Should West students have Homework?

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Ava Duerr and Dianna Nikollbibaj

West students have to deal with homework at least once a week. Homework -literally meaning work at home- can be very stressful for students, because not all of us have free time.

We asked West students, Julia Allen and Teddy Ewers, if homework took up their free time, and they all said yes. Ewers stated, “We already go to school for 7 hours, I would rather spend it doing something else than more schoolwork.” Allen explained, “I play on 2 teams for volleyball and I’m gone until 7:00 and when I get home, I have to eat dinner and I just don’t have time for an hour of homework”. 

Then we asked Connor Laird, Isabelle Smedley, and Maggie Migyanka if they liked homework. They all said no. Laird, Migyanka, and Smedley all said they don’t like it, “Because it’s boring.” We then asked Jun Shin about what she thought of homework. Shin stated, “I don’t like homework because after 2:59 the school does not have control of us. They can’t send us home with school work if they don’t have control of us. They can’t make us do work at home if we are not at school.”

The Atlantic said that studies showed, “American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day.” Some schools are changing the policy they have of homework and reducing it.

We questioned Mr. Majszak and Mr. Watson to see if they think students should have homework. Majszak states, “Yes, you should have homework because you are only in one class for an hour and you don’t cover a lot of stuff in that time period. Homework is also good practice, you need it in all 4 core classes and it helps, so yes.” Watson also states his opinion, “I think homework can be helpful because with 54 minutes or so in a class just can’t cover everything and have everybody learn at the same pace. I think homework kind of helps people work and learn at their pace. It helps them work on things so they can have a better understanding.”

We asked Mr. Smiley what the amount of time we should have for homework. Smiley states, “So I have a rule I always go by, it’s your grade multiplied by ten; that’s 70 [for 7th grade]. Then you have 70 minutes of homework each day, that’s in all your subjects.”

Which argument do you agree with, homework or no homework?