Practice makes a man perfect is a very common proverb that explains how persistent application of mind makes us perfect in a particular thing. Homework or say schoolwork that is given for home has the same objective. It helps a child revise the contents of the subjects that are taught in classroom and helps them remember the lessons for a longer period of time. They get permanently stuck into their brains.
If the quality of homework is good, it is definitely helpful for kids. A child learns self-studying and time management while doing tasks on their own. Parental involvement increases and in turn academic achievement too. The national Education Association has recommended number of hours as homework but most often homework exceeds that number.
Homework should be productive. Here productive means it should be of help to the students without creating a feeling of frustration or resentment. It shouldn’t be discouraging for a kid as well as to the parent. It should not be an irritation or inconvenience to parents.
It should be designed in such a way that it hardly takes any time not more than 2 hours. Something very interesting needs to be given so that it creates interest in studies for a child without feeling the pressure, like reading a chapter and finding at least five questions & answers out of it. This will not only help kids learn the lesson but also help them in framing sentences and questions, thus improving the writing ability.
There should be some flexibility in homework with no strict deadlines for example, a week’s time to complete five different assignments that could be completed in an hour or two each.
Homework must benefit students and not overburden them. Spending most of the time after school hours in completing assignments and tasks is too much of work. In addition to school hour’s kids put rest of the time completing projects, research work, assignments but still we find a child performing half of what he is putting into it. The reason is disinterest and just a compulsion to complete. Sleep deprivation due to longer hours of studies can cause a lot of stress.
Educators can also balance the work load by managing time and assigning additional work that can be get done in school itself. Another way is co-ordination of each subject teacher in assigning homework so that load gets distributed over each different day.
Playing is equally important for healthy child development. It’s important for children to destress themselves just like adults.
