Why Schools Shouldn T Have Homework Essay

Schools Shouldn’t Have Homework

Ring! The bell has rung letting you know school is finally over. You slowly trudge to your locker to get all the homework and textbooks you’ll need. Once again your teachers have piled you with lots of homework that you know will take you hours to do. Every single school day, hundreds of schools across the country assign homework every night. This leads to hours of work after school that many students just don’t want to do. Many parents and schools think homework is helpful. However, this may not be the case. Schools should not assign homework because students need time to relax, and too much homework may cause health problems.

Students are getting less and less time throughout the years to just relax after school. They

are getting a lot more homework, so it’s harder to find time to just kick back and relax. Instead of getting time to themselves after school, the find themselves sitting at a desk frustrated. Teachers are also noticing the increase of homework: “According to Theresa Bennett, a language arts resource teacher in the Caesar Rodey School District in Wyoming DE, students have more homework today than they had 20 years ago, especially elementary school students” (Koup-Larsen). Since students are getting more hours of homework, this means more hours hitting the books. This increase in homework means that students are spending more time on homework than people in the last 20 years have. The time used to do homework could be used for free time. Some local child experts say, “But it’s also important to have time to just sit back and relax” (Hong). Since it’s important that kids get that time to relax, why don’t we give them that? Students spend several hours working on homework when they could be doing more beneficial things like working on a hobby. If kids are given time to just sit back and relax, when they get back to work they’ll feel more refreshed and have a clearer mind to work. Students not having time to themselves might end up causing health problems.
When students get piled with homework it could lead to health problems.

These health issues could end up making students sick from being too overworked from school, they have to take time to recover. This recovery takes time away from learning. According to Denise Pope a researcher, “Too much homework can negatively affect kids by increasing stress and sleep deprivation generally leaving less time for family, friends, and activities”(Graham). Since stress and sleep deprivation are problems that could lead to bigger problems, why don’t we get rid of the things causing these problems? Being sleep deprived could lead to students not being able to concentrate or stay away in class because they stayed up so late working on homework. Stress is also a problem because having too much stress could lead to more serious and dangerous issues such as depression. One statistic says, “90% of high school students I speak with say they are under great stress” (Gottlieb). This shows that thousands of students across the country are under way too much stress. Having too much stress can be bad for them, endangering their health and well-being. This is why it is absolutely important that we don’t load students up with too much

homework.
However, many people think that homework will help students get higher grades and do better on standardized tests. Even though it makes a lot of sense, it’s not true. Homework doesn’t usually help with grades and tests like everyone things it does. All homework does is force students to do something that leaves students and parents tired and angry. According to Alfie Kohn, a famous author of “The Homework Myth” said, “Some studies do find a relationship between homework and test scores but it tends to be small” (Is Homework Bad?) This shows that there is no real need for homework, it doesn’t really do much to help students as Kohn has shown? Why do we still have homework then? All we’re doing is making students less and less interested in school, which is something they should be excited about.
Overall, schools shouldn’t give homework to students. Having no homework gives students free time after school, which is a good time to refresh and relax after a hard day’s work. It also helps get rid of things like stress and sleep deprivation. Homework doesn’t even help the way we want it to. Why are we giving students homework when it’s so obvious we shouldn’t? Next time you’re piled with homework ask your teachers to look at all the reasons why we shouldn’t have homework. Maybe next time when you hear the bell ring at the end of the day, it means school is actually ending.