zMac'nCheese

No homework policy

No Homework policy Most children and parents know how much homework is too much; it interferes with dinner, after school activities, family time and bedtime. Homework put children in stress, pain, and makes them very tired. Kids sometimes stay up late at night doing homework. After dealing with the hardships and stress of school, then having to come on to do chores, etc., homework adds on more responsibilities for a child. When kids are in school, after staying up doing homework amongst other things are very tired and can’t fully concentrate on what’s being taught in class.   To me I think homework we shold not get homework. Why, because we do to much as it is, also because it is jaming up the family life. Teachers who are tired and stress out  and give out homework teachers go home that day their class homework is due and they have to check homework messing up their time and family life.(they may even have kids)       Parents come home after a stressful day at work, having to cook and clean, have to go over their child’s homework, or if they have more than one child can be more stressful. High school and juniors shouldn’t have more than one hour of homework a day. Teachers also have responsibility when they go to their families and checking homework can be a time consuming. This is why I disagree with the no homework policy

No More Homework! Final

     There should be no or less ( A LOT LESS!) homework given to students! Students have a lot to do after school, then, when they get home, they have to do their homework!  They might not even get home until late, and if they have a lot of homework, they will be up until late at night!  Why do we need homework? 

     Kids don't just go to school, then go right home and have nothing else to for the rest of the day.  Some to most kids have something they have to do after school, besides doing homework!  Say after school, you have to go to a basketball game which is not over until 3:30, then after that you need to go to the dentist and don’t get home until 4:15. From that you need to bring your pet to the vet, then when you get home at 5:15, it is time to eat diner and you don’t finish diner until 6:00, then at 6:15, you start your homework. For homework, you have to finish a Science project, you have Math textbook work, Language Arts sheets, then study for a final that is coming up!  Also the teachers give us the homework, but we are the ones that have to do it!  They only have "homework" when and if they decide to collect the homework we had from the night before!  Sometimes, teachers will just go over it as a class and make the students correct what they got wrong.  I don't think that is fair!  If teachers give homework, they should have to correct it, and go over it when you give it back, after you grade it!  If we have to stay inside to do homework, they have to stay inside to grade what we had to stay inside to do!!

     In the article, "After years of teachers piling it on, there’s a new movement to... Abolish homework," it said that high school teacher, Phil Lyons refuses to assign homework. He noted that of his students achieved a 94% pass rate on the advanced placement test, which is one of the highest tests in the country. Like Phil Lyons, a minority of educators and researchers are calling for an end to homework. Some are out to abolish it altogether. There was an international comparison by two Penn State professors and  it concluded that junior high students who scored higher in the math test, was where teachers assigned relatively little homework. Where in places when the students got a lot of homework, scored lower grades.  This article also said, " The preponderance of research clearly shows that homework for elementary school students does not make a difference in student achievement."  The principal of Oak Knoll Elementary in Menlo Park, David Ackerman wrote in a letter to parents, " It is hard to believe that a strategy used so extensively has no foundation,"  as he puts the brakes on homework. 

     In another article called, " As Homework Grows, So Do Arguments Against It,' it says a lot about what people in authorities have to say about there being no homework.  A Duke University professor Harris Cooper says, " Elementary school students get no benefit from doing homework.  He is also the nation's best- known researcher on homework, so I think he knows what he is talking about.  He also says that High school students are probably wasting their time studying most of the night because after two hours a night of homework, there is no academic benefit from it.  For middle schoolers, one and a half hours.  The article also says that the American Child Health Association pinned homework and child labor as the leading killers of children who contracted tuberculosis and heart disease.  Dorothy Rich, a veteran educator, founder of the nonprofit Home and School Institute, asked, " What should homework be?"  The answer was, " Homework ought to help kids make better sense of the world.  Too often, it just doesn't."  In his new book, "The Homework Myth," by Alfie Kohn, he points out Harris Cooper's research as reasons for giving kids other things to do to develop their minds and bodies after school, besides doing homework.  I agree with this because if we are always doing homework inside, then we will never have time to go outside and enjoy the outdoors.  Or if we have to go places, such as the dentist, the doctor, a game, or the vet before we can start the homework we have for the night, and we don't get back until late, then we would be up late doing our homework.  The article also said, and I quote, " It is striking that we have no evidence that there is any academic benefit in elementary school homework." 

     Again, the three reasons why we SHOULDN'T have homework!  Kids have a lot to do after school, which takes away time from doing ALL THE HOMEWORK! their teachers give them.  You also don't need homework to pass a test- you just have to pay attention in class and know what the teachers are talking about.  A Duke University professor said that elementary school students are wasting their time doing homework, which is just like saying- homework is a waste- and HE IS A DUKE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR!!!! So why give homework if a professor thinks it is a waste of time?!!!!

Down With Homework!!

           When someone says childhood you think of something like little kids playing around, having fun, laughing,  smiling,  enjoying the time of their life, with not a care in the world, right?  Too bad that's not what childhood is really like.  A child's life revolves around school. They spend most of the hours of the day in school. But when school is over you think its all fun and games right? WRONG!

            You see, once a kid gets released from this day prison, they get a horrible thing we like to call homework. Homework is a something some people think isn't that bad, but it is. Homework takes up time, and a lot of it. Besides we have other things to do with our supposed after school free-time in addition to  homework: like a sport, an instrument lesson, after school activity, girl or boy scouts, dance lessons, CCD or Hebrew school,studying, projects, laundry, showering, cooking dinner, cleaning your room, watching a younger sibling, eating dinner, sleep, and more.  On top of all that, a lot of the things on this list need to be practiced often if you want to make any progress! Oh don't forget, eventually we are going to have to get an after school job.

            You might be thinking, how does one person fit ALL this into a twenty four hour time period? The answer, I have no idea! But homework certainly doesn't help. Once you finish all of those free-time activities, you stay up late, tired and frantic, because you still have to finish your homework! This causes you to not get enough sleep, be tired all day, not be able to focus as well as you should, and fail that test you spent all week studying for. Which just adds another thing to  worry about to the giant list of unfinished plans, projects, and practices crammed into one day's agenda.

            If we didn't have homework many things in a kid's life would change. High school teacher Phil Lyons noticed that his students achieved a 94 percent pass rate on the advanced-placement test, (one of the highest in the country) and a success rate that has risen since he stopped giving homework. Meanwhile an international comparison by two Penn State professors has concluded that junior high students who scored highest in math tended to come from countries where teachers assign  little homework  ( Denmark, the Czech Republic and Japan). Conversely, the lowest-scoring students came from countries where teachers assign TONS of homework( Iran, Thailand and Greece). With out homework our book bags would be a LOT less heavy which would eliminate back strain and future cases of arthritis. Researchers Gerald LeTendre and David Baker even said "It almost seems as though the more homework a nation's teachers assign, the worse the nation's students do". We could have more time to do all the free-time activities listed above. Who knows? Maybe there would be more musicians and athletes in the world if kids had more time to work on these skills. What about family life?  How nice would it be to walk into your house and know that you weren't going to spend the night arguing with your parents about when you'll start and when you'll finally finish your homework? No homework would mean we could get more sleep. With more sleep we could focus more in school so we can get that A we've been hoping for.  And after all, isn't getting  an A the reason teachers started handing out homework in the first place?

Down With Homework!

Ever since I was in first grade, I received homework.  I never liked homework.  But as I got older I hated it more and more with each day of full backpacks up to today where I hate it with a burning passion (and I'm not the only one I know it).  Today I'm here to prove that homework is not needed in school. 

The purpose of homework, originally was to help kids learn how to do assignments correctly that will help them get projects and presentations when they start working jobs.  But I always see kids doing homework on the bus rides to school or at lunch for an afternoon class.  This happens constantly and if it keeps up, homework's new effect on us will be to learn how to do presentation and projects on the train ride or bus ride to work.  Homework was a hit and miss. 

Researchers have found the shocking news that teachers never studied  how to assign homework.  They also found that homework given in Elementary schools have no connection to their academic success let alone the massive amount of homework given at all schools.  It actually causes an opposite effect on student grades.  And because of the lack of training in assigning homework correctly, more than half the time, teachers give either useless homework to the lesson or too much.  A researcher named Harris Cooper who is a professor at Duke U, says that even if high school students studied every night for  two hours, it would all go to waist.  Students could learn more doing different assignments than studying.  Cooper also said that elementary school students receive homework that's almost pointless.  Susan Charles, principle of Ohlone Elementary School says that when she walks around town, she doesn't see kids playing.  The amount of assignments given cause lost child-hoods that can't be gained again.  "Robbed out of childhood" she says.  Teachers at Ohlone and around the area find that students don't really require homework to learn the curriculum.  Bill Overton, Teacher of 27 years who also works at Ohlone says, "teachers at Ohlone don't believe in giving homework for the sake of homework.

Another thought that has been brought to my attention is the fact that my teachers are teachers because they like to teach.  Kids like to learn if it's fun.  There are certain words and/or phrases that teachers know when they say them, a chorus of groans tail-gate them.  Words such as, textbook, assignment, DBQ, springboard (a very common one in our my school), and of course, homework.  There are others to be sure but these are a few common ones in my school.  Most of them are based around school assignments that are addressed to students to do at home.  A bit of a coincidence I guess but to more than half of the school's population, groaning at these words are almost second nature.  There are a few exceptions to teachers who give the right amount of homework or the right kind of homework.  But a lot of the time, a teacher begins to gain a reputation among the students for giving too much homework or giving completely useless assignments.

Other than the mountain load of homework I receive everyday, I have one of the  most busy schedules a 12 year old kid could have.  Everyday I have play rehearsal at ninth period.  Then when I get home from the late bus, I have to immediately start on homework.  I most of the time don't finish it in time to go to an orchestra I play in every Monday called GWYOA (Stands for Greater Westchester Youth Orchestra) and it started at 6:30 Pm and goes to 8:30 PM.  It's held at the Westchester Community College so I don't get home till 9:10 at the earliest.  When I get home I have to finish that homework I didn't get to do before and I still have to read for at least 20 minutes.  I barely find time to breathe.  I'm in bed by 11:00 PM every night.  Tuesdays I have violin lessons.  Wednesdays once I get off the late bus, someone picks me up at the bus stop to get to Hebrew school and I have to start going late for my Bat Mitzvah preperations so I'll end up getting home even later.  Wednesday is one of the busiest days of the week for me.  I don't get home till about 5:45.  Thursdays are my only free day of the week.  But I still have to finish my homework before I go to bed.  But I always get at least one assignment that takes me a while to finish and my parents don't get home till at least 5:30 PM so I can't ask them for help.  On Fridays I have to go to Friday night services.  I don't get back till about 9:30 PM from services.  Again my dad makes me go for my bat mitzvah preparations.  I even have Hebrew school on Sundays.  My social life is quickly slipping away because of my schedule and my mountain load of homework that almost blocks the sun out.

If you haven't noticed by now, teachers, professors, and principles are slowly choosing to reduce the amount of homework they assign to students.  They understand what it's doing to kids' lives and how we're getting stripped of our freedom.  They're doing it.  Why not you?

Anti-Homework Final

     At  3:15 little Sally Parker gets off the bus and rushes to pick up her little brother from his elementary school. They arrive at at home together at 3:30. Sally looks at the clock and rushes to get ready for her dance class at 4:00. She grabs a snack and she's off. After a great ballet class, Sally gets home, exhausted, at about 6:00 pm.  Then she has to get ready for her violin lesson! Her teacher comes at 6:30 and they practice together for an hour. She eats dinner with her family at7:45 until 8:15. She helps her mother clear the table. Then, after fighting for the bathroom, she takes a shower to wash off the day.   At about 9:00 she begins to tackle her boat-load of homework.  First, poor little Sally does math, her least favorite subject, which takes about 20 minutes. Then she does science, social studies, Spanish, and finally English. Then she decides she will do some work on her home and careers project, which is dues in 2 days. By the time Sally finishes, it is already 10:15! She is very tired and everyone in her home is already asleep. She goes to her kitchen and has a snack, then brushes her teeth. She is about to cuddle up in her warm and cozy bed, when she realizes that she has to read for 20 minutes! By the time little Sally gets to bed, it's 11:00.

     Sound familiar? A bit too familiar, right? Well the truth is, most middle schoolers get 1 1/2 hours of homework a night; high schoolers, 2 hours. That is too much homework for anyone to flourish in any other elements other than academics. One of the only times children can do these things that they are deeply interested in is after school. When children are given so much homework, they tend not to do it all. They usually do it more when the get less. Also (from experience) kids learn more in class, not when they're forced to do it for homework. Children tend to rebel when it comes to homework. If homework is a big part of the grade and a smart kid doesn't they're homework, they'll get a bad grade. We don't want that, now do we?

      There are many people that have the same theory. At Palo Alto's Gunn High School, Phil Lyons never assigns homework. His students achieved a 94% pass rate on the advanced placement test, which has risen since he abolished homework. Coincidence? I think not.

     Duke University Professor, Harris Cooper, has the same opinion as well. He says that homework is just a waist of time, although schools are giving MORE THAN EVER. This is just my opinion, but that doesn't make much sense.

     As you can see, kind people, homework is a nuisance. It does not serve much purpose in this world. So please, let children participate in extra-curricular activities, and stop giving homework. If the teachers could find ways to teach us more in class, we would work harder and learn more. We will be more focused on the subject, and we won't be distracted like we are at home. You are there to help us, right? Then make the right choice, and end the homework era!

(And by the way, this assignment was completed at 10:56 at night.)