With the end of the year approaching many Davis students are being overloaded by homework assignments and upcoming end of year exams. This leads many to question whether homework in the first place is useful or just busywork.

Many question the validity of homework within the education system citing various reasons why it should or should not be performed in school.

“I think homework is valuable to learning as it helps you practice certain complex concepts, for example in statistics when I learn something in class it helps me when I can practice it with the assignments,” said Nick Watkins when asked whether he thought homework was valuable to learning.

While homework can be useful for practicing, this function can also be accomplished with regular class work and practice time in class.

“Yes, I think classwork can accomplish this same goal” admitted Watkins when asked if classwork could achieve the same goal as homework at school.

Of course, the only problem with this theory is that there sometimes is not enough time for classwork to cover all aspects of a class leading to even further questions of whether what we are learning is useful or if we should extend/reduce school time.

However, many agree that homework should at least be reduced from its current form within the Davis High education system. Especially because of the strain that it puts on students and the time that it takes away from them to live their normal lives.

“I think that homework should be reduced in some cases, when you have already learned a topic and know how to do it there is no point doing it over and over again” said Watkins when asked if homework should be reduced/removed

The homework reduction would also not be applied uniformly to all classes as homework really depends on what subject is being taught. For example, math would require more practice as compared to a subject such as English in most cases.

Others still argue that school is supposed to be directed at getting you jobs and therefore homework is useless because you won’t take your work home with you.

No matter what you think about homework one thing remains clear, it will stay part of the learning experience for years to come, however change is being made.