Homework: Help or Habit?

Sunbeam Bay Weekend · “Homework: help or habit?”

Every evening in thousands of homes across the world, the same argument takes place. A teenager says that homework is pointless; a parent insists that it builds discipline. Both, it seems, are partly right.
It is often claimed that homework improves results, and for older students there is some evidence to support this. Studies comparing students who do homework with those who do not have generally found a positive link, especially at secondary level. (1) ___ For younger children, the link is much weaker, and in some studies it disappears almost completely.
Researchers have also noticed a pattern of diminishing returns. A teenager who does an hour of homework a night is thought to gain more than one who does none at all. (2) ___ A student working until midnight is usually tired, not cleverer, and the lost sleep may cancel out much of what was learnt.
So what makes homework useful? The answer appears to lie less in the amount than in the type. Copying notes or colouring in a poster is unlikely to help anyone remember anything. Short tasks that make students retrieve what they learnt in class, such as a ten-question quiz, are believed to be far more effective. (3) ___ Every time we pull a fact out of memory, it becomes easier to find the next time.
There is also the question of fairness. A student with a quiet room, a fast internet connection and parents who can help is at a clear advantage. For a student who shares a small flat with four brothers and sisters, the same task may be almost impossible. Some schools have responded by opening their libraries until six o’clock, so that everyone has somewhere calm to work.
Teachers, too, have mixed feelings. Marking thirty pieces of homework every evening takes hours, and many admit that they do not have time to give useful feedback on all of it. Homework that is never checked, however, sends a clear message to students: it does not really matter. Some teachers have therefore switched to fewer, more carefully chosen tasks, which they discuss in the first ten minutes of the next lesson. Others ask students to mark each other’s answers, which saves time and, it is claimed, helps students notice their own mistakes. Both approaches suggest that the conversation after homework may be as important as the homework itself.
At Sunshine International School, teachers have spent this term testing a new policy. Homework is limited to forty minutes a night for Year 9, it must be something that cannot be done in class, and every task is checked the next day. (4) ___ Early feedback is positive: students say they are less stressed, and teachers report that more homework is actually being completed.
None of this means that homework should disappear. A blanket ban would remove one of the few chances students have to practise working alone, a skill they will need at university and at work. But the old habit of giving homework simply because it is homework time looks harder and harder to defend. The real question is not “Should there be homework?” but “What is this particular piece of homework for?”