Do you think students should have homework?

[Guest rachilde]

Yes, homework should be mandatory. If you have too much to do, then drop your clubs or extracurricular activities. Anyone who expects to walk into class and have the teacher read Hamlet out loud to them page by page is just lazy.

[Guest Viktri]

As people mature the way they learn changes. 

I take homework to mean: fill in the blanks, answer a question after reading a book (the question has a single right/wrong answer), etc and different from essay work

Immature students need to be told what to do and how to do it. Kids need direction and this needs to be enforced appropriately. This means homework and examinations. 

As students mature, more work should be allocated to essay writing and topics should be challenging. Essays are a better indicate of understanding and articulation - both which are important in the real world. 

This is a tool to make the world a more fair place. Imagine if there was no homework in schools. The only people who study are are self-starters who learn the material on their own and kids with educated parents who can afford effective tutors. Educated parents have a tenancy to value education and promote it at home.

What happens? By the time kids hit 18 and realize they're going to need to earn income going forward the gap in maturity, knowledge and mental processing is insurmountable. Before the race has begun, the knowledgeless kids are the ones who don't have the natural talent or environment to overcome the gap. They're screwed. This isn't fair - they didn't know any better when they were young.

Homework is commonplace and kids still find ways to screw it up. The gap would only widen if it was removed.

That said, homework isn't perfect. Teaching methods need to be revamped and a focus on value-adding homework should be brought in. Too many teachers are the lazy-richard simmons variety who couldn't cut it in the real world and went to teach and ruin the lives of young students with negative attitudes.

Full disclosure: I've studied at top schools in North America, Europe, and Asia and have worked with junior employees to senior executives 

[AnthonyKkoKko]

It's not like homework is mandatory...

You can choose not to do it.

So I REALLY don't know why people complain about it.

If you don't want to do it, then don't do it. It's your problem.

Some people can get great marks without trying.

I'm not one of those people. That's why homework is important to me, and that's why I do it ^^

[Guest Sleepless.]

Students are fully capable of doing well in school without homework. For this reason I see it as overbearing and unnecessary. If a student isn't capable of doing well in school without homework, then they aren't paying attention in class, or they're not understanding what's being taught to them. In that case they should ask the teacher for personal help.

[Guest knockblock]

Especially people who do sports/clubs they end up sleeping 3/4 hours per night and end up pulling all nighters

But not everybody does sports/clubs.

[Guest AiMango]

Well I had a few classes that never assigned hmk and we would just have midterms and a final. And of course what would happen is a bunch of cramming right before the midterms or finals. haha. Hmk has its good and bad sides - it reinforces your understanding of the material, but if you already know it, you dont -have- to do it. well, unless it's for marks : P