6 reasons why homework is useless and even harmful

In the United States, obligatory meetings with teachers are held: parents come to school, get acquainted with teachers, see what and how. At one of these meetings, Brandy, who teaches second-graders, handed out notes to parents with killer information: there will be no homework until the end of the year. At home, you only need to finish what the student did not have time to finish in class. The teacher suggested that parents use the free time to good use: have family dinners, read books with the whole family, walk more on the street and go to bed earlier.

The mother of one of the students took a picture of the note.

Many people liked the idea, judging by the huge number of likes and shares.

Indeed, homework is not needed. That's why.

1. Homework is harmful to health

All parents are talking about this: the constantly growing academic load and stress testing are hitting the health of children.

Due to the high workload, children sleep less. They sit up late over their textbooks and worry about grades, and they end up having trouble sleeping. …
We have almost no healthy schoolchildren. Myopia, gastritis, chronic fatigue, posture disorders - the child probably has some of this.

So maybe spit on this homework and grades and do something more rewarding?

2. Homework takes time away

Children today are more busy than ever, says Peter Gray, a professor at Boston College. They spend too much time at school, then they run to the tutors, on the way back they turn into the section. The schedule is strictly regulated, every hour is taken into account.

Children learn languages, mathematics, programming. But they have no time to learn how to live.

Psychologist Harris Cooper conducted research that proved that homework is not very effective: too much information a child will not learn. Kids need no more than 20 minutes of extra classes, older ones need an hour and a half. …

For comparison: according to our sanitary rules, an hour and a half is the volume for the second class. Graduates can spend three and a half hours on lessons. Almost half a day after school. And when to live?

3. Homework does not affect academic performance

Alfie Cohn, one of the top critics of education, wrote Homework Myths in 2006. In it, he said that for younger students there is no connection between the amount of homework and academic achievement. In high school, the connection is so weak that it almost disappears when more accurate measurement methods are used in research. …

Not everyone agrees with this. Tom Sherrington, a teacher and advocate of homework practice, has come to the conclusion that in elementary school there is really little use for homework, but when students are over 11 years old, lessons can help them achieve brilliant results. …

The long-term benefits of canceling homework are not really measurable. Research Center TMISS found out how much time schoolchildren spend on homework in different countries. So, in the fourth grade, only 7% of students do not do their homework. … A small figure for analysis.

4. Homework teaches nothing

School education is completely out of touch with life. After many years of studying English, graduates cannot connect two words, they have no idea in which hemisphere they are resting, they firmly believe in the power of homeopathy. Homework continues the trend: they boggle their heads with facts that kids can't apply.

As a student, I worked as a tutor, helped schoolchildren improve their Russian language. Initially, children could not inflect the simplest noun "door". There was only fear in his eyes: now they would give an assessment. Half of each lesson had to be devoted to the topic "Russian in everyday life", to prove that we talk like that. For each case, I came up with a sentence. Not the same as in the textbook, but as in life: "Quiet, you will pinch the cat's tail by the door!" When the children understood that all school knowledge is our world, grades improved dramatically and my help was no longer needed.

Think back to how you studied and compare the process to lessons in a Swiss school. If homework helped close the gap between class and life, it would be good. But this is not the case.

5. Homework kills the desire to learn

To “do homework” still means either to solve the school's examples, or to read a few paragraphs. In fact, teachers shove into the house what they did not have time to tell from call to call. It's so depressing that homework becomes a chore.

Worse than this boredom are only "creative" tasks, which boil down to drawings and PowerPoint presentations. Fresh work history:

Colleagues in the first grade gave the child a task: to draw a sad flying starling. If this task was given to me, I would have done it like this. In my version, the starling does not fly away, but leaves, because this is more tragic. # vzakat # yachartist

A post shared by Kess (@chilligo) on Oct 17, 2016 at 10:11 am PDT

In the assignment about the starling, it was also necessary to explain the reasons for his sadness. I doubt that the starlings are really worried to tears because of the upcoming vacation and will miss the birches, but that was exactly how I had to answer.

That is, at home, the child should be bored or do stupid things instead of talking with friends, walking and playing sports. And who after that will love to learn?

6. Homework spoils relationships with parents

Many parents do homework with their children and for the children. It turns out so-so.

The school curriculum has changed, the knowledge of the parents is outdated.
Many parents themselves do not remember simple examples from the school curriculum and try to complete assignments from the point of view of an adult. Children can't do that.
Parents are not educators. They did not learn to explain the material, to present it correctly and to check it. Often such training is worse than none.
Homework is a constant conflict. Children do not want to do it, parents do not know how to motivate, joint activities lead to a dead end, and all this results in quarrels.

What's good about homework

The problem is not homework or quantity. And the fact that in finished form, as it is now, it is absolutely useless, it only destroys time and health. You can get results from homework if you rethink your approach to it.

Homework is done in a comfortable environment, so at home you can find the answer to a difficult question and understand the material. If, of course, you have the time and energy for this.

If you develop an individual homework assignment for each student, then the student will be able to pull up topics that are not given to him and develop strengths. …

Brandy Young thinks so:

The students work all day. There are more important things to do at home that also need to be learned. You need to develop in different areas, what's the point of coming home and sticking to your notebooks?

Do you think you need homework?