Have you ever come across a student who has said that the burden of homework has never rattled them? Traditionally, schools always believe in assigning homework as they believe that homework helps students to revise the class lessons and be more productive at home. However, recently one school of thought contradicted this tradition. They believe that homework is not something we should mandate as it does more harm than good.
We can see how students often take homework help to finish their homework instead of doing it themselves. So, homework never guarantees true learning. So, we tried to find ten reasons how homework provides little academic benefit to small students –
- Children Get Little Playtime
As the old saying goes, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” An overwhelming amount of homework only proves this point. The constant pressure of homework restricts them within repetitive homework assignments, thus preventing them from getting sufficient playtime.
Engaging in some kind of outdoor games since childhood help children grow up into fitter individuals. It has also been scientifically proven that play-based learning is the best form of education for small children. One hour of running and playing before sundown makes their muscles flexible and bones stronger. However, with the pressure of homework looming over them, they don’t get the scope to play anymore.
- Interferes with Extracurricular Activities
Many parents plan to engage their children in various extracurricular activities after school hours. For example, some wish to pursue singing or dancing classes, while others are interested in various sports. They can even be a part of their school’s extempore or quiz team. This provides an excellent respite after stressful school hours.
However, if they are always under the pressure of doing homework, they get no time for anything else. The parents worry that their grades will fall and don’t let them sign up for any extracurricular activities. It prevents them from a well-rounded, holistic development, and they tend to become one-dimensional in life.
- Homework Discourages Going Outside
Scientists always emphasise how small children need at least an hour of moderate to intense exercise each day for optimum physical and mental development. In order to do that, students need to go out or hit gyms regularly. But they are forced to prioritise their homework assignments.
Hence, they get stuck indoors and remain deprived of much-needed exercise. Instead, they spend hours calculating complex sums, checking grammatical errors, and reading textbooks. Getting inadequate physical activity for a prolonged period prevents them from developing well-rounded.
- Students Lack Support and Supervision
When students encounter a problem inside the classroom, they can always ask the teachers to help them out. But at home, they lack mentorship and guidance while doing homework. When they cannot find anyone to rely on to clear their doubts, they inevitably keep on making mistakes.
Many students have working parents or are the only child of their parents. As a result, they miss out on necessary guidance while doing the homework. So, they are forced to hire assignment help to avoid humiliation in the classroom the next day. Hence, they fail to learn the subject, and this impacts them during the final assessment.
- Homework Encourages Cheating
When small children are left unsupervised to do their homework, they try to cheat and complete it quickly. But unfortunately, they lack the maturity to understand the ill consequences of cheating and fail to learn anything.
What makes things worse is that some parents help their children to cheat by doing the homework themselves. This may help them fetch more marks, but they never learn anything this way. Moreover, they grow up thinking that cheating is ok and it promotes bad and unethical habits in them.
- Discourages Having Hobbies
Many experts believe that children need to pick some hobbies from childhood. This is a great way to be productive outside academics and helps them understand their passions and dislikes. But that is only possible when they have enough time after school. Since schools bombard them with the insurmountable pressure of assignments, they don’t get the opportunity to pursue any hobby.
- Leads to Wrong Work Culture
Students spend almost 7-8 hours of their day in school. Then, after reaching home, they again have to devote another two-three hours doing homework. This moulds young minds into believing that this is the social norm.
As adults, we often argue that balancing work and life is crucial. Yet, we don’t realise that we are forced to believe this is normal from childhood. So, it’s no surprise that, we continue this tradition later on, and keep checking emails even after clocking out. So, homework makes people more distant from their families.
- Creates Inequality Among Students
Some students come from families with either their parents or an elder sibling to rely on for homework help. Meanwhile, some students need to be self-sufficient to do their homework. This creates a disparity among students.
The students who have someone in their home to help them are lucky since they get continued guidance while doing homework. So, inevitably, their assignments contain lesser mistakes, and they get to score more marks. But unfortunately, the rest of the students suffer from an undue disadvantage and keeps lagging behind their peers.
- Constant Source of Stress and Anxiety
According to a study by Galloway, Connor, and Pope, 56% of students believed that homework is the main reason for stress in their life. Stress is something that can affect people irrespective of age. But, especially in children, it leaves a deep-lying impact, affecting their mental sanity adversely.
So, as much as we say, “Let kids be kids”, the stress of homework doesn’t allow them to act like one. They get exposed to extreme pressure from an early age and fail to enjoy their childhood.
- Solitary Learning isn’t a Good Thing
Homework means revising or learning something alone at home. But most education theorists don’t advocate solitary learning methods. They say that students learn best by being in a peer group through sociocultural learning. Different students voice out their ideas and opinions and also listen to what others have to offer. Thus they can absorb various ideas and refine their own thought process.
But while doing homework at home, they do everything on their own. So they get limited to their own ideas; hence it is never a good idea to do homework alone.
Summing Up:
Whether homework is good or bad will always remain shrouded in controversy. Homework is never all good or bad. Well-planned homework may help students to learn, but it is also true that it never guarantees academic success. Go through these arguments and decide for yourself whether students can get any academic benefit from homework.
Author Bio:
Anne Gill works for a reputed college as a professor. She also freelances for MyAssignmenthelp.co.uk as an assignment writer in his free time.
