Homework is the task given to students to complete at home. The primary use of homework is to ensure that the students learn and read the subjects at home too. There are both advantages as well as disadvantages of homework.
BENEFITS
Children get time to revise their studies
Children spend many hours at school but the time given to them in school is never enough; therefore it is necessary that children also study at home. Homework helps to ensure that the students also studies the subject at home and revises all that is taught at school.
Helps the teacher to know about the student
The teachers often are unable to know each and every student properly due to the enormous class strength, however a teacher can come to know about the student in seeing the homework. A teacher can evaluate the student on different aspects depending upon the presentation, handwriting, and accuracy of the homework submission.
Children learn to manage time and study hard
Homework often tends to take up most of the time at home, however extra study is important too. This makes the student prepare a time table (whether physical or mental) to manage time and be able to complete daily studies as well as homework.
Homework improves the knowledge on that subject
When a person does homework, he also researches on the topic and this helps in a better understanding of the subject. For completing the homework, the student has to study from the books and from other sources too, this increases the knowledge on the subject and develops an interest in the subject.
Improves the problem-solving skills
Homework tasks are often problem-related, so many tasks involve thinking upon ways to solve various problems; this improves the problem-solving skills in students. Homework also creates a shortage of time, so students learn problem-solving skills.
Makes the students reassess their priorities
For a student study is the major priority is studying, secondary priorities like entertainment and games come later. when a student has the burden of homework, he has to reassess his priorities in order to complete all his tasks on time.
DISADVANTAGES
It builds a sedentary lifestyle
Most students do homework and studies all day so for the major part of the day they are only sitting on their desks and studying monotonously. On top of that students often indulge in fast foods, which lead to obesity as the student’s hardy do any physical exercise.
Homework adds to the school life
Most schools function from 9 am to 3 pm, so the students already have their share of studies for the day. The children can use the extra hours at omen to play some sports or to develop their extracurricular skills or to revise the subjects taught completely. For smaller children demanding more than 12 hours of study from them (including school hours and homework time) is too much pressure on those little minds.
Homework takes away revision time
Most children have a timetable set where they allocate some time to playing, some time to watching tv, some time to spend with family and of course a major part of the tome to study. However In many schools, a major part of the writing tasks (which are often lengthy time and energy consuming)are given as homework. As a result, the children are engaged in completing their homework assignments (for fear of punishment the next day )and end up spending all the time allocated for studying in their time table. So the children finish homework but lose out on the very important daily revision of subjects taught at school, as a result, most children have poor remembrance of the subjects.
Homework destroys creativity
Nowadays students have a lot of homework, as a result, they have to spend a lot of time doing it’s the number of hours in a day is fixed therefore the student have to compromise on their time spent for something else. Often due to the huge importance given to homework (and the punishments on not doing it), students give more importance on homework and end up not spending time to learn other creative works such as art or music.
However, nowadays most schools such as the GD Goenka School Rohtak have understood this problem and are working towards easing the issue. The main objective of homework is to ensure that the students practice on their own, so the schools sometimes have homework completing hours in the schools. At this time the students also interact with each other and develop a better understanding of the subjects.
