Teachers' Union Debating Ending Homework For Students

from the ah,-if-only-I-were-a-kid-again... dept

In the past few years, we've seen quite a few reports suggesting that homework doesn't help kids learn along with some other reports questioning traditional learning techniques. However, it's still a bit surprising for it reach the level where a teachers' union in the UK is already considering a proposal to ditch homework for most younger students and drastically scale back how much there is for older students (found via Digg). The reasoning is a bit different. The older reports we saw pointed out that homework wasn't particularly effective at helping kids learn. The reasoning for this new proposal is that homework makes kids "unhappy and anxious" and that leads to stressed out kids and potential disciplinary problems. It would be interesting to see any actual research supporting one side or the other here. I think it's great that teachers aren't just assuming that homework must be good, since that's how it's always been done, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be done away with completely.

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