Why do you think teachers give so much homework?

I am a former teacher and I wish I knew. There have been numerous studies that quantities of homework are not worth it. Math students learn better when they have five problems for homework instead of 30. Yet 30 problems is usually the minimum set by most math teachers.

It’s one thing to have homework for research or a special project now and then, but most homework given out by public school teachers is mindless busywork.

I got off school at three PM and all my homework was usually done by five unless I had a paper to write. Maybe I had easy teachers. But that was in high school. I’m old and we didn’t have the Internet or cell phones to distract us. You just plopped your ass down and worked for a few hours and you were all done.

I think homework should be reduced to nothing. I mean, since we’re getting school issued I-pads, doing homework on those would A) Reduce the amount of paper being used B) having internet access and seeing our textbooks online, so our bookbags would get lighter and C) Less homework, less worries.
Teachers think that kids have no other lives except for at school, and school sports. It’s not fair that the jocks and cheereleaders get to have more benefits, but the science lovers still have to work their asses off to get their work done. Plus, the classes are an hour and a half. We shouldn’t have homework. At all. PERIOD.

@johnpowell
Sometimes teachers will give us homework that requires us to find the answers online.. we have an online textbook which i dont think is fair.. im sure there are some people who do not have internet but i think other things on the internet are very distracting
@sydsydrox
Ipad will make our lives easier.. but some people.. dont you think they might leave them somewhere, at home or something.. or even forget to charge them

I think that homework is part of school. If you near down and do it right when you get home, you can get through it.

I never gave homework, because I seen how much other teachers were giving.

it’s called taking responsibility…. students must, at the very least try to complete their homework and submit them on time, whether you have all the answers or not. Teachers will know if you made an effort or not.

Homework prepares students for the real world in more ways than one. So kids, learn some time-mangement skills and get off the phone, log-off from the chat room and quit checking on your Facebook page every few minutes and focus on the work at hand…..there’s no excuse for you not to be doing homework.

Good question.

Because parents (and maybe school boards or employers or whatever) equate quantity with quality.

I don’t know if homework amounts are increasing or what, but in my junior year, I regularly had homework till 9, starting immediately after getting home around 3, and I certainly wasn’t on the internet or a cell phone while I was doing my homework. That is a bit over the top, I think (but it was also largely self-inflicted, as I had a nasty streak of perfectionism that drove me to take all the hardest classes available).

But damn, I learned my stuff. Couldn’t have done without studying on my own time. I see the need for homework. Just maybe not 6 hours’ worth per night. All that stress can be really harmful to a kid.

It’s training for later in life to make sure you are used to doing things you don’t want to do. Either that, or the idea is to just pump them full of homework to make sure they at least do some.

I’ve consistently found a handful of questions that make you think creatively about what you were taught was much more useful than dozens repetitive plug and chug questions (though a couple of those are important too). Learning to apply knowledge is just as important as the knowledge itself and serves as reinforcement to boot.

Also, why don’t they alternate days? (or do they now?) That seems like it would lighten the load some.

@Mariah Agreed. After all those hours of stress and pointless activites, which you are most likely going to forget all of, what do you get out of it? Eventually what you don’t use you lose.

@wonderingwhy Most of the work I did at school was read, copy and repeat. Everything you did, you did over and over, with no benefit. I feel there wasn’t enough actual “teaching” or learning “how” to understand and comprehend something in certain subjects. Maybe comprehension is a skill that can’t be taught. I don’t know.

I think an hour of homework just to revise new topics you learned at school is more than enough. I certainly wouldn’t give any more to students if I was a teacher. Like mentioned, I really detest the amount of activities that require internet research. We were never allowed internet at home when I was in school and I feel I was at a slight disadvantage because of it. (Very strict father D; ).

I’ve heard that there are requirements handed down to the teachers making them assign students x hours of homework a night; that it isn’t entirely teachers’ choice.

Because all teachers are evil and they secretly hate children. Haaaahahahahahahaa!
oh no, I’ve said too much

I’m a teacher and my mom was a teacher—- @Lightlyseared has the answer that I really agree with.

I can’t tell you how many people automatically assume I am a bad teacher because I don’t give a lot of homework. I’m probably one of the most difficult teachers in my department—I expect a high, high level of cognitive commitment from the students, expect full class participation, and expect the students to really think about their answers. I don’t allow them to get by with “the most basic right answer” but prod them for deeper and deeper answers. I believe strongly in education that’s interactive- where ideas are discussed and the soundness of answers are challenged. I expect quality- lots of it.

I can’t do that with most homework assignments. I refuse to give busywork because that means more busywork for me to do at home, and I have a life too. I also refuse to give a truckload of homework to satisfy the people who measure my quality by the quantity of papers I hand out. To me, busywork is just a way to fake accountability—“I gave them 3 hours of homework a day, it’s not my fault they did bad on the ACTs/failed the state tests/got low scores on the ___ test!”

I DO give homework—but when I do it does a few things: it supplements what I’m doing in class, it’s project-based, or helps kids remember factual information that was discussed in class, or helps prepare them for the next discussion. I also explain the reason for the homework to my students—I feel by high school they deserve to know the reason why I’m using up their time.

Just my style. :)

@Keep_on_running I don’t think it’s pointless just because many students will forget it later on – the ones who want to pursue the field are likely to remember what they’ve learned, and since many high school students have no clue what they’d like to major in or do as a career, they need a general education. I just think six hours of homework is overkill and can be harmful to kids by depriving them of other important activities and by stressing them out, sometimes to an extreme degree.

@Mariah I agree, if you’re interested in what you’re learning, you’ll retain more information. Everything else is pretty much pointless or useless in life.

Homework is part of a conspiracy to prevent young people from engaging in sex.

Its because they don’t have a life and don’t want you to either.

No, seriously, they need to get a life.

At least in American schools I think there is a fear our face time education is substandard and so teachers look to homework to fill the gaps of what they feel isn’t coming across in classes.

Personally, I don’t believe the amount of homework has to do with interest, absorption, retention or application.

The homework amount should be your grade number times 10. For example, 6th graders 60 minutes, 7th 70 minutes etc. But I am in 9th grade and I get 2 hours of homework a night. I’m only in 2 honors classes, out of 7. My friend is in all honors and she has about 3 and a half hours a night, plus she is on the field hockey team with practice everyday. She has been averaging 5 hours of sleep.
I feel that it is too much. Teachers try to push you, but they should see that sometimes you need to be stopped. We are still kids. We need time to be with our friends and have fun. I can’t go to homecoming this weekend because I have too much work and not enough time to do it. I feel it is unnatural.

I remembered when my kids where in school. Some of their teachers did swamp them but I object more to the extra curriculars that are required for them to make it to a good college.
Honors classes, then they must also decide their carreer path and write an essay on it, then they must also belong to some school government and also volunteer in their community and somehow also manage some school sport and get good grades and manage homework.
There were times when my kids were lucky to get 6 hours of sleep a night.
Then there were the kids who couldn’t do any of these things because they had to work part time after school to help the family out.
I think it burns some kids out and others become discouraged because the schedule is too demanding.
If only the homework load was the worst of it.

I have a thought, folks… I said that I don’t like to give wasteful homework, and only get one lurve, and with all the college and high school students here, I’d think I’d get at least 2 lurve. (Don’t give me lurve on that answer 7 replies above, seriously. Leave it at one. I’m not lurve fishing, I’m observing.)

I know a lot of people hate the educational system as it is, and put almost all the blame on the teachers (none on the kids, parents, admin, media, politicians, corporates. medical industry, etc)— This really got me wondering about perceptions and… I find this thread to be a completely fascinating reaction to a teacher who went out on a limb and says she doesn’t give wasteful homework, and didn’t get a peep of a reaction. I almost expected the KGB to be reestablished to come down on me.

So, does it really make any difference if a teacher’s good or bad, thoughtful or wasteful, a bulldozer or introspective—do their conscious choices make any difference to the general public? no sarcasm here, I’m really wondering

@linguaphile Maybe it’s that you’ve changed your userpic, and so people mistake you for a newbie, and then you know how people often gloss over newbies answers and are less likely to give them lurve? Maybe? It does seem weird, because I thought you normally get so much lurve on education threads.