Teachers start assigning homework as early as first grade. Easy enough, you crank it out in about 30 minutes and move on with your night. But the workload increases every year you progress, leading to an average of 2.7 hours of homework per night for high schoolers, according to the Three Penny Press. Is all of this extra work done outside of school improving students’ learning abilities, or is it making them comprehend less information?
Homework is a huge stresser for many students around the country. According to a Stanford study, 56% of the students polled considered homework a primary source of stress, 43% viewed tests as a primary stressor and 33% said the pressure to get good grades was a primary source of stress. For some students, excessive and repetitive homework can cause a loss of motivation and creativity, limiting their creative expression, therefore hindering their learning abilities.
On the other hand, homework can help students retain the information taught to them during class by giving them work to do on their own. According to The Association for Talent Development, students typically retain about 50% of what they hear and learn in class, and having work to do on their own increases the retention rate. Homework also teaches students valuable life skills such as time management, self-discipline, problem solving skills, independence and good study habits.
There’s no correct answer to this debate of whether homework is necessary or not. However, teachers and students can achieve the benefits of homework without stressing their students out too much. To maximize retention while not putting too much stress on students, teachers can limit the amount of homework they assign to students each night, and prioritize what they need the students to know the most of while also considering the amount of classes the students have to balance on top of theirs. That means the students can still learn and comprehend the information taught in class while also learning helpful life skills and independence but not getting too stressed or burnt out.
