Homework - love or hate it

Do you think homework is worth it? Do you find your kids are learning anything from doing it? Is it an exercise in frustration? I know many teachers who just assign homework so that the curriculum can be covered by the parents teaching it at home. I know many teachers that do not believe in homework and that school is the time to learn and home should be a time for family. What are your thoughts on homework?

I don't like homework at all. I think it takes up too much time from the kids when they could be doing other stuff, like reading for fun, researching stuff they like and things like that. With the amount of homework thee kids get, i might as well home-school them myself because I feel like I'm doing most of the teacher's work. the conflict is that the curriculum has changed quite a lot and so have teaching methods. The poor kids end up confused on whether to follow mummy's method or teacher's method, especially with a subject like math.

Kids are overloaded with work these days and it's not fair to them. They hardly have time to be kids. Then homework on top of an already very long day? No thank you. Not to mention, subjects don't take nearly as long to learn as schools spend on them. So much pressure.. and then they get in trouble if they lose interest or get distracted or moody. Poor kids. School is such a passion sucker. A big reason we homeschool.

I honestly hate homework but I understand that it is necessary in order to learn. Sometimes I just wish that
the terms of some our homework was more flexible in the way that it allowed for us to be creative. I know that we have to follow directions but sometimes it feels like the school system wants us to be robots that regurgitate information instead of critically thinking and creatively demonstrating our hypothesis.

I agree that sometimes you don't know if you should be teaching your kids what to do in math as it has changed so much and our older ways to doing math may not be the teacher's way and they may not like it that you have taught them a different way. I say as long as your child understands the concepts and can do the math it doesn't matter which way they learn it. At least that's what I tell my son. I've also had to have a chat with my son about not all teachers are created equally. He has a terrible math teacher this year who just writes the questions on the board from the text book and never teaches the kids. You wonder why the kids don't do well on assessments. He comes home and my husband and I teach it to him so he can do the textbook questions.

I actually really liked homework when it came to raising a child. I do consider myself lucky because my kids were very calm and able to focus, which I know many parents struggle with. That said, it did provide a good way to educate them about sitting down and getting the work done. Most of the stuff that my kids got was pretty easy, and it took them ten or twenty minutes to finish it and it was done. They just seemed to glob on to the idea of get it done quick and get it over with.

I guess my own answer is two-fold. Bottom line response is that I don't like the thought of it... *but* I've been both a student and a teacher, and I know why it's necessary. It is the way that teachers know if whatever teaching methods they're using are working.

So... my problem with homework would be the *volume* of it that some teachers seem to think is a good idea. They have to take into consideration that the students are going to want to have some time with their families in the evening... especially the very young ones.

There's NO reason, why if a teacher can tell in 10 math homework problems that the student grasped that day's lesson, to assign 25 or 30! Sometimes more.

That goes mostly for things like math and language/spelling, etc. When it comes to creative writing/reading assignments, I'm all for it. It's how I picked up my love of reading, and I do think it's good... again, as long as it's not overdone and abused. A chapter (if it's a regular book) is plenty for most ages... but give 3 or 4 chapters and guess what? The student's going to start hating reading which is the opposite of what should be happening.

When my kids in the USA where smaller I was not a fan of homework. My oldest daughter at age 5 (now 16) was given homework every single day and a few hours of homework during the weekend. At first she enjoyed it and learned very fast how to read and write because of it. However after she learned this and still kept getting homework she realized was too easy she became bored and it became stressful to keep her interested in doing her homework. She is in high school now and usually gets about an hour of study work each night. She still isn't happy with it but at least her teachers now will challenge her outside of the classroom and she is looking forward to be able to go to college.
My youngest daughter was born here in Europe and to be honest I like this homework system much better. She is given a homework folder. Each week on Wednesday she is given three new assignments or work sheets that they will cover that week. She is told that she can use the internet or go to a group after school on Wednesday if she does not understand something. The point is that she has all week to get this done. It usually only takes one hour and she is done for the week. She seems to learn faster and is less stressed that her older sister.

I also think that sometimes teachers make too much of the grade count on homework. I remember times when I aced a test but failed a class based on Homework. i think that if you can prove that you can do the work then you have ultimately proved that you learned what you needed to learn.

Homework is good if given in moderation. But the kids these days are overburdened with homework. I think teachers should be a bit considerate while giving homework.

I have to say that I hate homework. From day one, homework has been a battle between my daughter and myself. She absolutely refuses to do homework and while it has gotten better over the years it is no where an ideal situation. My daughter has ADD and it is a struggle for her to keep everything under control during school. By the time she comes home, homework is the last thing that she wants to do. She is usually tired after getting home from school so I would have her wait until after dinner to do it. Even that didn't make a difference. After being on medication, she has improved but now in 4th grade there seems to be a massive amount of homework. I do not remember having that much in 4th grade. If they have to have homework, then it should be no more than 30 min worth of it.

In our school systems most of the homework is done online on their laptops and during school hours. Much different than what it was like when I was younger. I can remember bringing home a school bag full of books! My oldest is in 8th grade middle school. When she does have homework, there is a small chance it needs my attention. She is very smart and I am not sure if the homework actually benefits her, or if its more of a waste when she gets home. I thinks kids can be more distracted doing school work at home, rather than in the classroom

I don't advocate for homework at all. I find it to be frustrating to the kids and most of the time they are overloaded. Sometimes the teachers just give them for the sake of completing the curriculum. If I can go back to my childhood, I used to be overloaded by homework all the time. And sincerely it didn't help me that much. I used to learn better at school than through homework.

I am both a teacher and a parent. I loathe homework, but there are times when assigning homework is unavoidable. I try to avoid it as often as possible, but sometimes I need the students to read or bring in something in preparation for the next day's lesson, or they simply need to finish what we started in class. I never assign homework as "busy work," I make sure it is always relevant to what we are working on in class.

I would prefer homework should be restricted to weekends. Homework has existed for as long as education has and there really is no harm in it. The harm is when the weight is too great for the student and has no time to study other areas.
Comparing when I was at high school, which is about twenty years ago, we used to have minimal homework; I would even have time to read ahead for the next class. But my nephew comes home with a truck load of homework and I begin to wonder what exactly is going on with education these days.

I am a firm believer in homework - however homework is supposed to reinforce skills taught at school and should be something the child can do on their own.

Homework that is too difficult or covers things not properly covered in school is just a way for teachers to get out of the responsibility of individually teaching children. Even if they did teach something, not every kid gets it, and it is their responsibility to be catching and addressing individual weaknesses.

The parent at home should just be reinforcing what the child learned at school, and the homework should just be practice to solidify the learning from school.

I used to be a teacher that didn't like to give homework, I had to give homework though because it was something that our HOD had made compulsory. So, I only gave homework 2 days in the week. And on those days I also offered extra classes for an hour after school so that we could do the homework together in still a class setting. Most of the kids didn't stay for those classes and chose to go do the work at home (or rather quickly in the morning before class or during break).
Personally, I think that these days there are too many kids playing around on the internet and in front of the TV, trying to utilize every available free minute they have to do what they want, that if we give them the afternoons "off" from any form of school work, that they eventually will start to play outside, or read or do something constructive rather that sit in front of the TV the whole afternoon. But it will take a while though.

I loved homework at school, but not all assignments. I didn't like to write essays, but I liked the project.

I hate homework so I'm considering homeschooling soon. With homeschooling, kids could have a lot of time playing and doing many creative stuff while learning at the same time.