if we get too much homework it can take the enjoyment out of learning. No matter how engaging the teacher is in class homework will almost certainly be stressful, boring and tiring. It is simply much harder to make homework engaging and interesting as it is often done on our own. We know that there is no direct link between how much homework is set and grades. Studies done on this come to different conclusions so teachers should only set homework when they are sure it is needed. When we only get homework occasionally we will consider that piece more important and a better use of time. 

Whether homework puts us off learning will always depend on what the homework we are given is. Tasks that involve no interaction, or are not engaging will discourage learning. But homework could also mean reading an interesting book, having to find something out, create something, or doing a task with family. Homework can be as varied as classwork and just as interesting.

Points Against

Homework teaches us to learn on our own.

The main aim of education is to prepare us for the rest of lives. Homework is teaching us a key skill that we will need in the future. When we do homework we are learning to work on our own, the discipline to get the work done without the teacher’s prompting, and when we come up against difficulties we learn how to overcome them without our teacher’s help. Millions of people work for themselves (self-employed), or work from home, they are using exactly the same skills doing homework teaches us. This is not a waste of time. 

Most homework is simply fulfilling a task that has already been explained so not truly teaching you to work on your own. Working on your own means setting your own targets, and working out how to overcome obstacles. 

Doing our homework means we are taking responsibility for ourselves

We are the ones who gain from learning so we should take responsibility for some of our own learning. We can take responsibility by doing homework. When we don’t do our homework we are the ones who suffer; we don’t get good marks and don’t learn as much. We also lose out in other ways as taking responsibility means learning how to manage our time and how to do the things that are most important first rather than the things we most enjoy like playing. Homework then does not waste time; it is part of managing it.

The same kind of responsibility is given to us no matter the kind of work. When given classwork we are responsible for completing it rather than playing around. The only difference at home is that it is our parents telling us to work not our teachers.

Homework is needed to finish classwork.

We should think of homework as being a continuation of our classwork. Not everyone in the class works at the same rate so it is necessary for teachers to give anyone who is falling behind the chance to catch up. If this was done in class those who are faster would have nothing to do during this time, which would be a real waste of time. Homework then allows those who are behind to take as long as they need to catch up with the rest of the class.

Teachers should not set classwork expecting that the class will have to finish that classwork as homework. Students who are falling behind should receive more attention from the teacher during class to make sure that all the members of the class can move at the same speed.

Homework makes sure we remember what we have learnt

One way we learn is by repetition, another is by doing things, when doing homework we learn in both of these ways. When we are taught a method at school, such as how to do a type of sum, then we need to practice using that method to make sure we know how to so that we can remember it. If we just learn the method and don’t practice it we will soon forget how we do it.

We don’t spend all of class time learning new methods so there should be time in class to practice any new method that is taught. Once some repetition has been done in class how much more do we really need at home? If we have not successfully learnt the method in the class then we will be simply repeating the mistake.

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