Homework wars

Many parents in these days are concerns about the amount of homework that teachers give to their children. According to the article “The Homework debate” that recently was published by The Washington Post “a new survey shows that parents and teachers don’t always agree on why homework is assigned” (Strauss, 2009, para.3). It’s a debate, because for one part teachers say that homework is very important in the learning process, and help children to develop study skills. However parents believe that teachers give so much homework to their kids because they don’t have time to cover the entire subject in school.

On the other hand, there is no evidence that homework increases academic achievement in the early school years. It’s a serious problem because this goes beyond the war that teachers and parents had, this affect children on many levels. We have to ask, “What did they have to give up, to gain these benefits?” Working on homework more than two hours a day may force them to give up a lot of informal learning opportunities, such practicing a musical instrument, or building an athletic skill. However research shows that homework is helpful and increased achievement is associated in the later grades. (Hetherington, 2005).

Many people disagree with the theory that homework really helps kids; for example Etta Kralovec and political economist John Buell, who co-authored the book “The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning”. They are saying, “We have no one to blame but ourselves when we find that national discourse on homework has embraced extreme position” (Gavel,2000). I think their position is very extreme, because many studies have found that a little bit of homework really works.

In my country works if it is an opportunity to practice skills or reinforce information learned very recently, especially in younger grades. In my experience, that helped me a lot to understand the classes more easily. Also it’s useful for children’s developmental capacity to remain focused on a task.

I think that homework cannot be use to introduce new material or difficult tasks. Additionally, it should never be used just to fill time. Also it’s really important to teach children how they can plan large projects, how to discover information on their own, and how to set aside time for important work.

They also need time to practice skills or reinforce information learned in school. If parents and educators keep these goals in mind, then the work that students take home can be valuable to their education.

Gavel, D. (2000). “Homework wars provoke debate: Experts face off over importance of after-school assignment”. The Harvard University Gazette. Retrieved on July 20, 2009, from: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2009.28/homework.html

Hetherington, R. (2005). “Homework: some is good, more is better”. Educational Leadership. Retrieved on July 17, 2009, from: http://www.aboutkidsheatlh.ca/News/Homework-some-is-goodmore-is-not-better.aspx?articleID=8110&categoryID=news-poh2

Strauss, V. (2009). “The Homework Debate”. The Washington Post. Retrieved on July 14, 2009, from: http://washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR22009012602012_pf.html