Is Homework Ban the Beginning of a National Revolution?

Posted bySara BennettPosted inIn the News, Media Clips

Yesterday, the CBS Nightly News picked up the story of the homework ban at The Oak Knoll Elementary School in Menlo Park, California, and asked whether Oak Knoll is at the forefront of a homework revolution. I hope so. After a short ad, you can watch the story here.

294 thoughts on “Is Homework Ban the Beginning of a National Revolution?”

  1. Ian, your teacher actually said that? She made a blanket statement that kids don’t get stress? Oh, my…

    A more advanced way of looking at this issue is, of course kids can suffer from stress. It’s the job of adults to make sure that children have as stress-free a childhood as possible. Childhood is supposed to be light, airy, fun, filled with discovery, creativity, wonder, joy, passions and intellectual curiosity. That teachers today do explicit things to actually induce stress and then go on to deny its existence is a complete travesty.

    I’m sorry you had to hear that, Ian. Your teacher is quite wrong. The sad thing is that so much of this induced stress is unnecessary. It’s not a necessary evil. Evil yes, necessary no.

    It still boggles my mind how much stress school caused us. So much so that we had to fold up and run away for a year. Run away to a blissful magical year of homeschooling. But it still enrages me that school can be so untenable. For so many. And for what? We don’t have to do this to our children. School can and should be a happy place. Not a soul crushing place from which you feel the uncontrollable urge to escape.

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  2. Honestly, school is enough as is. I’m a grade ten student and currently hold a fairly solid grade. I have stressed over school to wits end this year. I have had anxiety issues because of school and all and all, been totally over-worked. Currently I have about 5 different assignments all due next week. I have had to plan out a homework schedule and have figured out that I will have to work nonstop with only breaks for supper and girl guides and student council meetings, until at least 10:00 pm each night for the next week. That’s only the assignments I have to complete. That doesn’t account for nightly homework or studying for the two tests I have coming up this week. I think teachers need to realise that students have lives outside of school. I wish I could go out and go shopping with my mom or watch a movie with my brothers but all this school work prevents me from it. I think it’s grossly unnecissary and completely a waste of time. And teachers wonder why students hate school so much? It’s because with all the gross amounts of homework they send with us, we have no time for it. Now if you excuse me, I need to finish my homework.

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  3. I think homework should be banned. I mean, it puts like a whole lot of stress on students with all of these tight deadlines and complicated work sheets.
    We already suffer more than 5 hours in school, now we have to be tortured at home as well? Research shows that homework causes kids to be depressed and actually lowers grades.
    I think it’s time to put an end to this supreme BS.

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  4. Homework Should be FUCKING BAN because we spend almost 4-5 hours and i never spend my time on my family and I HAVE LIFE YOU FUCKING HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  5. I agree with very single one of you. We should be able to spend time with family and friends and learn at school. Sure you practice at home but you are not supposed to stress a kid out with a bunch of homework. We should get done at school and have fun at home. You can practice but they really really shouldn’t be giving kids a bunch of FUCKIN homework to do at home and strews a kid out. It’s bullshit 🙂

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  6. I am a sophomore and I definitely agree that we are given way to much homework. I myself have experienced such low morale and a horrible lack of sleep. I am in two AP classes and I easily spend five or more hours on my school work a night . I am so sleep deprived on a daily basis that it is difficult for me to function. I am truly miserable and in serious need of a break. This is not how learning is supposed to be. I no longer enjoy getting an education.

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  9. Yea please ban homework, it takes away my sleeping hours, my social time, and my free time is filled with homework. I play sports after school so i get home at six, and i have to do stuff and barely have anytime to do so much homework. So i would usually stay up until 11:00-12:00pm so i could finish. That’s like 5hours and 40 minutes of sleep that i get each day because my school start pretty early. Having to stress so much about homework and classwork and barely have energy to learn, i dont even know what to do.

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  11. I haaaate homework, I mean, why go to school for 7(ish) hours, then come home and do more school?!?! I don’t believe in it. I work on HW the entire night, and I end up staying up until 12 and I’ll have to wake up at 6. People need sleep so they can function IN school, not staying up all night doing homework. I hate if so much I really hope it will be banned in the near future!!!!

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  12. I think most homework is a waste of time, especially large research papers on topics that could not matter less to me; however in learning things, most people need to practice and repeat skills before they are actually learned (calculus for example). However homework is not the main problem here, the main problem is how education is geared towards the general class and not the select student. Eliminating homework is not the solution, I’m sorry to let you know; however only an idiot would put the brunt of their teaching in the form of homework: it serves it’s purpose only up to a point. What must change is how students are taught…

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  14. I myself am a student in a very prestigious school. My school believes every child should have 5 hours of homework per night. But they don’t realize what a toll that puts on the good students. I have a 90 average and do very little homework. And I believe homework should be for extra credit. But for those who need help in that subject homework is obligatory.

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  15. I FRIGGIN HATE HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a cousin of mine is a second grade teacher at a public school that doesn’t believe in homework

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  17. Homework can eat me stinky ass shit!!!! I hate homework. SO HOMEWORK SHOULD BE BANNED OR I’LL BE PISSED!!! FUCKING A MAN!!!

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  22. I personally would much rather have an extra hour of school than any homework at all. Home work eats up my time and leaves no space on my scedulle (spelling 🙂 ). The teachers at my school say that home work should only take an hour. Oops, they were off by about 3 hours. Homework should be banned. Hello? Human rights, child labor?

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  29. Homework ruins life at home. Stress stress stress for something they will forget the next day. Home work is the dumbest thing ever invented plz fix it

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  32. Homework is unnecessary and a waste of time. It causes stress and isn’t helpful at all, including work from class that wasn’t finished, unless that student was just screwing around the entire time and being an overall disruptive jerk, there is no reason that that work should be added onto the homework if that work didn’t fit into the lesson that the teachers planned then that’s their fault. A while ago my math teacher assigned a load of homework as well as a bunch of other teachers in one day, some of the students in my class complained about this and asked questions. When the teacher was asked why so much homework was assigned on one day by so many teachers the teacher said that they didn’t check with the other teachers on what they were assigning to the students when asked why he didn’t check with the other teachers the teacher said he didn’t have enough time to. Its seems insane that the teachers at the college i’m going to have enough time to assign tons of homework but not enough to check with other teachers I mean wtf if they really have no time then why are they using any of their time giving their students so much homework. Not only is there a lot of homework but there isn’t enough time to do the work or its not explained well enough to know what we’re supposed to do.

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  33. FUCK THIS MOTHER FUCKING SHIT! HOMEWORK NEEDS TO BE BANNED! MY LIFE IS MADE UP OF %60 HOMEWORK! WE MUST PROTEST AGAINST THIS RETARDED BULLSHIT!!!
    #STOPRETARDEDHOMEWORK

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  34. This topic was started in 2007 and now it’s 2016!
    nothing changed everyone is still complaining about
    homework I was just 4 years old on 2007 but now I am 13
    I really hate my stupid sir that give us a lot of homework and class
    work I wake up on 6 am take the school bus on 7 am
    come home on 2:30 pm I really don’t have any time to
    play because I waste my 4 hours doing homework and
    fell asleep on 12:00 am I sometimes want to launch
    an missile on my school or at least burn my school bag

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  35. I am a 71 yr old mother and grandmother. I went through hell with my children with homework now I see my son fighting everyday with his son to get it done. Such bullshit!! Children need a life after school!! Not fair to parents or children.!!! What do we pay our taxes for???!. Way too stressful!!!!

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  37. Time I could spend learning and developing skills to do things I love like writing software, 3D modeling/animation and amateur game development is instead WASTED on writing huge research papers for English class (a pointless, shit subject) on “great works” like Macbeth, a shit play from a shit author, and creating research projects for history (another inherently shit subject) about some boring philosophers from hundreds of years ago.

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  38. I’m 12 (almost 13) and am currently suffering from deprssion because of the fact that my CHILDHOOD IS CONSUMED BY WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK. STRESS STRESS STRESS STRESS STRESS. WHEN IVE BEEN PLAYING FOR A WHILE AND MY PARENTS USE THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO JUSTIFY TIME SPENT ON HOMEWORK I JUST THINK “Bruh I’m a kid.” You’re always saying how childhood is where you had fun and were free. But I’m a kid and i have to stress myself out to the point that I hate homework and school so much my body develops illnesses to stop me from going? WHATEVER FUCKING HAPPENED TO CHILDHOODS BEING FULL OF IMAGINATION? FREEDOM? FUN? So I’m being told now my parents to deal with this bullshit and accept my childhood being swallowed up by endless work so that I can get a job when I’m older, and I’ll be happy i dealt with it cos I’ll have a good job. NO I FUCKING WON’T I’LL BE SUICIDAL THINKING ABOUT HOW I WASTED THE ONLY PERIOD OF MY LIFE WHERE NO STRESS AND NO PRESSURE IS INVOLVED BY DOING A BUNCH OF HELPLESS, IRRELEVANT SHIT THAT DOESN’T TEACH ME JACK INSTEAD OF TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE FACT THAT I DIDN’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT MUCH. We only get ONE FUCKING CHILDHOOD and it’s the ONLY TIME WHERE WE CAN RELAX AND BE BLINDED FROM THE DISGUSTING CLUSTERFUCK OF A REALITY FULL OF NON-STOP WORK WHEN ADULTHOOD COMES AROUND. SO STOP DENYING US THE RIGHT TO ENJOY CHILDHOOD!!

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  39. One more thing. I’ll never get a chance to “play videogames” or “go out biking with mates” when i’m older and have a job, so please, and I speak for all childeren, PLEASE let us enjoy as much of that as we can while we still (sorta) have a chance. Consider it

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  40. Homework is stupid I do so much work at school. I don’t want to do any at home thats why I go home to get away from school work. I think homework should be banned. I am in grade seven, I had influenza for four days and had a six inch tall stack of homework. I think homework is a waste of time.

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  43. So home is a thing. It makes a great deal of stress on a kid. Homework was first made as a punishment for kids. If they wanted kids to learn more make the school hours longer from 7 to 8 or something. I understand that homework is made to help the kid practice more but then it gets graded and added to their grade. Homework causes stress on the kids and so it should be banned or fixed where it is optional and does not get put in the grade book. It is just my opinion. Coming from an 8th grader, not a second grader.

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  44. homework is dumb. i get homework on a topic i haven’t learned about yet and get scolded for wrong answers. thus, i never learn anything. doesn’t make any sense.

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