The homework debate for school aged children: does homework really help children, or does it do more harm than good

The Problem of Homework School It is difficult to say whether homework definitely does harm or vice versa is absolutely helpful for school students while obtaining their basic education. There are different points of view on this topic that’s why the most convenient way of solving the issue is to make homework dependable on pupils’ age and make homework activities suitable and interesting so that it wouldn’t be a kind of burden for pupils. Because the point is that homework isn’t completely harmful or helpful, so it is a bad idea to cancel homework activities better decision is to change the approach of homework assignments.
Attitude towards homework has always been contradictory, teachers and parents have been arguing whether children need homework or not, because from one point of view homework disciplines pupils and helps to fix the material obtained during the classes. Historical researches show that for the last 100 years most parents have stood on the position that homework is a good thing and their children need it in order to become more patient and occupied after the classes (Gill and Schlossman 2004). The claim is quite reasonable, because it is important for parents to know that their children are occupied and have some obligations to do after their classes, so they know how to plan their time. But still the argument that after their classes children are already tired and they want to spend some time apart from studying also makes sense. Even though researches claim that homework increases pupils’ achievements in education (Murphy and Decker 1989) still it is easy to notice that with the development of this world and advancement of informational level these achievements that pupils gain from homework can finally turn into harm. The point is that children get so much knowledge at school that homework becomes overwhelming and instead of bringing knowledge it turns pupils away from desire to get knowledge. The most harmful thing is that frequently homework isn’t an interesting kind of activity, so pupils don’t feel involved into the process of gaining knowledge but get irritated from doing this homework and acquiring new information. Considering such a controversial situation of homework it is impossible to define homework as something good or bad, so probably it can become a reason to look at the issue from another point of view. Some researchers claim that homework cannot be considered as play, but the only way homework can be implemented through is academic activities (Corno 2000), which aren’t really differentiated from what children do at school every day for 8 hours. In order to combine pleasure children can get from studying and reduce harmful influence of homework it is better to reform the kinds of homework activities and make them less academic and more entertaining.
Even though there is a heated discussion around the issue of homework in schools still it means that it is impossible to say whether homework is good or bad thing. That’s why the best solution for this problem is to make homework interesting and entertaining for students so they could fixate the acquired knowledge without being overwhelmed with school assignments.
References
Corno, L. (2000). Looking at Homework Differently. The Elementary School Journal, 100, 529-548.
Gill, B. P., and Schlossman, S. L. (2004). Villain or Savior? The American Discourse on Homework, 1850-2003. Theory into Practice, 43, 174-181.
Murphy, J., and Decker, K. (1989). Teachers Use of Homework in High Schools. The Journal of Educational Research, 82, 261-269.