Homework is a common thing at The Columbus School. However, some students have been complaining that this homework is not helping them learn the material but is just a waste of their time.

Many different studies have proven that some amount of homework is highly beneficial to students’ learning; simultaneously, however, they have also shown that longer homework is no more beneficial than smaller amounts of homework, which causes students a lot less stress.

“I think that my hardest class is financial math and the homework I do at home helps me to be a better student and get a better grade,” Simon Ariztisabal, said.

The research supports Ariztisabal’s experience, a study by Maynooth University showed that daily math homework is ideal for students to maximize their learning, however, that same study also showed how there are fast diminishing returns as homework length increases, and assignments that take over 15 minutes to complete are as effective for learning as shorter assignments.

“Um, sometimes when I have to when I have like a medical appointment in the afternoon, something like that, sometimes I can I cannot go to the gym to do homework since other things took up my time, but this is very this happens not very often, and I think that it shouldn’t be a worry for me,” Ariztisabal said.

This is backed up by research, a Stanford study found that 56% of students considered homework a primary source of stress and that too much homework is associated with reductions in health.

However, it may be hard for teachers to know how much homework to assign so that students do not get too stressed, as each of them is not the only one giving students work to do outside of school.

“I don’t know when you have maybe five tests that you have to take in a given day. I have no idea what your workload looks like every day,” Andrew Shainker, Journalism teacher at TCS, said.

Simultaneously, another common complaint about homework at this school is that it is not useful and productive, but rather work simply designed to fill time and not to improve students’ understanding of the topic.

“Overall, homework has enhanced my understanding in subjects like math and science where practice is essential. However, in other subjects, like English and history, some assignments felt more like busy work than meaningful learning. For example, writing essays has helped improve my critical thinking, but excessive worksheet-based assignments haven’t added much value,” Felipe Franco, senior, said.

“I think there should be a control so that at least the activities at home should not be long, but should be interesting. So no, like ten-page or like long worksheets more like shorter ones, that are harder and more and more challenging,” Ariztisabal said.