Persuasive Essay Sample: Homework Should Not Be Required
Seven hours is a long time right? Now imagine you spend seven hours in school, then you have to go home and finish all your homework for the next class. Learning is great and sometimes even fun but homework after school can cause stress, anxiety, homework can prevent sleep, homework can be difficult to complete at home and teenagers need a balance between school and home. These reasons lead me to believe that homework does more harm than good and should not be required to get done.
Homework should not be required because it causes stress and anxiety. In the article Heavy Homework Load May Be Detrimental to Health it says “More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep.” (Moniuszko.) This shows that homework has a negative effect on a teenagers mental health. Some teenagers already struggle with mental health issues and adding the workload of homework could just make it worse for them. Is homework really more important than a person's mental health?
One important reason homework should not be required is because it can cut into teenagers' sleep schedule. “Sleep benefits the brain and promotes attention, memory and analytical thought. It makes thinking sharper, recognizing the most important information to consolidate learning. Sleep also facilitates expansive thinking 2 that can spur creativity3. Whether it’s studying for a test, learning an instrument, or acquiring job skills, sleep is essential for teens4..(Suni.) Sleep is crucial for the human mind to function especially for teenagers as their minds are developing. Homework can cut into a teenagers sleep schedule which can cause them to be tired in class not learning to the best of their ability, some could say that homework helps learn and memorize what you did in class that day but how are you supposed to remember what you did in class that day if you were tired. If homework was not required students wouldn't have to stay up late on an assignment and have a lack of sleep in the morning.
Personally, homework can become very overwhelming and I’m sure other students would agree with me on that. Not all homework is bad but it can cause anxiety. Not only can that be a problem for the student but it can also be hard for their parents. “Homework anxiety is a condition in which students stress about and fear homework, often causing them to put homework off until later. It is a self-exacerbating condition because the longer the student puts off the homework, the more anxiety they feel about it, and the more pressure they experience to finish the work with less time. Homework anxiety can cripple some kids who are perfectly capable of doing the work, causing unfinished assignments and grades that slip.”(Tips for Minimizing the Homework Battle.) This can be a problem for the students because they may be very good at a subject but if they don't complete the homework it could reflect poorly on their grades. There might be a missing assignment in their grade book but teenagers not wanting to do the assignment isn't always the case, it can also be because of anxiety not requiring homework would just make life easier.
Homework is a controversial topic should homework be required or should it not? Although homework can be helpful sometimes, there needs to be a balance between school work and home. In the article Pilling Homework on Kids Is a Mistake That Undermines Work/Life balance it says “Even before I realized years ago that my students were not deriving much, if anything, of educational value from homework, I could never grade homework assignments equitably, because each student's homework was being attempted in home environments that could be vastly different.” (Geoff.) For example Teenagers who have activities after school have less time to get their homework done compared to teens who have nothing to do after school. You also have to keep in consideration that Teens also need to sleep, eat and spend time with family and friends. This is why homework shouldnt be required because there should be a healthy balance for it all.
I would also like to add that after school activities are not the only reason homework can be hard to get done for students.The environment where a student is doing homework has a part ot play “Some parents simply did not have space available at home to set up quiet spaces where students could focus on their work uninterrupted by the distractions common to every household.”(Geoff.) It could be hard for parents to help their kids with homework if they're working or taking care of their younger children. It could also be hard for them to help with homework if they don't know how to do it. Also phones and other electronics can be distracting at home because there's not that expectation to be working the whole time which can cause homework not to get done. There are many more reasons a student's environment could prevent them from finishing homework. Everyone's environment is different and there's a difference between a school environment and a homes environment. It can be difficult to have that type of learning environment at home which makes homework hard for students. This is why it shouldn't be required.
After school students should have free time to wind down and give their brains a break “Emer O'Connor says homework for her children will "typically take an hour". "Although teachers say the homework should only take a short amount of time, this is not my experience. The children are tired and distracted.”(Hogan.) The truth of the matter is that homework can take a long time to complete. The homework we have to do may not be too hard but it can be distracting when completing it which could cause the homework to last longer and students could end up putting little effort into. In this case I feel like boundaries should be put in place because homework taking an hour or more is ridiculous when we might not be checking it over in class anyways so we won't get the chance to correct our mistakes.
In conclusion, homework should not be required because homework can affect your mental health badly, everyone has a different home environment and might not be able to complete it at home, homework can take time away from a good night's sleep, and there needs to be a boundary between school and home. These reasons prove that homework does more harm than good and shouldnt be required.
Works Cited
Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Publication, Day Month Year. Database Title, URL. Accessed day month year.
Sleep for Teenagers | Sleep Foundation
https://www.brainbalancecenters.com/blog/homework-anxiety-explained
https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2521204097?accountid=9496
https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2564234859?accountid=9496
https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2578243016?accountid=9496
