With the title of this piece, I either got your attention right away, or I’ve already lost you entirely. Most likely if you’re a student just like me, who dislikes homework more than almost anything in the world, your ears immediately perked up. A debate as old as time itself begs the question: should students be assigned homework in school? There seems to be valid reasons for both sides of this argument at first glance, but when going in depth of the matter, it’s easier to see that there is a stronger side: the opposing homework side.

From a teacher or a parent’s viewpoint, homework seems like it’s a great idea because it gets students to continue doing what they learned at school at home, which they think will get them more engaged. However, this is not necessarily the case. After a long seven hour day of listening and learning, all kids want to do is come home and get the chance to just relax before having to go to bed, wake up early and do the whole thing over again. They don’t want to spend 2-3 more hours solving equations or writing reports. Add sports or other after school activities to the mix and then they really don’t want to come home to waste more of their time on busy work when they could be having family or down time.

As a student who is involved with various after school and extracurricular activities including theatre, choir and church, I find it very difficult to even have the time to finish all of my homework at night. When you think about it, you have six classes in a day. If you’re to get homework in every class, that’s roughly 3 hours of homework that you might have. If a student isn’t getting home until 7 or 8 o’clock at night because of extracurricular activities, this means they may not finish their homework until 10 or 11 o’clock, and that’s really late. A lot of students are not able to finish their homework at this late because of the long day and how tired they are, which only then leads them to getting penalized in class for their work not being done.

Another reason why students should not be assigned homework is because it’s unnecessary. Homework should not be needed if students are being taught all that they need to know at school. If we are given the opportunity to learn in school, we should also be given the opportunity to practice there. It seems pointless to just continue doing the same thing we would at school at home, especially when it’s only to earn points to make our grades look good.

School is about learning, of course, but it’s also about having fun and enjoying the time you have with friends. It’s important to keep up with your academics, but it’s also important to have and enjoy a social life. Having to pass up fun opportunities or outings with friends because you have hours upon hours of homework to do is no fun at all. You should have a balanced lifestyle between school, family and friends. When school spills over to the friends and family sections, it’s hard to get that time back.

Hopefully if I lost you in the beginning, some part of this article brought you back. Or if you were excited to see what I had to say, that you’re happy with the outcome. I hope you can now see the completely valid reasons of why students should not be assigned homework.