Did y0u know the controversy over too much homework has been an issue since the Great Depression? It’s a fact that during the 1930s, the American Child Health Association targeted homework and child labor as the leading killers of children who contracted tuberculosis and heart disease. With homework assigned in excess students have been pushed too far. Teachers don’t know the right kind to give out, students are under too much stress, and their experience as an adolescent is suffering. (Link to fact about the Great Depression)
Harris Cooper, a professor at Duke University and one of the best known researchers on homework, brings up the important barrier that teachers are given little or no direction in creating homework assignments that advance learning. Thus, many teachers do not have the proper fields of experience to designate assignments. Veteran teacher Dorothy Rich said that homework ought to help kids make better sense of the world, but so often it doesn’t. Although teachers blame the confusion on conforming to school board policies, they still disagree on the basic purpose of homework (reviewing or learning new concepts), not to mention the design, the amount, and the question of whether it should be graded or not. Yet, Cooper said that eliminating homework makes no more sense than piling it on, so a happy medium needs to be achieved. (Link to Article)
Managing stress should not be a priority of teenagers experiencing their last years in high school. Although stress can lead to expressions of talent and energy, negative side effects like exhaustion and illness still prevail. Stess happens when there is a severe imbalance between capability and demand, and when a person fails to meet the expected demand, consequences are to come. Managing stress is very important to teenagers because stress is directlly related to health. Students especially struggle with study-burden, homework stress, and periodical examinations. Some organizations provide stress management training to toughen up students. But should students already be trying to battle stress at such a young age? (Link to Article)
It is expected with so much work to be done at home that a student’s social life and interpersonal communication would suffer, but relations within the family are also suffering. Increased tension over homework has come about through negative feedback from parents especially when they take too much control over how to approach homework or when they are most keen for their children to succeed in school. Report author Susan Hallam says, “Parents have the most positive influence when they offer moral support, make appropriate resources available and discuss general issues. They should only actually help with homework when their children specifically ask them to.” Many schools have created homework clubs, where students have access to teachers after school, without the risk of disagreements at home. (Link to Article)
Thus, it seems unreasonable that high school students should suffer with teachers who don’t know how to create assignments, high levels of stress, and a faulty communication process within the home all because of school work done at home. A middle ground between homework overload and banning it all together needs to be found and quickly.
