debate on homework should be abolished in favour

Debate on Homework Should be Abolished [In Favour and Against]

Homework, a task students complete outside of school hours, sparks a widespread debate. Many argue it should be abolished. Today, with evolving educational methods, the relevance of homework is a hot topic. Its impact on students’ well-being and learning experience is under scrutiny.

Arguments in Favour Of Homework Should be Abolished

Argument 1: positive effects of abolishing homework on student mental health.

Homework can sometimes feel like a never-ending cycle of stress and pressure for students. Imagine a world where students could focus on learning in the classroom without the looming burden of homework hanging over their heads. Abolishing homework could have a profoundly positive impact on student mental health.

One primary reason why abolishing homework would benefit students’ mental health is the reduction of stress and anxiety. Students often feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they have to complete, leading to high levels of stress that can affect their overall well-being. By removing this extra pressure, students would have more time to relax, unwind, and engage in activities that bring them joy.

Moreover, abolishing homework can improve students’ sleep quality. Many students stay up late trying to finish assignments, sacrificing valuable hours of sleep in the process. Sleep is essential for mental health, and getting enough rest allows students to focus better in school and feel more refreshed and energized.

Additionally, abolishing homework can help students maintain a healthier work-life balance. Students deserve time to pursue their interests, spend time with family and friends, and engage in extracurricular activities. Without the burden of homework, students would have more opportunities to explore their passions and develop a well-rounded lifestyle.

Furthermore, abolishing homework can enhance students’ confidence and self-esteem. When students are constantly struggling to complete assignments, it can take a toll on their belief in their abilities. By eliminating homework, students can feel more confident in their academic skills and approach learning with a positive attitude.

In conclusion, abolishing homework could be a significant step towards promoting better mental health among students. By reducing stress, improving sleep quality, fostering a healthier work-life balance, and boosting confidence, students can thrive academically and emotionally in a homework-free environment.

Argument 2: Fostering Family Bonding and Social Skills Through the Abolition of Homework

When homework is abolished, families have more opportunities to bond and connect with each other. Instead of being engrossed in individual tasks, students and their families can engage in shared activities like cooking together, playing games, or simply talking about their day. These moments of togetherness can strengthen family relationships and create lasting memories that may not have been possible if homework were taking up all the time.

Furthermore, abolishing homework can also help students develop important social skills. Without the burden of homework, students have more time to interact with their siblings, parents, and even neighbors. These interactions allow them to practice communication, empathy, and teamwork in a real-world setting. Through conversations and activities with family members, students can learn how to express themselves effectively, resolve conflicts peacefully, and understand different perspectives.

In addition, by abolishing homework, schools can encourage students to participate in community activities and events. Students can join clubs, sports teams, or volunteer organizations, fostering a sense of belonging and social responsibility. These extracurricular activities not only provide opportunities for students to make new friends but also help them develop leadership skills, teamwork, and resilience.

In conclusion, abolishing homework can have a positive impact on fostering family bonding and social skills among students. By prioritizing quality time with family members and engaging in social activities outside of school, students can develop stronger relationships, communication skills, and a sense of community. Ultimately, by promoting these aspects, schools can contribute to the holistic development of students and prepare them for success in both their personal and professional lives.

Arguments Against Of Homework Should be Abolished

Argument 1: detrimental impact on academic performance and learning retention.

Homework can be a source of stress and anxiety for many students. It takes away precious time that could be spent on other activities like hobbies, sports, or spending time with family and friends. This burden of homework can lead to students feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, affecting their overall well-being and mental health.

Furthermore, the pressure to complete homework assignments can sometimes result in students rushing through their work just to meet deadlines. This rush to finish tasks can compromise the quality of their learning and understanding of the material. Instead of deeply engaging with the subject matter, students may simply focus on completing the assignment quickly, leading to surface-level learning that is quickly forgotten.

Research has shown that excessive homework can actually have a negative impact on academic performance. When students are overloaded with homework, they may struggle to retain the information they are trying to learn. This can result in lower test scores and a lack of true mastery of the material. Without sufficient time to review and consolidate what they have learned in class, students may find themselves falling behind academically.

Moreover, the stress and pressure associated with homework can create a barrier to effective learning. Students may feel demotivated and disengaged from their studies when faced with an overwhelming amount of homework to complete. This can hinder their ability to develop a genuine interest in the subjects they are studying and can lead to a lack of enthusiasm for learning.

In conclusion, the detrimental impact of homework on academic performance and learning retention is a significant concern that should not be overlooked. By abolishing homework, we can create a more balanced and holistic approach to education that prioritizes student well-being and genuine understanding of the material.

Argument 2: Loss of Individual Accountability and Work Ethic

Homework can sometimes lead to a loss of individual accountability and work ethic among students. When homework is assigned, some students may rely on others to complete it for them, instead of taking responsibility for their own learning. This can create a habit of dependency, where students do not develop the skills needed to work independently and take ownership of their education.

Additionally, when students are given homework tasks that they do not understand, it can be demotivating and lead to a lack of effort in completing the assignments. This lack of motivation can hinder the development of a strong work ethic, as students may not see the value in putting in the effort to complete tasks that they perceive as irrelevant or too challenging.

Moreover, the pressure to complete homework assignments on time can sometimes cause students to prioritize speed over quality. This can result in rushed and incomplete work, which does not foster a sense of pride in one’s accomplishments or encourage students to strive for excellence in their academic pursuits.

Furthermore, when students are burdened with excessive amounts of homework, it can take away from valuable time that could be spent engaging in other activities that promote personal growth and development. Without the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities, hobbies, or simply relax and recharge, students may struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

In conclusion, the practice of assigning homework can inadvertently contribute to a loss of individual accountability and work ethic among students. By abolishing homework, we can create a learning environment that encourages students to take ownership of their education, develop a strong work ethic, and prioritize meaningful learning experiences over rote tasks.

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25 Reasons Homework Should Be Banned (Busywork Arguments)

As students across the globe plow through heaps of homework each night, one question lingers in the minds of educators, parents, and students alike: should homework be banned?

This question is not new, yet it continues to spark lively debate as research findings, anecdotal evidence, and personal experiences paint a complex picture of the pros and cons of homework.

On one hand, proponents of homework argue that it reinforces classroom learning, encourages a disciplined work ethic, and provides teachers with valuable insight into student comprehension. They see homework as an extension of classroom instruction that solidifies and enriches learning while fostering important skills like time management and self-discipline. It also offers an opportunity for parents to be involved in their children's education.

However, some people say there are a lot of downsides. They argue that excessive homework can lead to stress and burnout, reduce time for extracurricular activities and family interactions, exacerbate educational inequalities, and even negatively impact students' mental health.

This article presents 25 reasons why we might need to seriously consider this radical shift in our educational approach. But first, lets share some examples of what homework actually is.

Examples of Homework

These examples cover a wide range of subjects and complexity levels, reflecting the variety of homework assignments students might encounter throughout their educational journey.

• Spelling lists to memorize for a test
• Math worksheets for practicing basic arithmetic operations
• Reading assignments from children's books
• Simple science projects like growing a plant
• Basic geography assignments like labeling a map
• Art projects like drawing a family portrait
• Writing book reports or essays
• Advanced math problems
• Research projects on various topics
• Lab reports for science experiments
• Reading and responding to literature
• Preparing presentations on various topics
• Advanced math problems involving calculus or algebra
• Reading classic literature and writing analytical essays
• Research papers on historical events
• Lab reports for advanced science experiments
• Foreign language exercises
• Preparing for standardized tests
• College application essays
• Extensive research papers
• In-depth case studies
• Advanced problem-solving in subjects like physics, engineering, etc.
• Thesis or dissertation writing
• Extensive reading and literature reviews
• Internship or practicum experiences

Lack of proven benefits

Homework has long been a staple of traditional education, dating back centuries. However, the actual efficacy of homework in enhancing learning outcomes remains disputed. A number of studies indicate that there's no conclusive evidence supporting the notion that homework improves academic performance, especially in primary education . In fact, research suggests that for younger students, the correlation between homework and academic achievement is weak or even negative .

Too much homework can often lead to increased stress and decreased enthusiasm for learning. This issue becomes particularly pressing when considering the common 'more is better' approach to homework, where the quantity of work given to students often outweighs the quality and effectiveness of the tasks. For instance, spending countless hours memorizing facts for a history test may not necessarily translate to better understanding or long-term retention of the subject matter.

However, it's worth noting that homework isn't completely devoid of benefits. It can help foster self-discipline, time management skills, and the ability to work independently. But, these positive outcomes are usually more pronounced in older students and when homework assignments are thoughtfully designed and not excessive in volume.

When discussing the merits and drawbacks of homework, it's critical to consider the nature of the assignments. Routine, repetitive tasks often associated with 'drill-and-practice' homework, such as completing rows of arithmetic problems or copying definitions from a textbook, rarely lead to meaningful learning. On the other hand, assignments that encourage students to apply what they've learned in class, solve problems, or engage creatively with the material can be more beneficial.

Increased stress

Homework can often lead to a significant increase in stress levels among students. This is especially true when students are burdened with large volumes of homework, leaving them with little time to relax or pursue other activities. The feeling of constantly racing against the clock to meet deadlines can contribute to anxiety, frustration, and even burnout.

Contrary to popular belief, stress does not necessarily improve performance or productivity. In fact, high levels of stress can negatively impact memory, concentration, and overall cognitive function. This counteracts the very purpose of homework, which is intended to reinforce learning and improve academic outcomes.

However, one might argue that homework can teach students about time management, organization, and how to handle pressure. These are important life skills that could potentially prepare them for future responsibilities. But it's essential to strike a balance. The pressure to complete homework should not come at the cost of a student's mental wellbeing.

Limited family time

Homework often infringes upon the time students can spend with their families. After spending the entire day in school, children come home to yet more academic work, leaving little room for quality family interactions. This limited family time can hinder the development of important interpersonal skills and familial bonds.

Moreover, family time isn't just about fun and relaxation. It also plays a crucial role in the social and emotional development of children. Opportunities for unstructured play, family conversations, and shared activities can contribute to children's well-being and character building.

Nonetheless, advocates of homework might argue that it can be a platform for parental involvement in a child's education. While this may be true, the involvement should not transform into parental control or cause friction due to differing expectations and pressures.

Reduced physical activity

Homework can often lead to reduced physical activity by eating into the time students have for sports, recreation, and simply being outdoors. Physical activity is essential for children's health, well-being, and even their academic performance. Research suggests that physical activity can enhance cognitive abilities, improve concentration, and reduce symptoms of ADHD .

Homework, especially when it's boring and repetitive, can deter students from engaging in physical activities, leading to a sedentary lifestyle. This lack of balance between work and play can contribute to physical health problems such as obesity, poor posture, and related health concerns.

Homework proponents might point out that disciplined time management could allow students to balance both work and play. However, given the demanding nature of many homework assignments, achieving this balance is often easier said than done.

Negative impact on sleep

A significant concern about homework is its impact on students' sleep patterns. Numerous studies have linked excessive homework to sleep deprivation in students. Children often stay up late to complete assignments, reducing the amount of sleep they get. Lack of sleep can result in a host of issues, from poor academic performance and difficulty concentrating to physical health problems like weakened immunity.

Even the quality of sleep can be affected. The stress and anxiety from a heavy workload can lead to difficulty falling asleep or restless nights. And let's not forget that students often need to wake up early for school, compounding the negative effects of late-night homework sessions.

On the other hand, some argue that homework can teach children time management skills, suggesting that effective organization could help prevent late-night work. However, when schools assign excessive amounts of homework, even the best time management might not prevent encroachment on sleep time.

Homework can exacerbate existing educational inequalities. Not all students have access to a conducive learning environment at home, necessary resources, or support from educated family members. For these students, homework can become a source of stress and disadvantage rather than an opportunity to reinforce learning.

Children from lower socio-economic backgrounds might need to contribute to household chores or part-time work, limiting the time they have for homework. This can create a gap in academic performance and grades, reflecting not on the students' abilities but their circumstances.

While homework is meant to level the playing field by providing additional learning time outside school, it often does the opposite. It's worth noting that students from privileged backgrounds can often access additional help like tutoring, further widening the gap.

Reduced creativity and independent thinking

Homework, particularly when it involves rote learning or repetitive tasks, can stifle creativity and independent thinking. Students often focus on getting the "right" answers to please teachers rather than exploring different ideas and solutions. This can hinder their ability to think creatively and solve problems independently, skills that are increasingly in demand in the modern world.

Homework defenders might claim that it can also promote independent learning. True, when thoughtfully designed, homework can encourage this. But, voluminous or repetitive tasks tend to promote compliance over creativity.

Diminished interest in learning

Overburdening students with homework can diminish their interest in learning. After long hours in school followed by more academic tasks at home, learning can begin to feel like a chore. This can lead to a decline in intrinsic motivation and an unhealthy association of learning with stress and exhaustion.

In theory, homework can deepen interest in a subject, especially when it involves projects or research. Yet, an excess of homework, particularly routine tasks, might achieve the opposite, turning learning into a source of stress rather than enjoyment.

Inability to pursue personal interests

Homework can limit students' ability to pursue personal interests. Hobbies, personal projects, and leisure activities are crucial for personal development and well-being. With heavy homework loads, students may struggle to find time for these activities, missing out on opportunities to discover new interests and talents.

Supporters of homework might argue that it teaches students to manage their time effectively. However, even with good time management, an overload of homework can crowd out time for personal interests.

Excessive workload

The issue of excessive workload is a common complaint among students. Spending several hours on homework after a full school day can be mentally and physically draining. This workload can lead to burnout, decreased motivation, and negative attitudes toward school and learning.

While homework can help consolidate classroom learning, too much can be counterproductive. It's important to consider the overall workload of students, including school, extracurricular activities, and personal time, when assigning homework.

Limited time for reflection

Homework can limit the time students have for reflection. Reflection is a critical part of learning, allowing students to digest and integrate new information. With the constant flow of assignments, there's often little time left for this crucial process. Consequently, the learning becomes superficial, and the true understanding of subjects can be compromised.

Although homework is meant to reinforce what's taught in class, the lack of downtime for reflection might hinder deep learning. It's important to remember that learning is not just about doing, but also about thinking.

Increased pressure on young children

Young children are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of homework. At an age where play and exploration are vital for cognitive and emotional development, too much homework can create undue pressure and stress. This pressure can instigate a negative relationship with learning from an early age, potentially impacting their future attitude towards education.

Advocates of homework often argue that it prepares children for the rigors of their future academic journey. However, placing too much academic pressure on young children might overshadow the importance of learning through play and exploration.

Lack of alignment with real-world skills

Traditional homework often lacks alignment with real-world skills. Assignments typically focus on academic abilities at the expense of skills like creativity, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence. These are crucial for success in the modern workplace and are often under-emphasized in homework tasks.

Homework can be an opportunity to develop these skills when properly structured. However, tasks often focus on memorization and repetition, rather than cultivating skills relevant to the real world.

Loss of motivation

Excessive homework can lead to a loss of motivation. The constant pressure to complete assignments and meet deadlines can diminish a student's intrinsic motivation to learn. This loss of motivation might not only affect their academic performance but also their love of learning, potentially having long-term effects on their educational journey.

Some believe homework instills discipline and responsibility. But, it's important to balance these benefits against the potential for homework to undermine motivation and engagement.

Disruption of work-life balance

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is as important for students as it is for adults. Overloading students with homework can disrupt this balance, leaving little time for relaxation, socializing, and extracurricular activities. All of these are vital for a student's overall development and well-being.

Homework supporters might argue that it prepares students for the workloads they'll face in college and beyond. But it's also crucial to ensure students have time to relax, recharge, and engage in non-academic activities for a well-rounded development.

Impact on mental health

There's a growing body of evidence showing the negative impact of excessive homework on students' mental health. The stress and anxiety from heavy homework loads can contribute to issues like depression, anxiety, and even thoughts of suicide. Student well-being should be a top priority in education, and the impact of homework on mental health cannot be ignored.

While some might argue that homework helps students develop resilience and coping skills, it's important to ensure these potential benefits don't come at the expense of students' mental health.

Limited time for self-care

With excessive homework, students often find little time for essential self-care activities. These can include physical exercise, proper rest, healthy eating, mindfulness, or even simple leisure activities. These activities are critical for maintaining physical health, emotional well-being, and cognitive function.

Some might argue that managing homework alongside self-care responsibilities teaches students valuable life skills. However, it's important that these skills don't come at the cost of students' health and well-being.

Decreased family involvement

Homework can inadvertently lead to decreased family involvement in a child's learning. Parents often feel unqualified or too busy to help with homework, leading to missed opportunities for family learning interactions. This can also create stress and conflict within the family, especially when parents have high expectations or are unable to assist.

Some believe homework can facilitate parental involvement in education. But, when it becomes a source of stress or conflict, it can discourage parents from engaging in their child's learning.

Reinforcement of inequalities

Homework can unintentionally reinforce inequalities. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds might lack access to resources like private tutors or a quiet study space, placing them at a disadvantage compared to their more privileged peers. Additionally, these students might have additional responsibilities at home, further limiting their time to complete homework.

While the purpose of homework is often to provide additional learning opportunities, it can inadvertently reinforce existing disparities. Therefore, it's essential to ensure that homework doesn't favor students who have more resources at home.

Reduced time for play and creativity

Homework can take away from time for play and creative activities. These activities are not only enjoyable but also crucial for the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children. Play allows children to explore, imagine, and create, fostering innovative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Some may argue that homework teaches discipline and responsibility. Yet, it's vital to remember that play also has significant learning benefits and should be a part of every child's daily routine.

Increased cheating and academic dishonesty

The pressure to complete homework can sometimes lead to increased cheating and academic dishonesty. When faced with a large volume of homework, students might resort to copying from friends or searching for answers online. This undermines the educational value of homework and fosters unhealthy academic practices.

While homework is intended to consolidate learning, the risk of promoting dishonest behaviors is a concern that needs to be addressed.

Strained teacher-student relationships

Excessive homework can strain teacher-student relationships. If students begin to associate teachers with stress or anxiety from homework, it can hinder the development of a positive learning relationship. Furthermore, if teachers are perceived as being unfair or insensitive with their homework demands, it can impact the overall classroom dynamic.

While homework can provide an opportunity for teachers to monitor student progress, it's important to ensure that it doesn't negatively affect the teacher-student relationship.

Negative impact on family dynamics

Homework can impact family dynamics. Parents might feel compelled to enforce homework completion, leading to potential conflict, stress, and tension within the family. These situations can disrupt the harmony in the household and strain relationships.

Homework is sometimes seen as a tool to engage parents in their child's education. However, it's crucial to ensure that this involvement doesn't turn into a source of conflict or pressure.

Cultural and individual differences

Homework might not take into account cultural and individual differences. Education is not a one-size-fits-all process, and what works for one student might not work for another. Some students might thrive on hands-on learning, while others prefer auditory or visual learning methods. By standardizing homework, we might ignore these individual learning styles and preferences.

Homework can also overlook cultural differences. For students from diverse cultural backgrounds, certain types of homework might seem irrelevant or difficult to relate to, leading to disengagement or confusion.

Encouragement of surface-level learning

Homework often encourages surface-level learning instead of deep understanding. When students are swamped with homework, they're likely to rush through assignments to get them done, rather than taking the time to understand the concepts. This can result in superficial learning where students memorize information to regurgitate it on assignments and tests, instead of truly understanding and internalizing the knowledge.

While homework is meant to reinforce classroom learning, the quality of learning is more important than the quantity. It's important to design homework in a way that encourages deep, meaningful learning instead of mere rote memorization.

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15 Should Homework Be Banned Pros and Cons

Homework was a staple of the public and private schooling experience for many of us growing up. There were long nights spent on book reports, science projects, and all of those repetitive math sheets. In many ways, it felt like an inevitable part of the educational experience. Unless you could power through all of your assignments during your free time in class, then there was going to be time spent at home working on specific subjects.

More schools are looking at the idea of banning homework from the modern educational experience. Instead of sending work home with students each night, they are finding alternative ways to ensure that each student can understand the curriculum without involving the uncertainty of parental involvement.

Although banning homework might seem like an unorthodox process, there are legitimate advantages to consider with this effort. There are some disadvantages which some families may encounter as well.

These are the updated lists of the pros and cons of banning homework to review.

List of the Pros of Banning Homework

1. Giving homework to students does not always improve their academic outcomes. The reality of homework for the modern student is that we do not know if it is helpful to have extra work assigned to them outside of the classroom. Every study that has looked at the subject has had design flaws which causes the data collected to be questionable at best. Although there is some information to suggest that students in seventh grade and higher can benefit from limited homework, banning it for students younger than that seems to be beneficial for their learning experience.

2. Banning homework can reduce burnout issues with students. Teachers are seeing homework stress occur in the classroom more frequently today than ever before. Almost half of all high school teachers in North America have seen this issue with their students at some point during the year. About 25% of grade school teachers say that they have seen the same thing.

When students are dealing with the impact of homework on their lives, it can have a tremendously adverse impact. One of the most cited reasons for students dropping out of school is that they cannot complete their homework on time.

3. Banning homework would increase the amount of family time available to students. Homework creates a significant disruption to family relationships. Over half of all parents in North America say that they have had a significant argument with their children over homework in the past month. 1/3 of families say that homework is their primary source of struggle in the home. Not only does it reduce the amount of time that everyone has to spend together, it reduces the chances that parents have to teach their own skills and belief systems to their kids.

4. It reduces the negative impact of homework on the health of a student. Many students suffer academically when they cannot finish a homework assignment on time. Although assumptions are often made about the time management skills of the individual when this outcome occurs, the reasons why it happens is usually more complex. It may be too difficult, too boring, or there may not be enough time in the day to complete the work.

When students experience failure in this area, it can lead to severe mental health issues. Some perceive themselves as a scholarly failure, which translates to an inability to live life successfully. It can disrupt a desire to learn. There is even an increased risk of suicide for some youth because of this issue. Banning it would reduce these risks immediately.

5. Eliminating homework would allow for an established sleep cycle. The average high school student requires between 8-10 hours of sleep to function at their best the next day. Grade-school students may require an extra hour or two beyond that figure. When teachers assign homework, then it increases the risk for each individual that they will not receive the amount that they require each night.

When children do not get enough sleep, a significant rest deficit occurs which can impact their ability to pay attention in school. It can cause unintended weight gain. There may even be issues with emotional control. Banning homework would help to reduce these risks as well.

6. It increases the amount of socialization time that students receive. People who are only spending time in school and then going home to do more work are at a higher risk of experiencing loneliness and isolation. When these emotions are present, then a student is more likely to feel “down and out” mentally and physically. They lack meaningful connections with other people. These feelings are the health equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes per day. If students are spending time on homework, then they are not spending time connecting with their family and friends.

7. It reduces the repetition that students face in the modern learning process. Most of the tasks that homework requires of students is repetitive and uninteresting. Kids love to resolve challenges on tasks that they are passionate about at that moment in their lives. Forcing them to complete the same problems repetitively as a way to “learn” core concepts can create issues with knowledge retention later in life. When you add in the fact that most lessons sent for homework must be done by themselves, banning homework will reduce the repetition that students face, allowing for a better overall outcome.

8. Home environments can be chaotic. Although some students can do homework in a quiet room without distractions, that is not the case for most kids. There are numerous events that happen at home which can pull a child’s attention away from the work that their teacher wants them to do. It isn’t just the Internet, video games, and television which are problematic either. Household chores, family issues, employment, and athletic requirements can make it a challenge to get the assigned work finished on time.

List of the Cons of Banning Homework

1. Homework allows parents to be involved with the educational process. Parents need to know what their children are learning in school. Even if they ask their children about what they are learning, the answers tend to be in generalities instead of specifics. By sending home work from the classroom, it allows parents to see and experience the work that their kids are doing when they are in school during the day. Then moms and dads can get involved with the learning process to reinforce the core concepts that were discovered by their children each day.

2. It can help parents and teachers identify learning disabilities. Many children develop a self-defense mechanism which allows them to appear like any other kid that is in their classroom. This process allows them to hide learning disabilities which may be hindering their educational progress. The presence of homework makes it possible for parents and teachers to identify this issue because kids can’t hide their struggles when they must work 1-on-1 with their parents on specific subjects. Banning homework would eliminate 50% of the opportunities to identify potential issues immediately.

3. Homework allows teachers to observe how their students understand the material. Teachers often use homework as a way to gauge how well a student is understanding the materials they are learning. Although some might point out that assignments and exams in the classroom can do the same thing, testing often requires preparation at home. It creates more anxiety and stress sometimes then even homework does. That is why banning it can be problematic for some students. Some students experience more pressure than they would during this assessment process when quizzes and tests are the only measurement of their success.

4. It teaches students how to manage their time wisely. As people grow older, they realize that time is a finite commodity. We must manage it wisely to maximize our productivity. Homework assignments are a way to encourage the development of this skill at an early age. The trick is to keep the amount of time required for the work down to a manageable level. As a general rule, students should spend about 10 minutes each school day doing homework, organizing their schedule around this need. If there are scheduling conflicts, then this process offers families a chance to create priorities.

5. Homework encourages students to be accountable for their role. Teachers are present in the classroom to offer access to information and skill-building opportunities that can improve the quality of life for each student. Administrators work to find a curriculum that will benefit the most people in an efficient way. Parents work hard to ensure their kids make it to school on time, follow healthy routines, and communicate with their school district to ensure the most effective learning opportunities possible. None of that matters if the student is not invested in the work in the first place. Homework assignments not only teach children how to work independently, but they also show them how to take responsibility for their part of the overall educational process.

6. It helps to teach important life lessons. Homework is an essential tool in the development of life lessons, such as communicating with others or comprehending something they have just read. It teaches kids how to think, solve problems, and even build an understanding for the issues that occur in our society right now. Many of the issues that lead to the idea to ban homework occur because someone in the life of a student communicated to them that this work was a waste of time. There are times in life when people need to do things that they don’t like or want to do. Homework helps a student begin to find the coping skills needed to be successful in that situation.

7. Homework allows for further research into class materials. Most classrooms offer less than 1 hour of instruction per subject during the day. For many students, that is not enough time to obtain a firm grasp on the materials being taught. Having homework assignments allows a student to perform more research, using their at-home tools to take a deeper look into the materials that would otherwise be impossible if homework was banned. That process can lead to a more significant understanding of the concepts involved, reducing anxiety levels because they have a complete grasp on the materials.

The pros and cons of banning homework is a decision that ultimately lies with each school district. Parents always have the option to pursue homeschooling or online learning if they disagree with the decisions that are made in this area. Whether you’re for more homework or want to see less of it, we can all agree on the fact that the absence of any reliable data about its usefulness makes it a challenge to know for certain which option is the best one to choose in this debate.

Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Should we do away with exams altogether? No, but we need to rethink their design and purpose

Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology, Macquarie University

Senior Lecturer in Educational Assessment, Macquarie University

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Penny Van Bergen has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Rod Lane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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In our five-part series, Making Sense of Exams , we’ll discuss the purpose of exams, whether they can be done online, overcoming exam anxiety, and effective revision techniques.

Over the past two decades there have been frequent calls to abandon exams .

The major criticisms of exams in schools and universities tend to relate to either the misuse or overuse of exams, and not to the sensible use of exams in partnership with other assessment tasks such as presentations, research reports, creative responses, essays, reflective journals etc.

Rethinking the way in which some exams are delivered does not require us to abandon all exams in favour of other assessment tasks. This is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Exams allow students to demonstrate their breadth of knowledge across a particular subject. This is more difficult to achieve with other forms of assessment.

Students also demonstrate their ability to retrieve and apply knowledge on the spot: a skill necessary in many professions.

But we need to look at what the evidence tells us about when exams are effective – and when other types of assessment are more suitable.

In debates about exams, the same myths are often brought up again and again. Here’s what the research tells us about three of the most common exam myths:

Myth 1: exams only test for the recall of facts

One of the most common arguments offered against exams is that they test for rote recall only and not for deeper understanding.

Like others, we have experienced the frustration of sitting for an exam that focuses almost exclusively on the recall of isolated facts. Research shows that such exams are more common when teachers either write questions quickly or rely on published tests from testing banks. In both cases, the teacher has less opportunity to review whether or not the questions require deep understanding and higher-order thinking, which require the learner to both hold a strong body of disciplinary knowledge and be capable of applying it.

The solution is not to abandon exams, but to change how poorly designed exam questions are written.

A well-designed exam will assess the application of knowledge to real-world scenarios, the synthesis of knowledge across sub-topics, the ability to think critically, or to solve well-defined problems within a discipline.

These higher-order processes depend entirely on the question being asked. According to research, even quite short professional development programs for teachers are effective in changing the way they write exam questions.

Exams should not be used to assess the recall of meaningless facts: this is a misuse of the format.

Myth 2: Google renders exams irrelevant

A second argument sometimes offered against exams is that everything can be found on Google anyway.

The implication, of course, is that we no longer need knowledge in our brains when we have phones in our pockets.

A variant of this argument is that internet access should always be permitted during exams as this mirrors our experiences in real life.

These arguments are problematic for two reasons.

First, research shows that people without knowledge in a particular field are surprisingly poor at finding accurate information on Google. They are more likely to find and believe conspiracy theories, for example, less likely to know what search terms to use, and less likely to reason logically about the information they find.

Second, looking up information on Google is not the same as accessing a pre-existing network of knowledge in the brain.

Pre-existing knowledge is critical because it guides the way in which we interpret new information and underpins critical thinking and problem solving .

Even if a student is taught generic skills in critical thinking and analysis, a wide breadth of knowledge is also needed to know what arguments are relevant in a particular domain and how they might be applied. This breadth of knowledge cannot be obtained simply by Googling.

It is precisely because our teachers, surgeons, scientists and building engineers have an established network of knowledge in their fields, held in long-term memory , that they are able to instantaneously apply this knowledge in the workplace, critically assess the validity of incoming information, and solve emerging problems on the run.

Myth 3: exam study does not enhance learning

Exams do not just assess learning, they promote learning in several ways:

Organising yourself to study promotes self-regulation and metacognition (that is, your understanding and control of your own learning processes).

Re-organising and elaborating on the to-be-tested material during study enables deeper understanding of the material.

The process of actively retrieving and applying that material multiple times during study is one of the best possible ways to strengthen knowledge. Just as practice helps muscles grow stronger during exercise, so too does it make connections in the brain grow stronger during study.

Of course, some study techniques are better than others.

Research shows that study in which students mentally manipulate the material – perhaps by forming their own questions, or by considering how different topics relate to one another – is more effective than study in which students passively scan their notes.

These techniques are a form of “deep encoding” , in which the student is required to actively negotiate meaning and to make decisions about what goes with what.

Research also shows that spacing out study over time is more effective for retaining information than cramming the night before .

With this knowledge, teachers can support students to study in the most effective ways possible.

Exams should be used within a balanced assessment program

The goal of any assessment program is to enable students to demonstrate what they know and can do . Within this program, exams have specific advantages.

Exams should not be used in all assessments (or even in all disciplines). Some types of assessments are clearly better suited to particular kinds of knowledge and skills than others.

Where research skills are important, a research proposal or report may be more appropriate.

Where oral communication skills are important, a presentation task may be more appropriate.

And where depth of knowledge of a single topic is important – either because of the specific topic itself or because a more focused investigation will allow the student to practise and refine particular learning skills – then an essay, class debate, or similar assessment may be more appropriate.

But arguing that exams cannot do everything is not the same as arguing they can do nothing. In nearly all school and university courses there are multiple goals, therefore a balanced assessment program is critical .

When considering the purpose of exams

We need to be careful when considering the use of exams in schools and universities.

We need to know that they are appropriate to the knowledge and skills being assessed, and that they form part of a balanced assessment program with a range of different assessment tasks.

We also must be aware of the unintended consequences that emerge in specific testing circumstances.

This is true for national testing programs such as the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), for example, where the potential to publicly rank schools has led to concerns about “ teaching to the test ” and narrowing the curriculum. These unintended consequences must be addressed.

When used well, however, exams offer several advantages for learning.

• Read more from the series.

• Universities
• School assessment
• Making Sense of Exams

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• The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

by Jacob Sweet

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work. 

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats. 

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed. 

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.” 

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works 

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation. 

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.” 

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler. 

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school. 

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.” 

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.  

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.” 

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework . 

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework. 

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal 

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do. 

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it. 

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time. 

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.” 

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications. 

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Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?

With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.

How much after-school time should our schools really own?

In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”

My spirit crumbled along with his.

Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”

In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.

Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .

Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.

It’s time for an uprising.

Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.

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Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”

It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.

Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.

But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.

Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.

That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.

As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.

We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.

Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”

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Should homework be banned?

Social media has sparked into life about whether children should be given homework - should students be freed from this daily chore? Dr Gerald Letendre, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, investigates.

We’ve all done it: pretended to leave an essay at home, or stayed up until 2am to finish a piece of coursework we’ve been ignoring for weeks. Homework, for some people, is seen as a chore that’s ‘wrecking kids’ or ‘killing parents’, while others think it is an essential part of a well-rounded education. The problem is far from new: public debates about homework have been raging since at least the early-1900s, and recently spilled over into a Twitter feud between Gary Lineker and Piers Morgan.

Ironically, the conversation surrounding homework often ignores the scientific ‘homework’ that researchers have carried out. Many detailed studies have been conducted, and can guide parents, teachers and administrators to make sensible decisions about how much work should be completed by students outside of the classroom.

So why does homework stir up such strong emotions? One reason is that, by its very nature, it is an intrusion of schoolwork into family life. I carried out a study in 2005, and found that the amount of time that children and adolescents spend in school, from nursery right up to the end of compulsory education, has greatly increased over the last century . This means that more of a child’s time is taken up with education, so family time is reduced. This increases pressure on the boundary between the family and the school.

Plus, the amount of homework that students receive appears to be increasing, especially in the early years when parents are keen for their children to play with friends and spend time with the family.

Finally, success in school has become increasingly important to success in life. Parents can use homework to promote, or exercise control over, their child’s academic trajectory, and hopefully ensure their future educational success. But this often leaves parents conflicted – they want their children to be successful in school, but they don’t want them to be stressed or upset because of an unmanageable workload.

However, the issue isn’t simply down to the opinions of parents, children and their teachers – governments also like to get involved. In the autumn of 2012, French president François Hollande hit world headlines after making a comment about banning homework, ostensibly because it promoted inequality. The Chinese government has also toyed with a ban, because of concerns about excessive academic pressure being put on children.

The problem is, some politicians and national administrators regard regulatory policy in education as a solution for a wide array of social, economic and political issues, perhaps without considering the consequences for students and parents.

Does homework work?

Homework seems to generally have a positive effect for high school students, according to an extensive range of empirical literature. For example, Duke University’s Prof Harris Cooper carried out a meta-analysis using data from US schools, covering a period from 1987 to 2003. He found that homework offered a general beneficial impact on test scores and improvements in attitude, with a greater effect seen in older students. But dig deeper into the issue and a complex set of factors quickly emerges, related to how much homework students do, and exactly how they feel about it.

In 2009, Prof Ulrich Trautwein and his team at the University of Tübingen found that in order to establish whether homework is having any effect, researchers must take into account the differences both between and within classes . For example, a teacher may assign a good deal of homework to a lower-level class, producing an association between more homework and lower levels of achievement. Yet, within the same class, individual students may vary significantly in how much homework improves their baseline performance. Plus, there is the fact that some students are simply more efficient at completing their homework than others, and it becomes quite difficult to pinpoint just what type of homework, and how much of it, will affect overall academic performance.

Over the last century, the amount of time that children and adolescents spend in school has greatly increased

Gender is also a major factor. For example, a study of US high school students carried out by Prof Gary Natriello in the 1980s revealed that girls devote more time to homework than boys, while a follow-up study found that US girls tend to spend more time on mathematics homework than boys. Another study, this time of African-American students in the US, found that eighth grade (ages 13-14) girls were more likely to successfully manage both their tasks and emotions around schoolwork, and were more likely to finish homework.

So why do girls seem to respond more positively to homework? One possible answer proposed by Eunsook Hong of the University of Nevada in 2011 is that teachers tend to rate girls’ habits and attitudes towards work more favourably than boys’. This perception could potentially set up a positive feedback loop between teacher expectations and the children’s capacity for academic work based on gender, resulting in girls outperforming boys. All of this makes it particularly difficult to determine the extent to which homework is helping, though it is clear that simply increasing the time spent on assignments does not directly correspond to a universal increase in learning.

Can homework cause damage?

The lack of empirical data supporting homework in the early years of education, along with an emerging trend to assign more work to this age range, appears to be fuelling parental concerns about potential negative effects. But, aside from anecdotes of increased tension in the household, is there any evidence of this? Can doing too much homework actually damage children?

Evidence suggests extreme amounts of homework can indeed have serious effects on students’ health and well-being. A Chinese study carried out in 2010 found a link between excessive homework and sleep disruption: children who had less homework had better routines and more stable sleep schedules. A Canadian study carried out in 2015 by Isabelle Michaud found that high levels of homework were associated with a greater risk of obesity among boys, if they were already feeling stressed about school in general.

For useful revision guides and video clips to assist with learning, visit BBC Bitesize . This is a free online study resource for UK students from early years up to GCSEs and Scottish Highers.

It is also worth noting that too much homework can create negative effects that may undermine any positives. These negative consequences may not only affect the child, but also could also pile on the stress for the whole family, according to a recent study by Robert Pressman of the New England Centre for Pediatric Psychology. Parents were particularly affected when their perception of their own capacity to assist their children decreased.

What then, is the tipping point, and when does homework simply become too much for parents and children? Guidelines typically suggest that children in the first grade (six years old) should have no more that 10 minutes per night, and that this amount should increase by 10 minutes per school year. However, cultural norms may greatly affect what constitutes too much.

A study of children aged between 8 and 10 in Quebec defined high levels of homework as more than 30 minutes a night, but a study in China of children aged 5 to 11 deemed that two or more hours per night was excessive. It is therefore difficult to create a clear standard for what constitutes as too much homework, because cultural differences, school-related stress, and negative emotions within the family all appear to interact with how homework affects children.

Should we stop setting homework?

In my opinion, even though there are potential risks of negative effects, homework should not be banned. Small amounts, assigned with specific learning goals in mind and with proper parental support, can help to improve students’ performance. While some studies have generally found little evidence that homework has a positive effect on young children overall, a 2008 study by Norwegian researcher Marte Rønning found that even some very young children do receive some benefit. So simply banning homework would mean that any particularly gifted or motivated pupils would not be able to benefit from increased study. However, at the earliest ages, very little homework should be assigned. The decisions about how much and what type are best left to teachers and parents.

As a parent, it is important to clarify what goals your child’s teacher has for homework assignments. Teachers can assign work for different reasons – as an academic drill to foster better study habits, and unfortunately, as a punishment. The goals for each assignment should be made clear, and should encourage positive engagement with academic routines.

Parents should inform the teachers of how long the homework is taking, as teachers often incorrectly estimate the amount of time needed to complete an assignment, and how it is affecting household routines. For young children, positive teacher support and feedback is critical in establishing a student’s positive perception of homework and other academic routines. Teachers and parents need to be vigilant and ensure that homework routines do not start to generate patterns of negative interaction that erode students’ motivation.

Likewise, any positive effects of homework are dependent on several complex interactive factors, including the child’s personal motivation, the type of assignment, parental support and teacher goals. Creating an overarching policy to address every single situation is not realistic, and so homework policies tend to be fixated on the time the homework takes to complete. But rather than focusing on this, everyone would be better off if schools worked on fostering stronger communication between parents, teachers and students, allowing them to respond more sensitively to the child’s emotional and academic needs.

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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No More Homework: 12 Reasons We Should Get Rid of It Completely

Last Updated: May 4, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Finn Kobler . Finn Kobler graduated from USC in 2022 with a BFA in Writing for Screen/Television. He is a two-time California State Champion and record holder in Original Prose/Poetry, a 2018 finalist for the Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate, and he's written micro-budget films that have been screened in over 150 theaters nationwide. Growing up, Finn spent every summer helping his family's nonprofit arts program, Showdown Stage Company, empower people through accessible media. He hopes to continue that mission with his writing at wikiHow. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 135,521 times. Learn more...

The amount of homework students are given has increased dramatically in the 21st century, which has sparked countless debates over homework’s overall value. While some have been adamant that homework is an essential part of a good education, it’s been proven that too much homework negatively affects students’ mood, classroom performance, and overall well-being. In addition, a heavy homework load can stress families and teachers. Here are 12 reasons why homework should be banned (or at least heavily reduced).

School is already a full-time job.

• For years, teachers have followed the “10-minute rule” giving students roughly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. However, recent studies have shown students are completing 3+ hours of homework a night well before their senior years even begin. [2] X Trustworthy Source American Psychological Association Leading scientific and professional organization of licensed psychologists Go to source

Homework negatively affects students’ health.

Homework interferes with student’s opportunities to socialize.

Homework hinders students’ chances to learn new things.

Homework lowers students’ enthusiasm for school.

Homework can lower academic performance.

Homework cuts into family time.

Homework is stressful for teachers.

Homework is often irrelevant and punitive.

• There are even studies that have shown homework in primary school has no correlation with classroom performance whatsoever. [9] X Research source

Homework encourages cheating.

Homework is inequitable.

Other countries have banned homework with great results.

• There are even some U.S. schools that have adopted this approach with success. [13] X Research source

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• ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/no-proven-benefits
• ↑ https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/03/homework
• ↑ https://healthier.stanfordchildrens.org/en/health-hazards-homework/
• ↑ https://teensneedsleep.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/galloway-nonacademic-effects-of-homework-in-privileged-high-performing-high-schools.pdf
• ↑ https://time.com/4466390/homework-debate-research/
• ↑ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2022.2075506?role=tab&scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=vece20
• ↑ https://kappanonline.org/teacher-stress-balancing-demands-resources-mccarthy/
• ↑ https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-homework-pros-cons-20180807-story.html
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294446/
• ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/homework-inequality-parents-schedules-grades/485174/
• ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005
• ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-homework-its-the-new-thing-in-u-s-schools-11544610600

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Homework Should Be Banned

Should students be given homework tasks to complete outside school? Or are such tasks pointless?

All the Yes points:

Homework has little educational worth and adds nothing to the time spent in school. some schools an…, homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. as a result…, setting homework does little to develop good study skills. it is hard to check whether the homework…, homework produces large amount of pointless work of little educational value, but marking it ties up…, homework puts students off learning. studies have shown that many children find doing homework very…, homework takes a lot of time up. being young is not just about doing school work. it should also a…, homework is a class issue. in school everyone is equal, but at home some people have advantages bec…, all the no points:, yes because….

Homework has little educational worth and adds nothing to the time spent in school. Some schools and some countries don’t bother with homework at all, and their results do not seem to suffer from it. Studies show that homework adds nothing to standardised test scores for primary/ elementary pupils. International comparisons of older students have found no positive relationship between the amount of homework set and average test scores. If anything, countries with more homework got worse results!

No because…

Homework is a vital and valuable part of education. There are only a few hours in each school day – not enough time to cover properly all the subjects children need to study. Setting homework extends study beyond school hours, allowing a wider and deeper education. It also makes the best use of teachers, who can spend lesson time teaching rather than just supervising individual work that could be done at home. Tasks such as reading, writing essays, researching, doing maths problems, etc. are best done at home, away from the distractions of other students.

Homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. As a result few students are at their best when they sit down in the evening to yet more work. Homework ends up being done in a hurry, by students fighting fatigue, and poor quality work is produced. Worse still, students who have been up late trying to finish off their homework, then come tired into school the next day, and so are less ready to learn. Really, what is the point?

Having homework also allows students to really fix in their heads work they have done in school. Doing tasks linked to recent lessons helps students strengthen their understanding and become more confident in using new knowledge and skills. For younger children this could be practising reading or multiplication tables. For older ones it might be writing up an experiment, revising for a test, reading in preparation for the next topic, etc.

Setting homework does little to develop good study skills. It is hard to check whether the homework students produce is really their own. Some students have always copied off others or got their parents to help them. But today there is so much material available on the internet that teachers can never be sure. It would be better to have a mixture of activities in the classroom which help students to develop a whole range of skills, including independent learning.

Homework prepares students to work more independently, as they will have to at college and in the workplace. Everyone needs to develop skills in personal organisation, working to deadlines, being able to research, etc. If students are always “spoon-fed” topics at school they will never develop study skills and self-discipline for the future.

Homework produces large amount of pointless work of little educational value, but marking it ties up much of teachers’ time. This leaves teachers tired and with little time to prepare more effective, inspiring lessons. The heavy workload also puts young graduates off becoming teachers, and so reduces the talent pool from which schools can recruit.

Teachers accept that marking student work is an important part of their job. Well planned homework should not take so long to mark that the rest of their job suffers, and it can inform their understanding of their students, helping them design new activities to engage and stretch them. As for recruitment, although teachers do often work in the evenings, they are not alone in this and they get long holidays to compensate.

Homework puts students off learning. Studies have shown that many children find doing homework very stressful, boring and tiring. Often teachers underestimate how long a task will take, or set an unrealistic deadline. Sometimes because a teacher has not explained something new well in class, the homework task is impossible. So children end up paying with their free time for the failings of their teachers. They also suffer punishments if work is done badly or late. After years of bad homework experiences, it is no wonder that many children come to dislike education and switch off, or drop out too early.

If homework puts students off learning, then it has been badly planned by the teacher. The best homework tasks engage and stretch students, encouraging them to think for themselves and follow through ideas which interest them. Over time, well planned homework can help students develop good habits, such as reading for pleasure or creative writing.

Homework takes a lot of time up. Being young is not just about doing school work. It should also about being physically active, exploring the environment through play, doing creative things like music and art, and playing a part in the community. It is also important for young people to build bonds with others, especially family and friends, but homework often squeezes the time available for all these things.

Again, just because some teachers are bad at setting homework that is not a reason to scrap it altogether. Homework needs to be well designed and should not take up all of students’ spare time. Recent American surveys found that most students in the USA spent no more than an hour a night on homework. That suggests there does not seem to be a terrible problem with the amount being set.

Homework is a class issue. In school everyone is equal, but at home some people have advantages because of their family background. Middle-class families with books and computers will be able to help their children much more than poorer ones can. This can mean working class children end up with worse grades and more punishments for undone or badly done homework. On the other hand pushy parents may even end up doing their kids’ homework for them – cheating. And homework is one of the most common causes of family arguments.

Education is a partnership between the child, the school and the home. Homework is one of the main ways in which the student’s family can be involved with their learning. Many parents value the chance to see what their child is studying and to support them in it. And schools need parents’ support in encouraging students to read at home, to help with the practising of tables, and to give them opportunities to research new topics.

Teachers don’t understand the students’ pain and struggle they are going through, they just assign some exercises, look at the solution and present it the next day.

Students spend up to a third of their day working hard at school; they deserve to have a break. Not only do students deserve to have a break, but they also deserve to have time for themselves to indulge in extracurricular activities like, sports, music, and swimming, etc. So homework must be banned

Homework should be giving as much as the student can take but not so much that students will have bad filling about books.

I think that kids like me spend a lot of time playing video games . I also think that some kids get torn by homework especially during quarantine. Kids are forced to do school from home and homework from home as well. This can be hours and hours of work and can be very stressful.

If you keep your mind fully on studies you don’t need o do homework but if you don’t follow the class then you need to do homework as it makes us revise what you have studied in school but obviously the sclools give us a lot homework in our holidays which is not needed.But what if your child has not understood a thing in school? if you do homework the child will ask you the thing that he has not understood.So homework is needed but not always.

at the top it looks like shes crying of homework that is just toter

i dont like it because it is a waste of time plus no one cares about it thats why it is boring

i think homewrok is waste of time because you might get stressed and it just takes away time with your family

Homework should be a choice. School is already stressing enough and students need to be able to have a life outside of school so they can relax and not have to worry about school anymore. If a student needs help then they could ask for some extra work in order to be able to help themselves.

Kids, remember that homework is a waste of time, its just extra work school gives you

you are so right

I don’t think it is right in many situations. You see, homework are meant to make you better, not worse, but too much is just tiring.

who said it was making you worse?

But Homework Does More Bad Than Good. Many Even Try Suicide Because Of Homework. 

Then how teachers will understand that which student did understand the lesson and which one not?? . Homework is the way to understand that which student is improving and which one is not. Who lazy and bad student they talk like that.

Well the 7-8 hours that students are already in school apparently doesn’t let them do a ten minute knowledge check on the topic.

homework should be banned from schools because it makes students very tired . It puts more pushers on the child and the child does not wasn’t to do it . The child is already tired from school and they get more work . It is very stressful for a child Excess homework causes children to feel ‘burnt out’ Do you thing my worth opponent is excess of homework good for a child? No it is not good for a child as it leads to coping and negative attitude in them it ruins the child’s life. its also a waste of time. you could be doing something you love like hanging with your friends, or spending quality time with your family homework takes all the time . homework is an unnecessary pain to parents, teachers, and most of all, students. Homework is worthless. It does nothing but creates a monstrous picture of our studies in our minds

uhm what is homework ???

homework sucks

i have homework and find that it has help me a lot with my school work. i believe that some teachers are the cause of not liking homework but you never really know. personally i love homework and think it shouldn’t be banned

I just wanted to say that I had an exam question received late at night which i had forgotten about, about the topic of homework being banned. THIS SAVED MY FRICKING LIFE! THANK YOU WHOEVER MADE THIS!

So you plagiarized?

well, thank you for the comments and opinions it totally helps a lot to make a research about “banning homework”

I am a 5th grade student. Simply put, I absolutely HATE homework! It is stressful and leaves me no time to independently read! (I love to read) I did some research, and found that countries/states with no homework don’t do bad, but actually do good. Finland has banned homework, yet it is deemed the “happiest country” and comes at the top of exams. Ban homework!!!

I’m in 6th grade and I agree with you all except reading I like games

Personally, I don’t quite have the same opinion. It’s different for everyone. I also dislike homework, but I have to do it because I think it’s important

In my opinion, homework should not be banned entirely. The workload should be lessened. Often times, the amount of work children have to do can deprive them of sleep, which can lead to many negative side effects such as depression. Often times, the children at the schools I’ve been to have had to drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages to get through the day, and needed melatonin to sleep, just to wake up 4 hours later. This is mainly due to the homework weighing down on them. Homework should still be assigned in schools, but the amount of homework given to students should be lessened.

here is a summary of whats above about why homework should be banned. I added a few things. Also, its in my own words so if anybody wants it for their school classwork they can copy it and put it in their classwork.

 I think homework should be banned. Because first it’s hard to see if a student homework is really done by himself. Second many people copy other friend work and get many helps from their families. It would be much better to have a mixture of work (activities) in the class which will help the student to develop skills which includes learning independently. Also, there is evidence, did you know that an estimated of 17 percent of kids don’t do their homework. And an estimated 20 percent of kids copy their homework from other students. Moreover, did you know that over 70% of kids don’t like to do their homework.  Even a famous Author named Justin Coulson does want homework to be banned. He said, “They spend enough time in class.”  

the entire internet thanks you

i think either classwork or homework should be banned cause in my country you have to do like atleast 4 homeworks ( do note that i am in 6th) and on average per day you hae to do 6 homeworks plus whatever extra work your teacher gives you ( unless they are nice like my eng teacher ). schoolwork consumes 6 HOURS of my screen time plus 2 or 1 hour of hw screentime. i am a lucky kid cause i can do 11 homeworks in 1 day but that is just not fair. my hobbie is ti play games and stream that but parents say that it takes up 3 hours of my time. one question i ask you, doesnt school take up doeble the fricking time schoo – 6hours + 1 hour of hw + 1 hour of extraa work. games = 3 hours ( at max ) + 1 hour of tv ( i watch like once in a week ) now you only tell me what is affecting my health more, school or games ? i wake up late at 830 thinking that today is a good day but all of a sudden school f@#ks with me and screws me up.

schoo – 6hours + 1 hour of hw + 1 hour of extraa work.this 

We are doing a debate for school on whether we should have homework or not so me and my group decided to search it up. 😉

i believe it shouldnt be “banned” as im a kid. i sometimes enjoy homework, sometimes i don’t. but i believe its not all positive. i get done with online school, i do my homework, but man am i exhausted. i think homework should only be done as a punishment.

Yes, I am always against the motion.

Your having fun then ur mom asks “have you done your homework yet!”

It turns out, homework was made as a punishment by an Italian pedagog Roberto Nevilis for his students. So for those who disagree that homework should not be banned, have empathy for students who have to take up their social time only for homework. Like many people commented, it’ll waste their childhood.

STOP THE HOMEWORK STOP THE HOMEWORK STOP THE HOMEWORK STOP THE HOMEWORK

ofc it should be banned. I spend HOURS a day trying to complete a simple math problem because my brain was fried at school. school is the majority of my day. I dont want to spend the little time I have with my busy parents and busier siblings alone doing friggin spanish or something. Optional homework is fine, since that is available for the people who have time for it. But for people like me who have siblings to look after and dinner to cook, adding homework to the mix is too much. And now with covid, the workload DOUBLED. fall of 2020 better be better because this spring just wasnt it. Before you fuck up my brain and drive me crazy, please think about how we are entering high school and thats just a little stressful. Think about how we have responsibilites. smh

Please don’t use insult words.

homework is the worst

I hate homeworks

Homework shouldn’t be ban, but too much homework should. No more then an hour of homework. Kids can’t handle that stress like adults can.

uhm. no HOMEWORK! HOMEWORK IS GONNA MAKE US SUICIDE IF WE CONTINUE THIS. AHHHHHHHHHHH

Don’t you know that homework is a punishment? Look it up. You shouldn’t be doing school at home. You should be doing school at school. Just a little homework is still considered a punishment. I hope homework doesn’t become a regular thing, oh wait it is.

hw’s so bad ,i hate hw✄

Homework should be banned it should be banned you telling me that they don’t have “enough time” to learn what they need to learn. It takes time out of a students life. You people say that childhood is most precious Well how can they have one if they are spending hours upon hours on homework. It waste their free time and their parents time to spend on them. Is homework that important to take away a Childs freedom huh. huh explain it explain it I want to know. homework is a waste of time Childhood is something you can’t get back. 8th grade has already made it to were I might have a mental breakdown. Yes I am a 8th grader so your hearing the opinion of one. Homework should be banned. I spend 8 hours at school and 3 hours on homework even more. Why should school have the authority to stick its fucking fingers in my lives and other students. Its no wonder why students our stressed and mentally unstable. Home should be a time to spend time with family, relaxing, maybe spend a hour or hour and thirty or so to have me time. These are the many reasons why my school system and others are fucked up. so get your fucking head on straight when you think about whether homework is good for kids or not

I also forgot that some parents don’t care I live with my grandparents and my Nana once said to me that this was more important than eating and that point if I run away its she needs to know its her fault

Homework should be limited if not banned. I’m in 6th grade and have a mental breakdown at least once a week. I get about 10 pieces of homework A DAY. I get home from school at 3 and am working on homework till 8. I get to spend about 10 MINUTES with my family before going to bed.

Limited? It should be banned. Pretty stupid for a 6th grader.

I’m in 5th grade. I have to study 7th grade work. :(

It turns out, homework was made as a punishment by an Italian pedagog Roberto Nevilis for his students. So for those who disagree that homework should not be banned, have empathy for students who have to take up their social time only for homework. Like many people commented, it’ll waste their childhood.

whos the author

love him/her

What is school for if all the learning is done at home?

Its not school its just work!

i hate homework.

me too teachers suck

Hello have you guys heard about coronavirus? Search an article on this website!

I have my father keeps on searchin’ stuff ’bout it. I am bored coz of it.😒

Yes of course

stop trying to sell your rubbish nobody cares

ofc we heard. were not dumb

I really do think that homework should be banned. First off kids work 8 hours in school and they have to do homework right when they get home. A lot of kids stress doing homework when they get home because they wan’t to spend their free time.

I think that homework should be banned cause as a senior in high school I can honestly say that this has been my best year yet without worrying about the amount of homework and how long it would take me. I have done better this year because the lack of homework has taken a lot of stress off and has given me time to work on assignments that we do in class and get ahead. SO yeah I think homework should be banned.

Thanks for hearing me out yours truly, Cookie monster

Thanks for hearing me out yours truly, alex

Homework Should Be Banned Yes because… Homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. As a result… Homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. As a result few students are at their best when they sit down in the evening to yet more work. Homework ends up being done in a hurry, by students fighting fatigue, and poor quality work is produced. Worse still, students who have been up late trying to finish off their homework, then come tired into school the next day, and so are less ready to learn. Really, what is the point?

Homework is practice. But too much is no good. At the same time, it every student of mine has 30 minutes of homework from each lesson he attends in a day, it adds up to 3 thirds of his school day, leaving little room to explore other interests. I also believe that teachers need to add value to the cirriculum by adding things that are left out, like how to learn, using imagination and teaching budgeting, house work and other subjects deemed unsuitable for class environment.

It’s not a practice it’s a punishment.

i think homework should be banned because statistics show that homework can cause disengage students from families and cause anxiety/depression

Finland is known as the happiest country in the world for students and thats because kids arent even given a hint of homework and the graduation rate is 93% while in the US kids are given 50 minutes of homework a day and the graduation rate is 73% what does that tell you about the effect of homework

That tells us nothing about the effect of homework. There may be correlation, but that does not mean causation.

bruh.. its a website on why homework should be BANNED not the effects of homework

homework should be banned because it causes unnecessary stress

In China, every student should do homework for 2 to 3 hours.

Shut up and go to China.

BRO you guy only need 2-3 hours in Vietnam we have to do it more than 3.5 hours :P

Alright, I’m here at finland, and I live here, and I go to school. You see, there’s alot of homework. And extra in quarentine. So, the “kids arent even given a hint of homework” is kinda false. We DO get homework. Alot actually, if I say so myself. But it’s not alot. I can deal with it.

Stop spreading false information.

Finally someone with a brain.

U r angílina harry ?

it more like anywhere from 1- 8 hours of homework jsut depends on the day and the teacher

Reason 1: Studies tell us that homework doesn’t help us at all on standardised test scores for elementary students. International comparisons of students that are older have noticed no good relationship between the amount of homework set and average test scores. Also countries that have more homework have worse results on tests! So if you get worse results on your test, what’s the point?

Reason 2: Homework is mostly done when a child is already tired from School. The result is that few students are are ready for homework when they sit down in the evening to . Homework ends up being done in a hurry, by students fighting fatigue, and poor quality work is produced. Even worse , students who have stayed up late trying to finish their homework, come to school tired, and are less ready for work. So really, what is the point? That’s why homework should be banned.

Homework takes away from family time. If your son/daughter is so tierd after school and they have to do homework and don’t do good u would want too help and that’s cheeting. Then you cant do family stuff like play games together or eat diner together. Homework is like a dementor, sucking tha happiness out of life

homework gives self-confidence and self-motivation to a student to do well.it checks our ability and capacity to do well

In other words, destroys our self confidence

Oh look the most downv- I mean disliked comment on the page.

Homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. As a result few students are at their best when they sit down in the evening to yet more work

all homework does is just help you redo the hard lesson ALL OVER AGAIN and barely even helps you. a school that abolished homework didn’t suffer from it, and a school with more homework got worse grades! it also makes it hard for teachers to prepare for learning just from marking homework. what is the point of doing one hard page of homework when you barely even get celebrated for it? its just pointless work for hours instead of going outside to play, doing creative things like music and art, helping your friends and family or watching TV and playing video games.

Homework Shouldn’t be banned It improves your child’s thinking and memory. It helps your child develop positive study skills and habits that will serve him or her well throughout life.

NO, it doesn’t If there is one person you need to hear from about homework, It’s kids who actually have homework. Homework has done nothing good for me except for putting pressure on me and when I don’t do it, my grades go down even when I do well in class it’s just the homework that hurts kid’s grades for no reason.

That is not true because they need to spend time with family as well as that they also need excersice so you are wrong and I don’t think anyone would disagree with my dession.

How does it improve children’s thinking and memory? How does it help them develop positive study skills if they have to miss out on family time, sport etc. The only thing that would do is make children hate homework for taking them away from other activities.

This is more disliked than the reply I said was the most disliked.

MY friend, you have chosen the wrong place to talk about your opinion :P

I think homework should be banned the students do enough work in class. Another reason is I believe it takes away from time spent with family,friends,sports or even just playing outside.

Statistics show that homework causes: -Stress,headaches,stomach problems -Also arguments between parents and children -Lack of sleep -Can affect “physical health” and “mental health” -Less than 1% of students say homework is not a stressor.

In some countries teachers don’t bother giving homework and their results turn out to be perfectly fine!

I have anxiety cause of overwhelming homework and I sleep at 3:00am finishing it. Sometimes I don’t even do it and that what makes my grades suffer. If it weren’t for homework, I would probably get better grades

Homework should be banned because not all families have good educational facilities and students have also varying family pressure. The often work on errands and not always get adequate time. Also many schools give very hard topics in homework.

‪Homework should be banned as our children do enough in school… there is too much pressure on children to grow up quick, they do not get the time to rest, have fun and be children… I would also like to add when it comes to after school or weekends I like to spend quality time as a family doing fun things not push them into doing additional school work that is what teachers are paid for and to do in school time!!‬

Homework shouldn’t take so long as to hardly spend any family quality time together. Each school is different in the amount of homework they give, and if a school is giving a lot of homework, that should be changed, and it should be lessened, but not banned. If it’s banned, then what are they going to do all day? Just play with no intellectual mind whatsoever? How will that prepare them for the real world? Not to mention, summer break, winter break, fall break, and spring break is a time of relaxation. What’s the harm in giving homework on school days. After all, school is a place of education, and if the homework is given correctly and efficiently, it shouldn’t be a problem.

if school is a place of education why should a home be the same? and clearly you forgot about holiday homework, which turns a relaxing break into a time of stress as these assignments often take much longer to complete. and also that, in the UK at least) only 12 weeks of a year are spent in breaks which means 76% percent of a year is spent in school and doing homework. and not to mention the time teachers say homework takes is often underestimated.

The problem is, homework ISN’t given correctly and efficiently… Secondly, whose job is it to help children learn? The government? No, it’s the parents job to look after their children. If the children are ‘playing with no intellectual mind whatsoever’, who’s job is it to fix that? Certainly not the government…

Excuse me? Did you get say

“Not to mention, summer break, winter break, fall break, and spring break is a time of relaxation. What’s the harm in giving homework on school days.”

Well obviously YOU haven’t had the packets and packets of the homework that my teachers have given me on those “ times of relaxation “. So next time, maybe refresh your memory.

homework should be either an option or banned because children are kept up late trying to finish it.Those how do finish are tired and grumpy and will most likely get growled at and those how don’t finish will either get a growling or detention and or is tired. When kids do homework they don’t get time for there self and to top it off they won’t get time to do anything when at college and high school.

School equal? You must be insane.

Homework is not worthless guys.Homework is such a thing that helps us to check our abilities.It also helps us to revise the lectures of school.If anyone says that they do not get time to play or spend time with their family than manage yourself.Make a time table and follow it.Homework also teaches us to tackle with the suitation .If anyone rather says that he/she got glasses because of this homework than just think that getting glasses by using electronic things is more good than getting glasses than studying ?? just think with calm mind!! and write what you feel about……..

how would you manage yourself with such little time i mean if you get about 30 minutes of homework for each class 30 times 7 is 3 1/2 hours and if you get home at 3 then it is 6:30 when you are done ad you also have to eat i go to bed at 7.

Homework is worthless.It does nothing but creates a monstrous picture of our studies in our minds. Albert Einstein once said “Imagination rules the world but our current educational system has changed the word “imagination” with “education”. Moreover, Albert Einstein also said that “Playing is the highest form of research” so we should first focus on laying which leads to creativity. And through creativity, we can automatically have knowledge; the knowledge we get through playing will forever be cherished not the knowledge we get through mountains of memorizing

Homework is turning children into couch potatoes as they spend an increasing amount of their time in their bedrooms instead of playing outside

I am currently a sophomore and I have to deal with homework on a day to day basis, plus the additional packet I must complete every week. It is not hard but it is very time consuming and I barely spend time with anymore. I am to the point of bring too and I’m constanly having suicidal thoughts. I can’t do this anymore.

I know its hard and i know it sucks, but hang in there. You’ve got only got a few more years left but at the same time you don’t have to look at this as a completely terrible time, life is a journey not a destination. What that means is that you should not expect the future to hold bliss. Every single moment is one which you can enjoy. Happiness is a state, be open to it and it will come. So what do you wanna do Now? do you have a hobby? Maybe you wanna read that book. you do that! Hang out with some pals? Go right ahead. Learn something new? what are you waiting for?! Live life in the Now, the best way you know how. That will automatically benefit your future as well. Now, a lot of people say, work hard. I say work efficiently. Try and get your homework done in as little time as possible, with effective output. Using methods of effective work: I highly recommend watching Thomas Frank on you tube for this.

Good luck :)

Homework is an unecesary pain to parents, teachers, and most of all, students. it causes disfunction in mental health, and could even effect families private lives. its also a waste of time. you could be doing something you love like hanging with your friends, or spending quality time with your family, but NO! honestly… i dont think homework should be banned… i think it should be optional. i hope you found this helpful.

Homework is almost always done when a child is already tired from a long day at school. As a result few students are at their best when they sit down in the evening to yet more work. Homework ends up being done in a hurry, by students fighting fatigue, and poor quality work is produced. Worse still, students who have been up late trying to finish off their homework, then come tired into school the next day, and so are less ready to learn. Really, what is the point

I think homework is a bad learning tool for multiple reasons: A)If the student can do the homework than it was a large waste of time. B) if the student cannot do the homework, they would ask thier parents for help, therefore makeing the homework usless for the fact that the parent did the homework. C) if the student cannot do the homework and does not do it, that will lower thier grades without learning what the right the right thing to do, therefore makeing the homework usless.

Homework is a class issue. In school everyone is equal, but at home some people have advantages because of their family background. Middle-class families with books and computers will be able to help their children much more than poorer ones can. This can mean working class children end up with worse grades and more punishments for undone or badly done homework. On the other hand pushy parents may even end up doing their kids’ homework for them – cheating. And homework is one of the most common causes of family arguments

I don’t know if homework should be banned completely, but it most certainly should be lessened. Kids are coming home with hours of homework and no time to have social relationships. Homework should be optional. If a student is struggling they can choose to do homework, but if they aren’t struggling they don’t need to waste their time doing home that doesn’t help them.

i think its a no because its part of the education and its like practicing what you’ve learnt. hope you guys are thinking the same way.

Why would we be thinking the same?

If the kids didn’t get the topic by the end of class then they should have homework, but if they did understand it, then what it the point of having it. That just takes up their time to spend time with friends or family. Why should kids get homework on weekends as well? The weekends are the days when kids actually get to do something besides school, they get to have fun or rest. And they should be aloud to do that. The kids go to school to learn and do good quality work, but when they do work at home they just do sloppy work and don’t get a lot of the questions right. And that is because they have other things to do. Homework should be band.

Homework can cause actual pain. Yes, that´s right. Lugging around that 10-20 pound book bag everyday can cause severe back, shoulder, and neck pains, and could even possibly lead to something worse. Every time I bring home my book bag from school, it weighs around 15 pounds with all of the homework inside of it. Please NO MORE HOMEWORK

Most schools now do homework on computers provided by the school, or they have block schedules, that way the student doesn’t have to carry as much around with them. Homework is normally a few papers, and maybe a book. If you really have that much pain, only take the things for the classes you need that day. Also, be sure to be using a backpack with two straps and not a messenger bag.

Undoubtedly, homework hinders learning. There are only 3 outcomes possible when doing homework: A) You do the homework, proving you were able to do it in the first place and the work was therefore unnecessary B)You do the homework even though you were unable to do so, thus learning to solve the problem the wrong way. C) You do not do the homework because you were unable, and therefore did not learn anything.

I disagree with this point, especially with point b. There is a textbook and the internet for a reason. A student can find out how to do it. Resources exist. Therefore, your point C becomes the student’s problem. Now to attack A. If the person already knows the topic, he or she still needs practice. For example, practice reduces occurrence of mistakes. My test scores have significantly improved once I started doing homework, even though I already and always knew the concept. Also, the voting system is biased, as all pro homework stuff have negative votes.

Now you for your response on point A I disagree because You don’t really need to practice If you’ve already been practicing the whole day in school and you’re not going to forget the whole topic in one day.

sorry but homework is gay

Homework or rather busy work is not as useful of a tool as it may seem. There is no clear evidence supporting the claim that homework improves the grades or the understanding of the students

We would love to hear what you think – please leave a comment!

I think homework should be banned because at first kids think “let’s get this over with.” Then later on they realize all of that was for nothing because sure it prepares you for the test but what about the hours you spent on 1 page of homework!

Homework can affect both students’ physical and mental health. According to a study by Stanford University, 56 percent of students considered homework a primary source of stress. Too much homework can result in lack of sleep, headaches, exhaustion and weight loss.

Why homework has merit and can be a force for good

The brouhaha about the need to abolish school homework, as if it was a recently invented form of cruelty to children, needs perspective and reasoned discussion.

Homework is an important bridge between school and the home. It allows parents to be part of a child’s educational journey and to contribute in a meaningful way.

I come, not to bury homework, but to praise it.

Recent discussions about cancelling homework for good seem to be focused almost entirely on the needs of time-poor parents, rather than the benefits to students.

In spite of the protestations that schoolwork – set by teachers to complement classroom learning – must be abolished with immediate effect, the facts are that there are myriad benefits accruing to your child from homework that we should not lose sight of.

Painting homework as the enemy of busy children misses the bigger and more nuanced picture. The idea that it should be cancelled outright seems like a knee-jerk reaction to what amounts to a modern family time-management issue. And it must be noted that generations of children have survived the imposition of homework, and many have even thrived.

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This line of thinking also misses the whole purpose of home-based assignments.

Homework is an important bridge between school and the home. It allows parents to be part of a child’s educational journey and to contribute in a meaningful way. It keeps the channels of communication about what happens in school open, an important consideration.

[  Homework: ‘If educators saw the stress it causes, they would be horrified’  ]

To suggest that a broad array of extracurricular activities should take precedence entirely over home-based school work is misguided at best. It also sidesteps the fact that many children in homes where money is too tight to mention will be the biggest losers here, as they won’t be spending their time being ferried from one draughty hall to another for ballet or tai chi lessons.

Comparing attending school to going to work as an adult misses the point by a country mile, and amounts to an erroneous justification for such a move. Education is a lifelong journey. If you demonise homework you are giving a child the message that schoolwork/learning is a negative thing. Learning is a wonderful thing. That’s a really worthwhile message to pass on to your children.

However, that is not to say that there is, or at least should be, an optimum amount of work set by a teacher that is age-dependent. If you haven’t 20-30 minutes to spare with your smallie, then the issue is a lifestyle one set up by you, rather than the school one. I am perplexed by parents who believe that their child’s formal education is solely the remit of the school. There is only so much one teacher with up to 30 pupils in a class can do. Issues with a child’s ability to learn will likely be picked up faster on a one-to-one basis at home rather than in a busy classroom.

[  How homework can help children feel happier  ]

Conversely, if you have a very fast learner, you can encourage them to do more to ensure they don’t get bored and lose interest.

Additionally, homework tasks can allow the parent to expand the content to include other ideas and different content. Homework also teaches your child the importance of beginning and finishing a task, a worthwhile life skill.

As a parent I have enjoyed being part of my child’s learning journey. I have fond memories of a little head at the kitchen table calling out “Mum” followed by questions about the meaning or spelling of a word. “Why is the sky blue” stands out vividly as a taxing question that we both had fun establishing the facts for, compliments of Mr Google.

Learning can be fun and that is an important message for parents to give their children. Parents are key educators too. The importance of a visit to the local library and the luxury of time to read a book is arguably more beneficial to a child than contorting their fingers around the neck of a violin. Time to stop, to think and just to be is underrated in modern life, where being busy all the time is considered desirable.

That being said, I think some reworking of homework is overdue. The tedium of completing workbooks being a case in point. Teachers should be encouraged to set stimulating and more creative tasks as homework also. The very idea of written wellbeing homework is faintly ridiculous. It doesn’t take a genius to say “Homework this evening is to dance for 15 minutes to your favourite music.”

[  Why do parents allow children to continue doing homework when they can just opt them out?  ]

The proliferation of after-school activities is also an undoubted indicator of affluence. You would need to ask why one fairly small child needs to attend ballet, violin, swimming, piano, GAA, chess, martial arts, drama, art, French and the rest. Bragging rights for parents shouldn’t form part of the equation, but they often do.

If homework is abolished in primary schools, as sure as night follows day, it will also be dropped at second level too. Given that the Irish examination system is a written one – with many subjects based on essay-style answers – the inability to write well and succinctly will be an impediment to success. Practice does make perfect.

Traditionally, teachers work fewer hours to compensate for time spent correcting homework. There is nothing to stop any parent dropping a note to the teacher to say that no homework was completed last night as we were otherwise engaged.

The bottom line here is that if extracurricular activities are preventing your child from doing homework, the issue is perhaps the out-of-school schedule rather than the homework.

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Debate Writing

Advanced Writing Skills

Points to remember

1. Write Heading/ Topic of the debate at the top. 2. Write ‘For/ against the Motion’ below the topic/ Heading. 3. Address the Audience: Honourable judges, learned teachers and dear students. 4. Begin with:  I stand here today to speak for the motion (name of the topic) that ………………….. 7. Stick to your view point either in favour or against. 5. The opening sentence should touch the main theme and the last sentence should specify the conclusion of the topic. 6. It is more appropriate that one single paragraph should deal with one thought thoroughly. 7. Bank up arguments with relevant information. 8. Total agreement or disagreement with the topic should be expressed forcefully and clearly by using the following:

(a) I’d like to argue…. (b) In my opinion…… (c) May I ask? (d) Refer to your opponent’s view/views (e) I, therefore, wholeheartedly support the view that……. (f) I feel strongly that…… (g) My knowledgeable opponent has submitted that………… (h) Honourable judges, my dear opponent has overlooked the fact that…………

7. Develop each point in a systematic and logical manner. 8. Your composition should be meaningful, brief and to the point. Unnecessary or superfluous details or explanations must be avoided. 9. In the end, write Thank you

Q1. You are Zeenia/Zeeshan a class XII student of RSV school, Badli. You interacted with your friends for knowing their views on shopping Malls which have come up in every corner of the city. You found that around half the total number of your friends love to go to Malls, while the other half hate them. Write a debate in 150.200. Words in favour of or against the topic Mall Culture in Cities.

Mall Culture in Cities (For the motion) By Zeeshan

Honourable Chairmain, judges and my dear friends

I stand before you to express my views in favour of the motion ‘Mall culture in cities’. Shopping malls are becoming integral part of cities. Every corner of a city has at least one shopping mall in it. They are fast emerging as new hallmark of development.  Teenagers love to visit malls with their friends and family. Airconditioned atmosphere provides a big relief from sweltering heat one has to face while shopping in markets in summers. The neat and clean, safe and secure buildinghelps teenagers to forget the stress and pressure of schools and colleges andenjoy free time in a relaxed way. Shopping malls help teenagers to shop for anything under the sky under one roof. All their favourite things like Junk Jewellery, latest DVD, newly released books all are available there. They can take electronic item of any brand withoutcaring about bargaining as the articles sold in malls are of quality brands withfixed price tags. Window shopping, the best way to learn about latest productsin market is best done in malls. Teenagers with their peer are seen windowshopping at showrooms of famous brands there.

Shopping malls also provide perfect place to give and enjoy parties.Mcdonalds, Pizzahuts, KFC and many such eating joints have their outlets in malls. It is becoming a new trend among teenagers to celebrate birthdays, friendship days and many such occasion in the company of whole gang of their friends in shopping malls. Shopping malls with their movie theaters provide another way of enjoying holidays with friends and family. One can watch latest movie in cool and relaxed atmosphere of such theaters.  Thus shopping malls are emerging as the most favourite place for teenagers to hang around in the company of their loved ones without worrying about heat or hunger.

Mall Culture in Cities (Against the motion) By Zeenia

Hon’ble Chairman, judges and my dear friends

I stand before you to express my views against the motion ‘Mall culture in cities’. Mushrooming of shopping malls in every nook and corner of cities is becoming a nuisances for common people. Teenagers suffer most because of increasing mall culture in cities.

Everything about malls is detestable. Their imposing structure and lucrative exterior symbolise the superficiality of city life with increasing materialistic outlook of its people. They seem to be blot on social growth of people. Youngsters, especially teenagers spend their valuable time and hard earned money of their parents in malls.

Shopping malls are harmful for health of the visitors. The air inside the mall is stale due to its being air-conditioned without proper ventilation. The air inside it contains fumes from its eating joints besides breathed out air of the crowd there.

Shopping malls are heavy on the purse also. Most of the showroom in malls charge higher prices in comparison to those in open markets as they have to pay higher rents. It costs many times more to watch movies or buy things here. Shopping malls encourage western culture among teenagers. They get lured by the glossy advertisements about the eating joints there and want to give parties in them instead of at home. They thus, harm teenagers as they get away from Indian values like partying at home with parents.

To conclude, one can say it emphatically that today’s Teenagers under the bad influence of western culture, encouraged by malls, spend their valuable time and hard earned money by roaming around aimlessly and many a times anonymously in malls in the name of window shopping. They want to show off to their friends their spending powers and western outlook at the cost of time and money.

Q2. Write a debate in 150-200 Words in favour of or against the topic ‘Fast food are health hazards’.

FAST FOODS ARE HEALTH HAZARDS (For the Motion) By Arpan

Honourable Chairman, worthy teachers and dear students

Today I stand before you to speak for the motion on ‘Fast foods are health hazards’.Well, I hope you’ll agree with me that fast foods like burgers, hot dogs etc, are really health hazards. These are cooked in very unhygienic conditions. Secondly, the material used in them is of inferior quality. We see that these are sold in street corners and on hand carts. These are exposed to insects like flies and get dust. Even the paper plates on which these are served is of inferior quality. Very much spiced, these become the favourites of the children. There is every likelihood of children falling sick due to these fast foods. I am, therefore, of the opinion that they must be banned for selling in the streets. Even shops selling them must be checked and their qualities be tested.

Honourable judges, you’ll agree with me that our school-going children and the youth depend heavily on these fast food items. They ape the Western culture in relishing them with fizzy drinks. But we know it already that these make them fat and obese. Obesity is already in action. This means that fast foods are real health hazards.

Thank you all.

FAST FOODS ARE HEALTH HAZARDS (Against the Motion) By Aarti

Honourable Chairperson, worthy teachers and dear students

Today I stand before you to speak against the motion on ‘Fast foods are health hazards’. My knowledgeable friend has painted a rather sad picture of fast foods. But it is not so that every kind of fast food sold anywhere is a health hazard. You all will kindly see that these fast foods are prepared in hygienic conditions, though it can’t be said about the fast foods sold in street corners. But bad fast foods available in one corner can’t label all fast foods joints as bad. See for yourself at famous fast foods organizations like Mcdonald’s, Pizza Hut etc. These multi-national organizations have world standards about their recipes of fast foods. Then there are health inspectors who can raid any fast food selling joints for their qualities.

Honourable judges, my dear opponent has overlooked the fact that fast foods have become very popular because of their time-saving aspects. In today’s modern world when life is running like a jet, no one has time. These fast foods have become a very good answer to the fast-moving life. We can see that the youth are always on the run and they can eat these while ‘running’ the race of life.

Finally, these fast foods have the substances which are good for health and carry the genuine items in them. Then their tastes as well as qualities are just good. Their popularity speaks their qualities.

Q3. Write a debate in 150-200 Words in favour of or against the topic ‘TV viewing is harmful for children.’

TV VIEWING IS HARMFUL FOR CHILDREN (For the Motion) By Tripoli

Worthy Chairman, respected judges and dear students

I am here to speak for the motion on TV is harmful for children.In my opinion, TV viewing has really harmed the children. Their mind is the most impressionable one. Anything wrong printed on it, is difficult to remove even at a later stage. I submit that the most telling effect is on children’s health. Many have to wear spectacles because of a weak eyesight later. As a result, regularity of life and punctuality get affected. Home work is its first victim. Studies are not done properly to save time for TV. Also TV viewing gives them anxieties and tension. When the homework gets delayed, fear enters their minds. Slowly, this fear takes a harmful turn. Children start shirking work due to it. Sometime they start telling lies.

I feel that TV viewing exposes the children to an easy life as it is seen in films. There are reports that children die in their attempting to imitate some ‘actions’ of their favourite heroes. Children think that life is like that as is seen in films etc. So this causes frustration at a later stage when they face realities of life which are different. TV viewing is not helping children in making them as responsible and understanding adults. We, in fact, are weakening the very foundation of our young India in this way.

TV viewing makes children immune to violence. Fightings in films, demonstrations or strikes shown in news bulletins blunt them to other finer sensibilities. These are necessary for a peaceful co-existence. I feel strongly that our youths take to crimes due to what they see on screen.

I, therefore, whole-heartedly support that TV viewing is most harmful for human development.

TV viewing is harmful for children (Against the Motion) By Rajan

Worthy chairman,  judges and dear students

Today I stand before you to speak against the motion on ‘TV viewing is harmful for children’. My knowledgeable friend has submitted that TV viewing is really harmful for children. I think it is important to impress the children with basic teachings which would help them a lot later in life. TV viewing does harm the eyesight but only in a wrong way. I disagree as if TV is viewed at a proper distance and in sufficient light, it has no adverse effect on the eyesight. After all, reading bad books is also harmful. Should then reading be banished? I feel strongly that only thro

ugh TV viewing can we build both their character and conduct.

Secondly, TV viewing does not disturb the homework. On the contrary, TV viewing helps in the growth of mental faculties and reasoning power of the children. I strongly support the view that by TV viewing they can grasp the subject well.

My knowledgeable opponent has submitted that TV viewing widens the gap between dream (of films, serials, etc.) and reality of life. My argument is this that it, again depends on how one sees TV programmes. They are for entertainment as reading stories and fairy tales is. We should not view them just as dreams.

I feel strongly that TV viewing is a wholesome educative entertainment. It widens understanding, fellow-feelings, mutual love and cooperation. There are many social useful programmes on TV. These add love to human behaviour in the youth. Good programmes open the area of human understanding. They result in leaving a sound effect on the youth. Sports produce in them team spirit, a sense of fellow-feeling and mutual cooperation.    

I, therefore, wholeheartedly support the view that TV viewing is not, at all harmful.

Q4. Write a debate in 150-200 Words in favour of or against the topic ‘Modern living has made the people of India weak, unhealthy and disease-prone’.

MODERN LIVING – DISEASE PRONE (For the Motion) By Akanksha

Worthy chairman, respected judges and dear students

Today I stand before you to speak for the motion on ‘Modern living has made the people of India weak, unhealthy and disease-prone’.

In my opinion, modern living has made the people of India weak, unhealthy and disease-prone. Today’s life is full of stress, tension, pressures and worries. These begin right from the stage a child is admitted to school. Competition, hurried life, uncertainty of future doubts about success, possibilities of failure etc. cause stress on the human mind. I submit that with one’s growth these worries also grow.

I strongly feel that what we eat and how we live are major factors for making weak .Adulteration, impurities of food articles, irregularity in taking food, wrong habits and eating fly-exposed market foods are the other side of our life. I firmly believe that the fast life and that too full of air, sound and water pollution causes diseases. Smoke, sound and contaminated water tend to make us catch diseases. May I ask : do we have enough time to have a walk in nature, to breathe in clean and fresh air ? No, certainly not. The results can be seen in the increasing number of patients in hospitals.

Next, the living style is also to blame. I disagree that we become safe from mosquitoes by using coils, repellents, aerosols, etc. The matter in them is certainly poisonous. They cause dizziness, skin and lung diseases. I draw the attention that our habits to sleep inside the homes with coolers or fans cause diseases. We breathe in stale air and make ourselves prone to various diseases.

My final argument is that we seek a shortcut to everything. This love of ease is an invitation to disease. I, therefore, strongly support that our present life-styles tend to make us easy victims to these diseases.

MODERN LIVING – DISEASE PRONE (Against the Motion) By Akanksha

Honourable chairman, respected judges and dear students

I stand before you to speak against the motion on ‘Modern living has made the people of India weak, unhealthy and disease-prone.’

My learned opponent has, in fact, painted a sad picture that modern living has made the people of India weak, unhealthy and disease-prone. Life expectancy of the people will refute this argument. I submit that modern living has, on the contrary, proved a boon for good health of all. In the past, many women used to die during the delivery period; many people and children died for want of medical help. This is not so now. Child-care education and better means of modern living have resulted in the sound health of all. Longevity has also increased much.

My next argument is about availability of many comforts. No doubt, life today is fast and competitive. But these are offset by comforts. When one feels ease and comfort, one tends to be away from the stresses and strains.

I strongly oppose the view that various insecticides cause lung diseases, dizziness, headaches etc. On the contrary, every pack has a warning pasted on it. Their proper use, as per these directions, therefore, can check their side-effects.

My knowledgeable opponent has spoken about pollution. Our Government is taking all steps to check it.

I firmly reject that hospitals and nursing homes show unhealthy condition of the people. Surely, these indicate the health of our people. I, therefore, strongly feel that modern living has proved a blessing for the sound health of all the people.

Q5. Write a debate in about 150-200 Words in favour of or against the topic ‘Homework should be abolished.’

HOMEWORK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED (For the Motion) By Raman

Honourable Chairperson, honourable judges, members of staff and friends.

I stand here today to speak for the motion that homework should be abolished. At the very outset I’d like to raise this question—Is the homework to be done by the parent the tutor, or the already overburdened student?

In my opinion, homework is rarely done at home. It is most often copied in the bus, in between classes, or these days reproduced over the telephone. I submit, in fact, that homework often becomes such a burden in many families that parents decide to do it in the speediest and most convenient manner. As a result, older children, private tutors or even parents themselves set to work completing it. Further, I feel very strongly that homework checks a child’s physical, emotional and social development. It simply programmes students to become competitive. I should like to draw your attention to the fact that this monster—homework—becomes a thing of fear and finally becomes a holiday horror. I fail to understand why my worthy opponent has chosen to support somet.lv – – that consumes so much of the student’s free time and energy, both in term-time and holiday-time.

My final argument is that it is of limited value. The type of homework most often ~ is dull and mechanical, so as to keep students busy at home as in school. I support the motion that homework should be abolished.

HOMEWORK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED (Against the Motion) By Amit

Honourable Chairperson, judges and friends

My knowledgeable opponent has submitted that homework is not a desirable thing. But may I ask how the teacher is to check and assess the work of the students if not through homework?

I strongly oppose the view that homework is done by parents, tutors or other children. On the contrary, if homework is constructive, and stimulating, it becomes such a pleasurable activity. I don’t think that homework checks a child’s growth. Instead, it builds children’s self-confidence, and gives them a sense of achievement.

In class, most of the time has to be spent learning from the teacher or working groups. There simply isn’t enough time for the teacher to allow students to work silently and individually. This, I submit, is the great value of homework—that it encourages students to deepen their understanding of topics covered in class, by working quietly and privately on a motivating task. I strongly reject the view that homework has to be dull and mechanical. Instead, homework is usually thought-provoking. It is always interesting, if done in the right spirit.

Homework is an essential part of education. It is good for us as it is enjoyable.

——-xxXxx——-

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Debate on Homework Should be Abolished | Should Homework be Abolished? – Is It Truly Required?

Debate on Homework Should be Abolished: Homework takes up a major part of a child’s life. The 21st century has been a period where students are troubled with homework given on various days for various subjects. Children go through days and evenings on book reports, numerical statements, writing papers, and making science posters or projects. Consequently, homework is an unavoidable piece of the educational system.

After decades of debate, people still argue over the necessity of homework. For some people, it is seen as “burdening the kids” or even “working at home for parents”. These people are right. Without homework, the life of both students, and even parents, would be way better.

You can also find more  Debate Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Below I will provide various disadvantages of giving students homework to affirm my opinion on why homework should be abolished from schools.

While we debate on whether homework should be abolished from school it is required to understand that students are given an excessive amount of homework from all subjects and on various assigned days. Homework is an important part of being successful both inside and outside of the classroom, but too much of it can hinder success. Students who invest a lot of energy in homework are not generally ready to address different issues, such as being truly and socially dynamic.

Students these days are managing a lot of homework – spending almost double the amount of time on finishing their homework after school. In a debate on whether homework should be abolished one ought to understand that in case there is lesser homework or no homework by any means, students will be more able to complete their given tasks and have a more prominent feeling of achievement.

While we debate on whether homework should be abolished from school, I might want to highlight that for a student going to class resembles regular work like most of us adults. Schools for the most part start at the beginning of the day around 8 am or even 7:30 am and end at 4:30 pm. That is around 9 hours of work that children are spending in school each day. Include the extracurricular exercises or even the homework which amounts to an additional 2 hours in a youngster’s day. The student on a normal day is going through no less than 11 hours of school-related work. To top it all students are given homework and expected to present their work on the immediately following day. Is this not a ton of stress that we are putting our youngsters through?

Homework is unpleasant. According to research, it has been found out that most students think about homework as an essential cause of stress, while under 1% of students said homework was not a stressor. It has been seen that many school-going youngsters face indications of stress that are lack of sleep, weight reduction, and stomach-related issues.

Along these lines, in a debate on homework should be abolished we can share that no homework approaches no pressure. Without homework, students don’t have to spend all their time sitting before their work area being worn out and stressing over whether they will be able to submit their work the next day.

While we debate on whether homework should be abolished, I might want to mention that teachers believe that the more homework they give, the quicker students will improve and recollect what they have learned. In any case, that isn’t the situation. Normally the more homework students get, the less they are required to take part in learning. This makes homework a demon driving students into an edge of pressure, not a device for urging them to find out additional information. Investing an excess of energy in homework is connected to a reduction in scholarly execution.

Investing an excessive amount of energy in homework implies that students are not gathering their required necessities and other basic fundamental abilities. Students with a lot of homework are bound to stay away from taking part in activities outside-of-school like games, playing instruments, or even learning a new language. Besides, if students invest all their energy doing homework constantly, they probably won’t have the option to acquire fundamental abilities for their future, like being independent, figuring out how to cook, using time productively, or in any event, associating with others. Numerous students feel compelled to pick homework over learning different skills. Thus, while we debate whether homework should be abolished, it ought to be understood that in case students are not given homework, they could invest more energy into their advantages. Students could take up exercises like moving, playing computer games, and painting and simultaneously have the option to find a way into the general public when they grow up.

Family time, shared nights, end-of-the-week trips, and meals are missed by students who are continually investing energy in homework. Then again, without homework, there would be all the more family bonding time, which makes families closer. Lastly, the main thought to be examined in a debate on homework should be abolished will be that homework upsets the sleep cycle. As per research conducted it was discovered that there is a connection between homework completion and sleep disturbance, kids who had less homework would be wise to schedules and had more steady sleep cycles.

Supporters of homework are driving kids away from learning, making them less successful in and out of school, and destroying their childhood by intruding on weekends, vacations, family mealtimes, children’s sleep time, playtime, and downtime.

Most students feel a burden with all their unnecessary homework. They soon feel numb and unmotivated rather than experiencing engaging school life. Hence, I conclude on a note to say that homework should be abolished in the need of the hour.

FAQ’s on Debate on Homework Should be Abolished

Question 1. What is homework?

Answer: Homework is an out of the class task assigned to students as an extension or an elaboration of classwork. There are three kinds of homework – practice, preparation, and extension.

Question 2. What are the disadvantages of homework?

Answer: There are numerous disadvantages of homework. The main disadvantage being it disturbs the rest pattern of the students. Homework adds as a significant worry for youngsters who often fall prey to stress-related health issues. Due to homework, numerous kids are compelled to give a secondary seat to extra-curricular activities that they appreciate and have a great time doing.

Question 3. Does assigning homework cause pressure in kids?

Answer: In research, it has been found out that most students think about homework as a primary cause of stress. It has been seen that many school-going kids face indications of stress that are lack of sleep, weight reduction, and stomach-related issues. The tremendous pressure and wellbeing-related issues are all due to the assignment of homework.

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Election Updates: Biden and Trump agree to debates in June and September.

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Rebecca Davis O’Brien

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is having a comedy event tonight at the storied Ryman Auditorium in Nashville: Russell Brand, Rob Schneider and the former “Saturday Night Live” actor Jim Breuer are among those expected to take the mic here. But Kennedy will be late — a longtime friend, the comedian Mike Binder, just told the packed venue that Kennedy had been detained on a “grave” family health emergency.

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Just hours after CNN sealed a deal for the first presidential debate between President Biden and Donald Trump, there is already growing tension over the rules. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate, has vowed to qualify and participate — and it is possible he could qualify. But the Biden campaign has said its terms were “for two one-on-one debates” with Trump, slamming the door on any third-party participation.

Donald Trump weighed in on the grisly story of Kristi Noem shooting her family dog in an interview that aired on Tuesday, suggesting that Noem had not read the book carefully after her ghostwriter completed it. “That’s a tough story,” Trump said, adding, with a chuckle, “She had a bad week. We all have bad weeks.”

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ABC News has announced that David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate its presidential debate on Sept. 10.

Katie Rogers

A whirlwind day of dueling debate R.S.V.P.s and social media swipes is ending rather soberly at the White House. As President Biden welcomed combatant commanders for a meeting in the Cabinet Room, a reporter asked him if he looked forward to debating former President Donald J. Trump. “I am,” he replied. Biden was also asked if he was worried about his standing in recent polls. He shook his head.

Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have been announced as the moderators of the CNN debate on June 27. ABC News, which is hosting the later debate on Sept. 10, has not yet said who its moderators will be.

Reid J. Epstein

The Biden campaign slammed the door on Donald Trump’s attempt to have more than two debates. “President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign’s chair. “No more games. No more chaos. No more debate about debates.”

Maggie Astor

Former President Donald J. Trump said on social media that he would "hereby accept" a third debate on Oct. 2, hosted by Fox News. President Biden hasn’t offered that, though — he has agreed to two debates, not three, and Fox News doesn’t meet the criteria Biden proposed for hosts.

It could actually be slightly easier for Kennedy to qualify for the CNN debate in June, compared with the ones traditionally hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The commission requires at least 15 percent support in five national polls , while CNN only requires four of those polls . Kennedy would also need to get on the ballot in enough states to reach a 270 electoral vote threshold. He has about five weeks to do.

Reid Epstein and Shane Goldmacher

Before the Biden campaign’s debate proposal Wednesday morning, backchannel talks about debates had been taking place between senior officials in the Biden and Trump campaigns, according to four people familiar with the discussions. The two campaigns had mutual interest in both circumventing the debates commission and excluding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other independent and third party candidates.

Such was the preparation before Wednesday’s announcements that the Biden campaign had in recent days moved to reschedule a major New York fund-raising event planned for the evening June 27.

Presidential debates matter in part because of their mass audience: 73 million watched the first debate of 2020. How many will watch if the debate is limited to a single network? Both campaigns know that bypassing the debate commission means a smaller live audience in case of any gaffes or major stumbles.

The first presidential debate will be held in Atlanta, the political engine of a key southern battleground state, Georgia. President Biden won the state by less than 13,000 votes in 2020.

Nick Corasaniti

In a memorandum addressed to the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign agreed to the June debate and proposed a monthly debate schedule: “a debate in June, a debate in July, a debate in August, and a debate in September, in addition to the Vice Presidential debate.” But the Biden campaign has pitched only two debates so far.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate, complained in a statement that former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden are seeking to bypass events traditionally held by the Commission on Presidential Debates to avoid debating him. Kennedy does not, at this time, have the 15 percent support in five national polls that he needs to be included in a debate under the commission’s rules.

The late June date of the CNN debate means that it will come right on the heels of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in New York, which could very likely reach a verdict by then. Plus, the trial of Hunter Biden on gun charges is scheduled to start in Delaware on June 3. The CNN studio in Atlanta is also just a few miles from where Trump was booked in the Fulton County jail in another criminal case.

Shane Goldmacher

In a departure from the usual Biden posture of not commenting in any way on Trump’s legal troubles, the campaign is now selling a t-shirt that reads: “Free on Wednesdays.” That, of course, is a reference to Trump’s trial schedule.

Jess Bidgood

General election debates usually happen in late September or October. By agreeing to a debate with Trump in late June, the Biden campaign is essentially attempting to kick off the general election season early, even before the Democratic and Republican conventions — something they hope will benefit them as voters compare Biden and Trump directly.

One unusual aspect of this year’s eventual general election debates: Both men will be coming in relatively cold. Usually, the challenger has honed their skills in a series of primary debates. But Trump skipped those this year, meaning the last debate either of them attended was with each other.

Maggie Haberman

This isn’t the first time in history that a candidate has tried going around the debate commission. George W. Bush’s team wanted to in 2000, but ultimately returned to the table with Al Gore’s team and the commission.

President Biden made a return to political norms a central part of his campaign in 2020. This move to jettison the traditional presidential debate marks an extraordinary break with those norms and an attempt by his campaign to reconfigure the format in a way that might be more favorable to them.

One thing that’s worth remembering: after the Republican National Committee made extensive efforts to force the party’s eventual nominee away from the Commission on Presidential Debates, Trump and his team have been more open to working with the commission. But Biden’s team is saying no.

Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman

Biden and Trump agree to two debates on June 27 and Sept. 10.

President Biden and Donald J. Trump have agreed to two debates, one on June 27 on CNN and one on Sept. 10 on ABC News, the first onstage clashes between the former president and his successor in more than three years.

While some of the details were still being hammered out, the agreement to the two debates, reached in a series of social-media posts Wednesday morning, raises the likelihood of the earliest general-election debate in modern history and immediately delivered a jolt of electricity to a campaign that had settled into something of a rut.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden believe firmly that if the American people get a look at their opponent on a debate stage they will be less likely to vote for them.

Mr. Biden opened the exchange on Wednesday by saying he was willing to debate Mr. Trump twice before the election, and as early as June, but on the condition that the arrangements bypassed the nonpartisan organization that has managed presidential debates since 1988.

Mr. Biden and his top aides want the debates to start much sooner than the dates proposed by the organization, the Commission on Presidential Debates, so voters can see the two candidates side by side well before early voting begins in September. They want the debate to occur inside a TV studio, with microphones that automatically cut off when a speaker’s time limit elapses.

And they want it to be just the two candidates and the moderator — without the raucous in-person audiences that Mr. Trump feeds on and without the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.

It remains unclear whether the Trump campaign will agree to the Biden campaign’s proposed rules, including the mic cutoff and lack of an audience.

Before the Biden campaign’s debate proposal Wednesday morning, at least one behind-the-scenes conversation between aides to both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump had taken place, according to four people familiar with the discussion. The two campaigns had mutual interest in both circumventing the debates commission and excluding Mr. Kennedy.

That mutual interest between the two camps did not necessarily mean mutual agreement.

Mr. Trump added a new wrinkle when he announced on his social-media site Truth Social that he had agreed to a third debate on Fox News on Oct. 2. But the Biden campaign slammed the door on that.

“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, said. “No more games. No more chaos. No more debate about debates.”

Shortly after the Biden campaign had announced that they would consider invitations from news organizations seeking to host the debates, Mr. Biden posted on X that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate with Mr. Trump on June 27 in Atlanta.

“Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place,” Mr. Biden wrote.

Mr. Trump quickly responded, telling Fox News Digital that he would “be there” and was “looking forward to being in beautiful Atlanta.”

A short time later, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he had accepted the ABC News debate. The Biden team then said the president will attend that one as well.

Mr. Biden gave Mr. Trump what he has openly clamored for: a televised confrontation with a successor Mr. Trump has portrayed, and hopes to reveal, as too feeble to hold the job. The move suggests that Mr. Biden is willing to take some calculated risks to reverse his fortunes in a race in which most battleground-state polls show the president trailing Mr. Trump and struggling to persuade voters that he’s an effective leader and steward of the economy.

Mr. Biden recently indicated he would debate Mr. Trump, but had until now declined to give any firm commitment or specific details. Mr. Trump had declared repeatedly that he will debate his successor “anytime and anywhere,” and demanded as many debates as possible.

The public back-and-forth over debates started on Wednesday morning, after Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, Ms. O’Malley Dillon, sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The letter notified the group that Mr. Biden will not be participating in the three general-election debates sponsored by the commission, which are scheduled for Sept. 16, Oct. 1 and Oct. 9.

It was a striking decision for Mr. Biden, an institutionalist who has tried to preserve the traditions of Washington. Instead, Ms. O’Malley Dillon writes in the letter that Mr. Biden will participate in debates hosted by news organizations.

In a video announcing his offer, Mr. Biden taunted Mr. Trump. “Make my day, pal,” he said, adding a reference to the one weekday Mr. Trump’s Manhattan trial is generally not in session. “Let’s pick the date, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”

Mr. Trump, in his insult-laden response on Truth Social, said he would like to see more than two debates and for “excitement purposes, a very large venue.” Calling Mr. Biden “the WORST” debater and “crooked,” he accused the president of being “afraid of crowds.”

The Biden campaign also proposes that one vice-presidential debate be held in late July after Mr. Trump and his running mate are formally nominated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

For the president, early debates hold significant advantages. Early votes are crucial, especially for Democrats. And polls show that Mr. Biden currently trails Mr. Trump and that his messages on core issues like the economy are not resonating with enough voters.

The Biden campaign and the president’s White House staff widely feel that the debates were important in 2020, and that they will be important again this year.

The Biden campaign has been trying to remind voters of why a majority removed Mr. Trump from office in 2020. People close to the president have said they’re worried about so-called Trump amnesia — that voters are nostalgic about Mr. Trump and have forgotten how divisive he was — and some of the recent polling underscores that point.

A side-by-side debate, which could have a large viewing audience, is the most dramatic way for the Biden campaign to give Mr. Trump more exposure, in their view.

In the first debate in 2020, Mr. Trump barely allowed Mr. Biden to get a word in. He was aggressive and constantly interrupting, while sweating and appearing unwell. Mr. Biden, exasperated, famously said to Mr. Trump, “Will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.” And in the days following that first debate, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers fell .

The Trump campaign’s top officials, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, see the situation differently and share their boss’s eagerness for him to debate Mr. Biden as often as possible. They have indicated that they don’t care who hosts the debate, or where it’s held. The Trump campaign believes, almost to a person, that Mr. Biden has declined significantly since 2020 and would be exposed in a debate against Mr. Trump.

Mr. LaCivita said in a statement the only reason Mr. Biden agreed to debates was because he had “trapped” himself last month by telling the radio host Howard Stern that he would participate.

The letter from Ms. O’Malley Dillon makes clear that the Biden campaign does not trust the Commission on Presidential Debates to conduct a professional debate, saying it “was unable or unwilling to enforce the rules in the 2020 debates.”

Among other grievances with the commission, Biden aides are still furious that Mr. Trump debated Mr. Biden in 2020 and appeared visibly under the weather, announcing soon after the debate that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. The Biden team was also livid that members of the Trump family took their masks off when they arrived in the audience for the debate.

Still, the decision to sideline the commission offers clear advantages to Mr. Biden.

For starters, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump agreed to two debates, but the commission had already scheduled three debates. Also, Biden campaign officials want the debates to be held in a television studio without an in-person audience that could cheer, boo and derail the conversation, as Trump supporters did during a CNN town hall last year. The commission always invites an audience to watch its presidential debates.

There’s also a chance that Mr. Kennedy reaches the 15 percent national polling threshold to qualify for the commission’s debates. The Biden campaign views Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler candidate and people close to the president worry that with the Kennedy name he could attract support from voters who might otherwise support Mr. Biden.

Ms. O’Malley Dillon writes in her letter that the debate should be one-on-one to allow voters “to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College — and not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming president.”

Mr. Kennedy criticized both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump as the debate plans became public. “They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win,” he wrote in a statement posted on X . “Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”

The Biden campaign has proposed rules — including the automatic cutting-off of microphones — to ensure Mr. Trump does not blow through his time limits and talk over Mr. Biden as he did relentlessly during their first debate in 2020.

“There should be firm time limits for answers, and alternate turns to speak — so that the time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon writes in the letter.

She also proposed criteria to limit which television networks are allowed to host debates. It should only be hosted, Ms. O’Malley Dillon writes, by broadcast organizations that hosted both a Republican primary debate in 2016 in which Mr. Trump participated and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which Mr. Biden participated — “so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable.” That criteria excludes Fox News.

The Trump campaign has been complaining about the commission for months.

In a statement on May 1 condemning the organization, Ms. Wiles and Mr. LaCivita blasted the group for not agreeing to earlier debates given the fact that early voting begins well before Election Day.

“We must host debates earlier than ever before,” they said. “Again, we call on every television network in America that wishes to host a debate to extend an invitation to our campaign and we will gladly negotiate with the Biden campaign, with or without the stubborn Presidential Debates Commission.”

Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Astor contributed reporting.

Neil Vigdor and Yan Zhuang

Trump’s jet clipped a parked plane in Florida.

Former President Donald J. Trump landed in Cincinnati on Wednesday for a campaign fund-raiser, but without his ubiquitous Boeing 757, which had clipped a parked plane as it was taxiing at a Florida airport early on Sunday morning.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump was aboard his plane at the time of the mishap, according to details released by the Federal Aviation Administration and public information about the two aircraft that were involved. The incident happened several hours after Mr. Trump held a campaign rally at the Jersey Shore .

No injuries were reported, according to the F.A.A.’s notice about the incident , which listed the Boeing’s registration number as N757AF .

That is the same tail number as “Trump Force One,” the moniker for Mr. Trump’s airliner, which regularly shuttles the former president to campaign rallies and court appearances. The aircraft has been a source of braggadocio for Mr. Trump over the years — not to mention speculation about whether it might be seized as part of his civil fraud penalty in New York.

But on Wednesday, the aircraft was conspicuously absent as Mr. Trump descended from a considerably smaller private jet at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Mr. Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions about the status of his plane.

According to the F.A.A., a Boeing 757 landed at Palm Beach International Airport at about 1:20 a.m. on Sunday and was taxiing when one of its winglets struck the rear elevator of a parked plane. A winglet is a small tip curving off the end of an aircraft’s wing in order to reduce aerodynamic drag.

No one was inside the parked plane, which was registered to VistaJet, a private charter company, the F.A.A. said in a statement , adding that the incident occurred in an area of the airfield where the agency does not direct aircraft. The agency said it was investigating the incident.

According to the F.A.A.’s aircraft registry, the Boeing plane is registered to DJT Operations I LLC, one of the companies Mr. Trump owned and resigned from at the beginning of 2017, when he became president.

The agency did not say how much damage the two planes sustained or specify the type of VistaJet aircraft that was involved. VistaJet did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump, who is in New York several days each week for a criminal trial related to a hush-money payment , lives just a few miles from the Palm Beach International Airport, at Mar-a-Lago, his private club.

He has frequently used airport tarmacs and hangars as a setting for his campaign rallies, saving him time and giving his supporters a chance to cheer on the plane’s approach.

Far-right candidate in Missouri draws backlash for homophobic video.

It was a fringe Republican campaign ad that could be ripe for parody on late-night television, ideal material for a skit on “Saturday Night Live” or the target of a monologue from a bewildered Jon Stewart. Except it was real, and it is hard to imagine how it could be further satirized.

“In America, you can be anything you want,” Valentina Gomez, a 25-year-old immigrant from Colombia and real estate investor running in the G.O.P. primary for secretary of state in Missouri, says in the video as she jogs through a historic district of St. Louis to the uplifting beats of “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco.

“So don’t be weak and gay. Stay hard,” she continues, emphasizing her statement with an expletive. The neighborhood where the video was filmed, Soulard, has a significant L.G.B.T. community.

The campaign ad, which Ms. Gomez shared on her social media accounts, then transitions from the video of Ms. Gomez — wearing running shorts and a vest resembling body armor — to a still photo of the candidate in front of a truck and wearing a National Rifle Association hat, with an American flag at her side and a gun in each hand.

The campaign ad, first posted on Sunday, has drawn condemnation and scrutiny online. Mr. Fiasco, who has condemned homophobia in the hip-hop scene , distanced himself from the video that featured one of his hit singles, saying in a statement that he was “currently taking action.” Jason Kander, a former Democratic secretary of state in Missouri and a former Army intelligence officer , mocked Ms. Gomez in a social media post on Tuesday.

“So refreshing to see a female GOP candidate who never served in the military doing the whole veteran cosplay, stolen valor, bigotry as a substitute for strength routine as well as any man,” wrote Mr. Kander , who deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 and has since struggled with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder .

But Ms. Gomez’s online trolling campaign, rife with homophobia and attacks against transgender people, has also earned her the admiration of far-right lawmakers, including Representative Matt Gaetz, online conservative influencers and the expelled former Representative George Santos — who is himself gay.

The jogging video is also not the first such homophobic stunt from Ms. Gomez, who appears eager to stand out as a political newcomer in a crowded Republican primary to be Missouri’s top elections official. In February, she posted a video of herself burning L.G.B.T.Q. books with a homemade flamethrower . A month later, she said that countries that ban flamethrowers were also “weak and gay,” and has since repeatedly used the homophobic phrase as an insult, wielding it as a campaign slogan.

Ms. Gomez has spent little on the race so far in comparison with some of her better-known opponents, including Dean Plocher, the speaker of the Missouri House . But her social media posts — which come at a frantic pace on X — have lifted her profile as she rails against the state party as corrupt and compromised.

“I speak the truth, and I am waking up the lions to save America,” Ms. Gomez wrote on social media on Wednesday, in defense of her ad. “Weakness will get us nowhere. The gloves are off, and I am here to protect and fight for Missouri.”

Ms. Gomez did not respond to a request for comment on social media.

Ms. Gomez’s remarks stand out not just for their provocative nature, but also because they are something of a non sequitur in the race she is running. A secretary of state is essentially a state’s chief bureaucrat, in charge of record-keeping and overseeing the state’s elections. Ms. Gomez is a 2020 election denier, and has said she would abolish voting machines and deploy the National Guard — an authority a secretary of state does not have — to secure elections.

Reporting from Washington

Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, will take time off from Airbnb to help the president prepare.

Ron Klain, the president’s former chief of staff, will take some time away from his post-White House job to help President Biden prepare for a debate against Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Klain, who left the White House last year , said in a text message that he would take a vacation from his job as the chief legal officer at Airbnb in the coming weeks to help get Mr. Biden ready.

“On my own time, I will assist,” he said.

Mr. Klain, 62, is one of the president’s most trusted confidants, and was critical to Mr. Biden’s debate preparations during the 2020 campaign.

When he left the White House, Mr. Klain, whom Republicans sometimes referred to as “prime minister” in describing his influence, took with him decades of institutional knowledge about Washington politics, the inner workings of Capitol Hill and an intimate knowledge of the Biden family. He was so well liked within the White House that staff members had a nickname for themselves: “ Klainiacs .”

Though he took a nonpolitical job after leaving, Mr. Klain did not end up going very far: He has been summoned to the White House regularly in recent weeks to participate in political strategy discussions, and the president still calls him by phone often.

By the time Mr. Biden told the radio host Howard Stern in April that he was prepared to debate Mr. Trump, Mr. Klain had agreed to help. Days later, Mr. Klain told Jen Psaki, a former Biden White House press secretary who now hosts a television show on MSNBC, that “rules are going to have to be enforced” ahead of any debate between the two men.

“I think what we have to see is something different than we saw in 2016 and 2020, where the debate commission lost control of the debates, Trump didn’t follow the rules at all, he talked over his opponents, there wasn’t a fair division of time, it was more a spectacle than a debate,” Mr. Klain said . “That’s always going to be true with Donald Trump on the stage.”

But, he added, “we need to have debates where the candidates get equal time” and “where the American people can compare the two people who are the leading candidates for president.”

Here’s how the debates that Trump and Biden have agreed to break with tradition.

Presidential debates have been a staple of campaigns for decades, but the ones being scheduled between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are taking an unusual turn, with only two planned — neither of which is sanctioned by the group that has traditionally run the debates — and the first one set before either candidate has officially been nominated.

No general-election debate has ever been held earlier than Sept. 21, nearly three months later than the June 27 date proposed for the first one this year, according to historical records kept by the Commission on Presidential Debates. And no debate season has ever concluded before Oct. 13, about a month later than the Sept. 10 date proposed for the second one this year.

That is just one way in which the 2024 debates are likely to stand out. Mr. Biden is asking for news organizations to host them, rather than the commission, which has organized the debates for every presidential election since 1988. And their format could differ, too, given that Mr. Biden has asked that there not be a live audience. (Mr. Trump agrees on jettisoning the commission but disagrees on the live audience.)

The debate tradition itself is, in the scope of U.S. history, pretty modern.

The first televised general-election debates were held in 1960, but they would not be repeated for 16 years. The tradition that now exists — with debates conducted every four years and a refusal to participate constituting a breach of norms — dates back less than 50 years, to 1976.

The inaugural 1960 debates are remembered for how unprepared Richard M. Nixon, the Republican candidate, was for the bright lights of live television. During the first of four events that year, on Sept. 26, the studio lights at WBBM-TV in Chicago made Nixon sweat, illuminated his apparently unshaven face and made him look generally unappealing in contrast to John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate who went on to win the White House.

For more than a decade after that, 1960 was an anomaly — nobody seemed eager to undergo Nixon’s experience. There were no debates in 1964, 1968 or 1972.

Then, in 1976, President Gerald Ford agreed to debate Jimmy Carter. It did not turn out well for him, either.

Ford was already struggling in the polls when he showed up on the debate stage and claimed, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” He stood by that assertion even after a moderator, Max Frankel of The New York Times, asked incredulously if he was really denying the Soviet Union’s domination of countries like Poland and Romania.

Nonetheless, the tradition now stuck. The League of Women Voters hosted debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984. Duties were then turned over in 1988 to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

While Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960 was the first face-to-face general-election debate, some events, formatted differently, were held earlier.

In 1956, Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver participated in a televised debate during the Democratic primary, but there was no general-election debate between Stevenson, the party’s nominee, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Surrogates for the candidates did, however, hold one: Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, debated on behalf of Eisenhower, and the former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of Stevenson.

In 1952, the League of Women Voters hosted a televised debate for all candidates in both parties, not just the nominees.

In 1948, Thomas Dewey and Harold Stassen debated each other on the radio in the Republican primary. But Dewey did not debate — or defeat — President Harry S. Truman in the general election.

And, of course, there were the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates — but while those are commonly remembered in association with Lincoln’s presidency, they were part of his campaign for the Senate.

Jonathan Weisman

Seeking history in Maryland, and zombie campaigns linger: Primary takeaways.

Hundreds of thousands of voters in Maryland, West Virginia and Nebraska went to the polls on Tuesday, weighing in on primaries whose results pointed to a desire for moderation, achievement and diversity, and a rejection of the political power of money.

And what about those zombie campaigns in both parties’ presidential races? Nikki Haley had a pretty good night for a candidate who long ago dropped her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Here are four takeaways:

In Maryland, a potential history maker beats the money.

Representative David Trone, a co-owner of the giant alcohol retailer Total Wine and More, gave up his safe House seat, spent more than $60 million of his fortune and lost the Senate Democratic primary to Angela Alsobrooks, who hopes to become only the third Black woman to be elected to Congress’s upper chamber.

In a showdown between money and history, history won.

Maryland would ordinarily have been a safe bet for Democrats hoping to hold the seat of Senator Ben Cardin upon his retirement, but the entry of Larry Hogan, a popular former governor and Republican moderate, into the race has scrambled the equation. Democrats initially were happy to have Mr. Trone as their nominee, knowing they wouldn’t have to spend a dime for him in the general election.

But senior Democrats in Maryland and around the country came to believe they needed a candidate who could inspire their base voters in Baltimore and the suburbs of Washington to come out in November to beat Mr. Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican who proved his bipartisan appeal with two governor’s race victories in his blue state.

Ms. Alsobrooks crushed Mr. Trone in her home base, the diverse Washington suburbs of Prince George’s County, where she is the county executive. She beat him in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and suburban Howard County. She even narrowly beat him in his home base, Montgomery County, a Washington suburb with some of the most affluent communities in the country.

The Cook Political Report rates the seat likely Democratic, even with Mr. Hogan now the Republican standard-bearer, but the coming campaign will be hard fought. If Ms. Alsobrooks and Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, both win their Senate contests in November, voters will have doubled the number of Black women elected to the Senate in American history, and for the first time ever, two Black women will serve in the Senate at once.

A resistance warrior goes down to defeat.

In the most online, partisan Democratic circles, Harry Dunn was a star, a burly Capitol Police officer who battled a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021, testified before the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol and then ran for the House he had defended at risk to his life.

He may have lived slightly outside the House district he wanted to represent. He may have had no political experience. But he was the candidate running to “save democracy.”

On Tuesday, he was beaten by a soft-spoken workhorse, State Senator Sarah Elfreth, in a Democratic primary almost certain to determine who will represent Maryland’s Third House District next year.

Mr. Dunn had raised nearly $4.6 million from across the country by the end of April and dominated the airwaves. Ms. Elfreth raised $1.5 million and had the backing of the United Democracy Project, a pro-Israel political action committee affiliated with the American Israel Political Affairs Committee.

But she had something Mr. Dunn didn’t have: legislative experience and a record in the Democratic political trenches.

Hope for moderation in the G.O.P.?

Two House primaries on Tuesday offered some clues to just how far right the Republican Party was moving as its presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump, rose back to center stage. In both Nebraska and West Virginia, the mainstream of the G.O.P. prevailed.

In Nebraska’s swing district around Omaha, Representative Don Bacon, who has a reputation as an independent voice, faced off against Dan Frei, a conservative challenger backed by the state’s Republican Party, a pro-Trump bastion. Mr. Bacon held that a Frei victory in the primary would hand his seat to the Democrats in November. On Tuesday, Mr. Bacon trounced Mr. Frei, setting up a much tougher race for the Democratic nominee, State Senator Tony Vargas.

In West Virginia, Derrick Evans, an unrepentant rioter arrested after participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, challenged Representative Carol Miller in a safe Republican seat. Ms. Miller is no moderate, but she isn’t a rioter. The incumbent whipped the insurgent.

The zombie presidential voters emerge again.

President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, absent an unexpected catastrophe, will be their parties’ nominees for the White House, but with no one running against either man in the primaries, opposition keeps cropping up. For Mr. Biden, in heavily Democratic Maryland, it came in the form of “uncommitted” — around one in 10 Democratic primary voters cast their ballots that way, many of them presumably protesting his support for Israel in the war in Gaza. And 3.3 percent went for the defunct candidacies of Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips.

In West Virginia, 20 percent of the voters in the Democratic primary opted for marginal candidates named Jason Palmer and Stephen Lyons. Mr. Phillips, a representative from Minnesota, collected around 8 percent of the Democratic vote in Nebraska.

Unity was even less in evidence on the Republican side. Long out of the race, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina nonetheless won around 20 percent of the vote in Maryland and Nebraska. Even in West Virginia, the deepest of Trump country, Ms. Haley got nearly one in 10 Republican votes.

Where these voters go in November could be critical. They don’t show up in polling, but they keep showing up at the polls.

Senate Republicans push for Secret Service to move protests farther from G.O.P. convention.

The director of the Secret Service met on Tuesday with Senate Republicans to discuss the party’s effort to push the expected protesters farther from the site of the Republican National Convention, set for July in Milwaukee.

Republican officials and lawmakers have objected to the placement of a designated demonstration zone near the convention venue, arguing it would create conflict between protesters and attendees. A lawyer for the Republican National Committee proposed in a letter in late April that the Secret Service expand the security perimeter around the venue, the Fiserv Forum.

The meeting came at the request of Senator Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, who warned in a letter on Friday of “a potentially volatile situation” and “a likely — and preventable — area of conflict” between attendees and demonstrators at the convention, where the party is set to officially make Donald J. Trump its 2024 presidential nominee.

“As you know, this year has been a very challenging one for protests in the United States,” Mr. McConnell wrote, referring to a recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses. “We must all take seriously that tensions are high and do our best to balance the right to express dissent while also keeping convention attendees as safe as possible.”

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said in an interview with local television in Milwaukee that he was one of the senators who met with Kimberly A. Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service.

“I found it a little frustrating,” Mr. Johnson said on Fox6 News Milwaukee , adding that “she basically said she does not have the authority to change their assessment, and they based it on their criteria that they’ve been using for years. And as a result, doesn’t sound like she can change anything.”

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, confirmed that Ms. Cheatle “briefed members of the U.S. Senate” about the security plan for the convention, adding that the security perimeter was “based on security considerations, including protective intelligence, risk and threat assessments, and is developed to ensure the highest level of security, while minimizing impacts to the public.”

The Secret Service has also said the security plan for the convention was developed and approved by a larger committee of city, state and federal agencies.

Under the proposed security plan, according to the R.N.C., protesters would be confined to Pere Marquette Park , a small public park on the bank of the Milwaukee River about a quarter of a mile from Fiserv Forum, the arena where the convention will take place. That park is adjacent to the two streets designated as the main routes to get to the convention, and the Republican National Committee has argued that forcing attendees to pass by the protesters would heighten tensions and cause confrontation.

Republicans have cited the recent campus protests, and Mr. Johnson on Tuesday mentioned the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020, as well as the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A group known as the Coalition to March on the RNC has been organizing convention demonstrations. Posts on social media promoting the demonstrations suggest that in Milwaukee they would be protesting Republican policies on the war in Gaza, abortion rights and climate change, among other issues.

“The Coalition to March on the RNC denounces these attempts by Republicans to strip us from our First Amendment rights,” the group said in a statement, adding, “We will be marching within sight and sound, regardless of these kinds of complaints by the Republicans.”

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Anjali Huynh

Sarah Elfreth, Maryland’s youngest female state senator, wins House primary.

Sarah Elfreth, the youngest woman ever elected to Maryland’s State Senate, won a crowded Democratic primary race on Tuesday in Maryland’s Third Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.

Ms. Elfreth, 35, emerged from a field of more than 20 Democrats vying in the deep-blue district to succeed Representative John Sarbanes, a Democrat who announced last October that after nine terms he would not seek re-election.

First elected to the Maryland State Senate in 2018, Ms. Elfreth often highlighted her political résumé during her run and played up the bipartisan legislative victories she helped to secure while serving in the General Assembly. She ran on a platform with standard Democratic fare that included pledges to protect abortion rights, combat gun violence and fight climate change.

Ms. Elfreth drew support from several local Democrats. Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, who did not seek re-election this year, spoke favorably of her while appearing on the trail alongside her last week — though he stopped short of a formal endorsement.

Her most prominent rival was Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who was on duty during the attacks on Jan. 6, 2021, and rose to national fame after testifying in the House investigation into the attack. Mr. Dunn, a first-time candidate, had significantly out-raised his opponents in the race since announcing his run in January, and was endorsed by a number of prominent national Democrats.

Ms. Elfreth had raised about $1.5 million since starting her campaign in November, significantly less than the $4.6 million that Mr. Dunn had amassed. But she received support from outside groups, including more than $4.2 million in spending from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel group.

Her support drew attacks from Mr. Dunn, who swore off funding from outside groups and criticized Ms. Elfreth for at times voting alongside Republicans in the State Senate. Ms. Elfreth, for her part, said she would prioritize campaign finance reform in Congress, and her campaign said that Mr. Dunn had distorted Ms. Elfreth’s record .

Ms. Elfreth will be favored in the heavily Democratic district in November.

Angela Alsobrooks wants to be Maryland’s first Black senator.

Angela Alsobrooks, Maryland’s newly chosen Democratic nominee for Senate, is familiar with firsts.

With her election in 2018 as executive of Prince George’s County, a populous suburban area bordering Washington, Ms. Alsobrooks became the first Black woman to hold that role.

Now she has the chance to become the first Black senator to represent Maryland, which is more than 30 percent Black . If she wins this fall, she would also become the sole woman in Maryland’s congressional delegation, and the second woman ever to represent it in the Senate.

And she would be only the fourth Black woman, after Carol Moseley Braun, Kamala Harris and Laphonza Butler, to serve in the Senate — from any state.

In a campaign that became increasingly tense over the past few weeks, Ms. Alsobrooks leaned heavily on the importance of racial and gender representation in government, seemingly in hopes that her historic candidacy would counter the flood of cash being spent by her opponent, Representative David Trone.

Mr. Trone put more than $55 million of his own money into the race, making it the most expensive Senate primary ever in Maryland.

“As women, we don’t want people talking about us and making decisions about us without us,” Ms. Alsobrooks told The New York Times as Tuesday’s election approached, referring to abortion rights, one of the biggest issues of this year’s campaigns.

Before she was elected as the county executive in 2018, she also was the county’s top prosecutor, and before that she was an assistant state’s attorney focused on domestic violence.

Race was a major theme in her Senate primary, both because of the potential firsts that Ms. Alsobrooks represented and because Mr. Trone, who is white, was accused of racism after he used a racial slur in a congressional hearing (He apologized and said he had used the word inadvertently).

She received the support of most of Maryland’s congressional delegation, as well as Gov. Wes Moore — the state’s first Black governor — and Black women in other states.

In the general election, she will face a formidable opponent: Larry Hogan, the state’s popular former Republican governor.

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