Homework: Harmful or Helpful

Is Homework Harmful or Helpful to Students? The student body hates nothing more than finding out that, on top of the work assigned in class, there is an additional 10 questions to be completed at home. The big question that has arisen lately is: Is homework helpful to students, or does it create unnecessary stress? I personally have to say that homework is not helping us students learn anything more. First of all, homework causes students to become stressed out or even depressed. Second of all, it does not expand the student’s learning much. Third of all, too much of it can effect the student’s home life.

Forth of all, doing too much homework can have negative effects on the body. As a student myself, I find that getting homework is somewhat helpful, but only to a certain degree. Many nights, students have pages upon pages of homework to complete and it’s difficult to get it all done within the specified timeframe. Having to deal with homework is very bad when you also have to complete important projects or assignments. This is because, if you don’t get your homework done, you get into trouble and could be penalized, but if you don’t get your assignments done, your grades will go down drastically.

Getting both tasks done at the same time is troubling for most students and most of the time students will just bail on their work and give up because of the amount of stress. There have even been studies that prove that too much homework causes depression in children, especially from the ages of 14 – 19. Many people-especially teachers-will have you believe that homework is essential to a student’s success and helps to expand their learning skills and knowledge. However, this is not entirely true. I am going to use math as an example.

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If a student does all of his or her homework for math, writes the unit test, and passes, yes I suppose they have learned something. However, the information they have learned will only stay fresh in their mind for a short amount of time. Eventually they will completely forget about whatever they learned and will need to be retaught everything next year. So, in truth, they really haven’t learned anything, only memorized what they had to until they no longer needed it. Many topics learned throughout the school year are never even used in real life scenarios.

For example, unless you have decided to take up biology as an occupation, many people will not use any kind of science in their lives. When a student comes home from school, most of the time they almost immediately start on their homework. If there is a great amount of work to be finished for the next day, they will work all through the evening and night trying to finish, usually skipping out on dinner or family time. When that student isn’t present very often and spends little time with the family, that cause problems between them and leads to fighting and weakened relationships.

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If the homework issue is consistent, parents may feel the need to speak to the teacher or even the principal, stating that their child has been neglecting to do much or anything except try to finish work. A few parents may even begin arguing with their child, wondering why they have so much homework and why they can’t spend time with their family for once. Arguing will create more stress for the student and will affect their performance in school. In extreme cases, too much homework can result in negative consequences on the body and mind.

As well as stress, a heavy workload can cause everything from mild to strong body pains, to mental health issues, to physical inactivity, to sleep loss. If there is only a half hour or so of homework to be completed then it isn’t a huge concern. Although, oftentimes there is more than that and it has negative effects. Leaning over a desk for a long amount of time can cause back, neck, hand and joint pains that could last for days. If the subject being worked on involves a lot of thinking and brainwork, the student can suffer from headaches and dizziness.

If the student is constantly sitting and doing work, they probably aren’t getting much physical activity and that could lead to obesity or sometimes malnutrition if they are skipping supper to finish. The most common negative effect of too much homework is mainly stress and lack of sleep. This happens because the child is worried that they need to complete everything or else the teacher will penalize them, so they stay up all night perfecting the assignment or task.

There are an endless amount of reasons for why homework is bad for students, and there are many reasons to counter this argument. If you choose to believe the latter, then that is your choice; but think about this: Is homework really so important to the world that the health and wellbeing of students has to be put into jeopardy? Children don’t need stress, family issues, and constant torment at this time. The issue really isn’t worth ruining our youth’s short amount of time to be carefree and have fun before they have to face the harsh reality of adulthood.

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