Right: Postcard showing newly-elected French President, Francois Hollande, in a pose demonstrating his determination to stamp out school homework across France.
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Background information
(The definition of homework supplied below is a slightly abbreviated version of that found in the Wikipedia entry titled 'Homework'. The full text can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homework
The overview of homework was taken from Homework for the 21st Century Queensland Parliamentary Library 2007 pp.2-3
This material can be accessed at http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/explore/ResearchPublications/ResearchBriefs/2007/RBR200701.pdf)
Definition of homework
Homework refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside the class. Common homework assignments may include a quantity or period of reading to be performed, writing or typing to be completed, problems to be solved, a school project to be built (such as a diorama or display), or other skills to be practised.
The history of homework
It appears that homework became common in the mid 19th Century and the amount assigned has waxed and waned according to political ideologies of the times.
When there has been community concern about falling educational standards, the response by schools has tended to be to assign more homework.
It has been claimed that homework reached popular status after the Soviet Union launched its artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957 causing panic among the United States and its allies and a consequent focus on science and technology in the education curricula. The desire was to ensure that American students were not left behind by their Russian counterparts who were seen to be working harder and achieving more. Homework was considered to be an integral part of the new Cold War strategy. Progressive education theories that had denounced the value of homework in the early 20th Century were blamed for causing the USA to fall behind in technological and military supremacy.
This led to more homework being set and the momentum increased from there (apart from a temporary lull during the Vietnam War period).
However, National Assessment of Educational Progress (USA) data indicates that throughout the last two decades, most students at all year levels in the USA averaged less than one hour of homework per night. Even among 17 year olds, it appeared that only 12% spent over two hours on homework each night in 1999.
In an Australian study, it was found that around 60% of students surveyed spent less than one hour per school day on mathematics and science homework and around 20% spent one to two hours on mathematics homework. Just over half spent less than an hour per school day on subjects other than mathematics and science.
It has been reported that it is usually parents who demand that homework be set and many of them - particularly those whose children attend private schools - believe the barometer of whether a school is doing a good job is the amount of homework they set.
In the first half of the twentieth century, when child health experts and the progressive education movement in the USA opposed homework believing that it affected children's physical and mental health and deprived them of important non-school learning activities and family time, most parents still appeared to support it. Indeed, some educators who attempted to abolish homework in their schools came up against serious parental opposition.
In 1901, the state of California in the USA banned homework on the basis of it being a health risk and, even today, some USA schools still ban homework on weekends and control how much homework is given to students.
It appears that in most schools across Australia, the average amount of homework set for students is a maximum of 30 minutes per day for students up to Year 4, increasing to around 45 to 90 minutes per day for Year 9 students. In senior years, homework can range from one to three hours per night, with a further six hours on weekends during exam periods.