Parents who are reflective and awake wonder why their kids never want to go to school. If they really looked closely, they would see the truth: Kids are too stressed!

Parents complain after a long day that all they all they want to do is relax. What about the kids? They want to relax too. Kids want to be able to come home from school and practice and relax as well, but, sadly, they can’t. Students have to worry about homework and, depending on the child’s age and how long it takes them to learn the material, the parent may have to work with the student also. So, basically, no one gets a break and everyone is stressed.

Homework has always – it seems – been an important and much-debated topic.  In Richard W. Herrig’s 2011 report, “Homework Research Gives Insight,” he studies and details the history of homework and its effectiveness.  Herrig reports that, in the 1930’s, homework was equated to child labor.  In fact, he notes that, “The nation saw a shift towards homework limitation policies as the public’s attitude that homework was harmful to childhood development fueled the progressive education movement into the 1930’s.”  He adds that, “In 1930, the American Child Health Association, coupled homework with child labor as the ‘chief causes of the high death and morbidity rates from tuberculosis and heart disease among adolescents.’”

While it is not fair to equate homework to child labor, this does represent the difficult nature of homework and the negative impact it has on kids.

A more relevant study, conducted by Alfie Kohn , found that the negative effects of homework include “children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities, and possible loss of interest in learning.”

I can attest to the negative effects of homework – including every single effect Kohn mentions.  Kohn also states that “…there is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school.  For younger students, in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement.”  When a child in second grade gets home from working all day in class, they doesn’t want to come and spend another 30 minutes or longer on homework. At that age, work is not their top priority; they will rush and try to complete the work without the complete understanding, just to get their free time they’ve been waiting for all day.

While Kohn’s study did not find that relation between middle schools and high schools with just those studies, when higher test were applied they showed in high school that “there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement.” Khon does state that “…no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.”  When Kohn says many people believe that homework builds good character, I beg to differ. From a student’s perspective, homework is just another piece of paper that deprives us from having fun and enjoying our freedom.

There are many things schools could do about homework to make it easier for students teachers. A & B days could be an opportunity for students to have an extra day to do homework. Like A & B days, there could be days or weeks where students are assigned homework from only one or two classes, but of course, that’s not an excuse for a teacher to give a larger amount of homework. Lastly, schools could work on constructing later high school start times, like Dr. Starr, the superintendent of MCPS. This will allow students to have more time to complete their work, especially the students who have extracurricular activities after school.