Homework: Curiosity-Killing Stress Trigger Or Useful Learning Tool?

Denise Pope, the researcher who delved into the effects a heavy homework load had on wealthy children, found that "current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being".

Namely, 56 percent of the students her team surveyed cited homework as a major source of stress. When asked about their general health and wellbeing, many students shared that they had experienced headaches, stomach problems, sleeping difficulties, and were exhausted. Spending over three hours on homework every day also led students to forfeit social time with relatives and friends, and to drop extracurricular activities. 

Other effects of large amounts of homework in elementary school could include:

• Parental pressure and parent-child conflict. Early elementary kids aren't always developmentally ready to manage their own time and complete assignments by themselves. Many parents find themselves sitting alongside their kids, some not just helping with homework but actually completing it. While taking an active role in your child's education can be fulfilling for both of you, that picture easily changes if the homework your child is assigned falls into the "pointless busywork" category. Your kid's teacher might think the busywork creates work ethic. You, on the other hand, probably believe that the same could be achieved by giving your child chores they now don't have time for.
• Hindering passion-finding. All humans are curious beings by nature. It's not learning that kids don't like, but learning things they don't see the need to learn. A heavy homework load prevents kids from spending time learning those things they are passionate about, and could kill their love of learning.
• We all need time to just relax. The fact that adults who are forced to take work home are stressed is well-documented. Why should kids be any different?

What's The Answer?

In Finland, which is consistently shown to have top-quality schools with test scores far beyond those of the United States, children don't spend more than three hours a week on homework — and some don't have homework at all. Creating an environment in which homework simply isn't necessary, because children complete their school work at school, is possible, then.

On the other hand, the fact that higher-performing schools in high socio-economic status areas assign more homework is fascinating. Causation might not equal correlation, and the stress these students experience as a result of that heavy homework load may ultimately cancel out the benefits of their superior academic performance, but it's interesting nonetheless. Could homework be having benefits we do not yet know about, after all?

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It isn't difficult to believe. Developing time-management skills, a strong work ethic and a sense of responsibility could all be benefits of homework.

Imagine again that you were an elementary aged kid. Would homework still stress you out if you could choose what you'd be doing? If submitting stop-motion videos, nature study journals, reports of interesting inventions you came up with or book reports about books you actually read for pleasure counted?

I'm guessing not.

Not only would you be able to develop skills in areas you might not otherwise have time to, but devising your own academic plans, approved by teachers before completing them, would allow you to learn to take initiative. As the school's scope and sequence would still be covered at school, you'd get the benefit of learning both what others believe is important and what you believe is important, and still having the latter acknowledged on grade report cards. The best of both worlds?