There has always been a debate over homework and its benefits towards students in school. Homework is given as a way to do extra practice and review on concepts usually learned in school, but is too much homework being given? Homework could be helpful to students who are older, have a better understanding of concepts, and a longer attention span but it is not as useful to elementary school students. Everyday students all over the world spend the majority of their day sitting in class learning about subjects ranging from math to reading and then have to go home and spend even more time doing work for all of these various subjects. Students no longer have time to do the things they enjoy after school like spending time with friends and family, playing sports, and doing other extracurricular activities. Students are instead being forced to do homework in seclusion which prevents them from gaining skills like teamwork and communication which extracurricular activities form. Elementary school students do not have the energy and attention span to do hours of homework and should be spending time with their families but instead homework is causing family tension. Although some people argue that homework gives children a better understanding of work and creates responsibility this is not true since no data shows that homework actually helps younger kids. Elementary school students should no longer receive homework because research has found no relation of homework to academic success, because more and more homework is taking away time for the child to grow as a person in extracurricular activities, and because it can cause unnecessary stress for the child and their family.

One of the reasons why elementary school students should no longer receive homework or homework should be dramatically reduced is because no data supports the idea that homework actually helps with younger student’s success in school. Homework can help older students since the homework tends to allow the student to have a better understanding of difficult concepts but homework is not helpful to younger children who do not even have the ability to complete homework alone yet. As elementary school students are receiving more homework, their attitudes and outlooks towards school is changing and they are starting to detest school very early on which actually negatively impacts their academic performance. In “Kids have Three Times Too Much Homework, Study Finds; What’s the Cost?” Kelly Wallace states that too much homework is “detrimental to their attitude about school, their grades, their self-confidence, their social skills and their quality of life" (Wallace, “Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework, Study Finds.”). Homework is not necessary for these students if it is not even helping them academically which is what its sole purpose is. Tons of homework is causing long term negative affects just because it is believed that a lot of homework will help children do better in school even though this idea is not true. Society does not know school without homework which is why more of it continues to be given even though statistics show no positive impact on younger children. In “Why Kids Are Better Off Without Homework.” Justin Coulson states “Data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study showed the overall correlations between achievement and the percentage of teachers who used homework in grading are all negative” (Coulson, “Why Kids Are Better Off Without Homework.”). Actual research has been done from well-established organizations that continue to find the same results that homework has no benefits on grades or GPA. Kids deserve to have free time after being in school and from doing homework that is not even helping them. Since so much homework is being given, kids tend to focus less on the content of the homework and more on finishing the work or have their parents do the work for them because the amount given is not suitable for the child’s age. In “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing” Alfie Kohn explains “A study published in 2002 found a direct relationship between how much time high school students spent on homework and the levels of anxiety depression, anger, and other mood disturbance they experienced” (Kohn, “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing”). If homework is making such a negative impact on older students, imagine the impact it is having on elementary school students who do not know how to deal with things such as anxiety and depression. Things like anxiety and depression consumes a child’s life which causes them to have less focus in school and little motivation which is also something that will detrimentally affect a student’s academic performance in school. Hours of homework not only does not help a student’s academic success but it also takes away from their free time after school.

When people think back on their childhood, most of the time memories of sitting in a classroom learning how to multiply and write do not come to mind. What usually comes into people’s memory is being in the play, reading a new mystery book, or joining the soccer team. The majority of a child’s day is already being spent in school and they deserve to go home and have time to do what interests them such as being in a play. As time goes on, children are receiving more and more homework. Children are getting a significant amount of homework compared to what they should be getting at an elementary school grade level which is impacting their time to do other things which could teach them valuable life skills such as teamwork and communication. In the article “Too Much Homework? Some Parents are Just Opting Out,” Amy Joyce gives a quote from clinical psychologist Erica Reischer who says “It’s really important, especially for young kids, to play. Playing is a cornerstone for learning” (Joyce, “Too Much Homework? Some Parents are Just Opting Out”).  If children are being given countless amounts of homework that they do not have the ability to do alone then it is wasting valuable time for them to make childhood memories that they will look back on when they are an adult. Some people argue that homework prepares children for their future but extracurriculars and playing after school serve as the basis of the child’s identity and what they want to do with their life. Homework is not even helping children and is taking away the child’s ability to learn in a different kind of way after school through playing and being a kid. Playing and doing extracurricular activities help a child grow and learn about life, responsibility, and respect. In “There’s Something Wrong with Homework,” Cathy Vatterott states “There’s something wrong when homework doesn’t allow for a healthy balance of work, play, downtime, fresh air, and exercise for growing children…children should not be working longer than an eight-hour day” (Vatterott, “There’s Something Wrong with Homework”). Vatterott is an assistant principle so her opinion is very valid on this subject. Children cannot spend their whole day in a classroom then go home and have to spend the rest of their day inside because they are busy finishing homework. It is unfair to the child to take away their childhood because of homework. Children deserve to go outside and have fun after having a full day of actually learning instead of going home to do homework which actually has data showing it is not effective in helping children with their grades. Vatterott even states that homework is unhealthy to a child in a way that can affect their wellbeing whether that may be mentally or physically since it takes away their time to do what they want to do. In the video “Can Too Much Homework Harm Your Child’s Health,” various children interviewed state how they feel anxious over homework and worry about how they are going to complete it all in time because there is so much. When a child has to worry about completing homework there is obviously an issue. Children will be forced to choose homework over what they enjoy to be involved in after school because homework is demanding too much from them. Extracurriculars like playing soccer could get a child a scholarship in the future or a child helping a friend who fell off their bike may make them realize they want to be a doctor. Colleges are becoming harder to get into and it is required for people to not only have good grades but also show they do activities and volunteer. When teacher’s do not even realize the amount of work they are giving their students then students do not have the ability to balance school, sleep, community service, sports, and having a social life. After school experiences playing and doing extracurricular activities is just as important as homework which does not even show any benefits in young children.

It can be overwhelming for an elementary school student to have a lot of homework which may be difficult for them to understand or complete alone. Childhood is not supposed to be stressful and homework is causing more stress on children and parents than ever before. It is very difficult for kids to go from sitting in school all day to then have to do it at home with homework which adds to the stress. Parents are being forced to help their child with homework that they may not know how to do and takes away the parent’s time after work. All children want to do after spending a day at school, is to go play and bond with their family so it can be very frustrating to a child when they do not have the time to do this because they are juggling extracurricular activities, school, and homework. In “A Texas Teacher Stopped Assigning Homework. The Internet Gave Her an A+,” Lindsey Bever reports on how a post about a teacher no longer assigning homework went viral on Facebook. Bever provided a quote from a parent who said “This is so awesome as it demonstrates how many parents and teachers would support this kind of policy! Especially for kids in Elementary school” (Bever, “A Texas Teacher Stopped Assigning Homework. The Internet Gave Her an A+”) about the post. Parents see how homework is negatively affecting their child’s health and their own health since its inducing stress and how spending hours on homework is not helping their child. This is the reason why there was so much support on the Facebook post about this new no homework policy. It is not fair to parents to see their child suffering from stress caused by homework and for them spend their time having to help their child with homework that may be too complicated for them. In “The Goldilocks Dilemma: Homework Policy Creating a Culture Where Simply Good Is Just Not Good Enough,” it is explained that “The results of this study reveal that high expectations for homework quality can have an impact on student academic performance and motivation for meeting quality standards” (Stevens et al., “The Goldilocks Dilemma: Homework Policy Creating a Culture Where Simply Good Is Just Not Good Enough”). Students have a lot of pressure put on them to do well in school and homework whether it is from their parents or from teachers. At a very early age students are taught that they will not do well on tests if they do not do well on homework or they will not get good grades if they do not do well on their homework. When too much is expected of young kids they will start to just give up and will develop a negative attitude towards school in general. In the article “Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework, Study Finds,” Kelly Wallace explains that “Nothing quite stresses out students and parents about the beginning of the school year as the return to homework, which for many households means nightly battles centered around completing after-school assignments” (Wallace, Kids Have Three Times Too Much Homework, Study Finds”). Parents are forced to make their kids do their homework which can cause fights between the child and the parent. Parents hold the responsibility of make their child do their homework and help their child with certain assignment which is stressful to parents just as much as homework is stressful to elementary school kids. When multiple studies and statistics show that homework has no benefits for elementary school children then there is no point for a child and parent to go through the stress and anxiety homework causes.

Even though there has been hundreds of studies and interviews done to support eliminating or reducing homework for elementary school kids, there will always be some people who continue to support homework. One of the main things argued for homework is that it prepares children better who come from lower income families or bad homes. In an article called “Two Hours’ Homework a Night Linked to Better School Results” that supports homework, makes the claim that “Children who did well from disadvantaged backgrounds were backed by parents who valued learning and encouraged extra-curricular activities” (Vasagar, “Two Hours’ Homework a Night Linked to Better School Results”). Although homework may establish a small sense of responsibility, this is not true since homework already causes stress, anxiety, family issues, and takes away free time. In “Closing the Book on Homework: Enhancing Public Education and Freeing Family Time,” data shows that homework does the exact opposite for disadvantaged kids since “In a study of high-school dropouts, we learned, much to our surprise, that homework had played a major role in their decisions to leave school” (Buell, “Closing the Book on Homework: Enhancing Public Education and Freeing Family Time”).  Homework is not helping elementary school kids and is doing more harm than good. People should not reflect back on their childhood as a stressful time where they did nothing besides go to school and do homework. People may think homework helps children have a better understanding of what they learned but kids cannot even focus on the hours of complicated homework they are given and data shows that homework does not even help in academic success.

Research has found no relation of homework to academic success, more and more homework is taking away time for the child to grow as a person in extracurricular activities, and homework it can cause unnecessary stress for the child and their family are the reasons why elementary school students should no longer receive homework or should receive less homework. The whole point of homework is to help a student do better in a class but more studies are finding that it is doing the exact opposite or is doing nothing at all. Children should be able to look forward to going home after a long day of school and getting to spend time with their families, read a book, and take part in extracurricular activities. Getting involved with sports, plays, clubs, and spending time with family and friends is what shapes children into who they are and the countless amounts of homework they are given takes that away. This issue of homework affects parents, teachers, and students all over the world which is the reason why this issue needs to be addressed and changed. If homework is not helping like it should be for elementary level children then a discussion needs to be made on if less or no homework should be given. If less or no homework was given there would be an improvement in grades and a better attitude towards school when an elementary school student gets older.
