How Students Could Achieve More By Doing Less

“The dog ate my homework”; such a cliché, no teacher would fall for that one. These days, students have been getting more creative and realistic with their attempts to avoid doing homework. “I was ill on the weekend”, “my sister took mine accidentally”, “my Wi-Fi was down so I couldn’t research anything”, “I left it at my grandparents’ house, but I swear I’ve done it”. The idea that students are so reluctant to do their homework makes me wonder what it would be like if their homework were fully optional.

The overall idea of homework is that students are able to practice the material they have been shown in the lesson to reinforce their knowledge and understanding. It is also used for preparation for future lessons or tests. Seemingly, the concept makes sense and ensures that the students and teachers can make the most of the lesson time. However, under the surface of it all, this stresses out the students. Most of the time, teachers frequently give out homework without knowing what other homework they already have from other subjects. This sometimes results in them having 6 or 7 assessments due in the next week.

There are many benefits of non-value homework, such as students being given more time to rest from schoolwork. Teenagers would gain, on average, 15 hours of their week to spend doing something productive that they enjoy. Over 70% of students admitted that they found homework “stressful” and “boring”, while over 60% of parents consider Homework as being a main and frequent cause of family disputes. This could all change just by scrapping the compulsory idea of homework.

Often, students stay up really late into the night to finish their work and don’t eat well. This makes them unfit for a whole week of work and working while tired usually means they have made many mistakes, and the work is completed poorly both in and out of school. If students want to do work, then they will do it to the best of their abilities; however, if they have no motivation, then they may as well not do it at all. Students being able to get sufficient rest and a good diet would allow for more work done in lessons while making use of the time they have.

There are hardly any negative effects of this system, other than that learning may take longer. I do, however, believe that this is worth the extra time spent in school because there would be a drastic increase in the quality of work, leading the students to achieve higher grades. Exceptions to compulsory homework are the completion of work started in a lesson or revision for exams. Other homework, such as practising exam questions, should be completed in school or set as optional homework.

So, should schools start attempting the no-value homework rule? Definitely, I would strongly recommend that schools try it to see what results they get from their students. If you were to give adults the option to work from home, many would say no purely based on the fact that they want to keep their home life and work life separate. Why not give school students the option?