The document argues that homework hinders true learning and negatively impacts students’ mental health, family time, and overall enjoyment of education. It asserts that excessive homework does not correlate with academic success and calls for a shift in educational practices to prioritize intrinsic motivation and effective class time over rote assignments. The author advocates for eliminating homework in favor of nurturing a healthy mindset, body, and family interactions to foster real education.

1. Professor
English 205 (MW)
18 March 2015
Rhetoric Essay #2 Final Draft
Homework Hinders Hunger
The progress of public compulsory education is at a halt, frosted
over by the heedless and shallow practice of homework,
prohibiting learning. We live in this stationary hour as a result
of a conceptual idea of success having been too indeterminate to
survive actual application. Fickle are those convinced that
more homework relates directly with advancement, for
absolutely no evidence proves that children need or benefit
academically from extra overload of assignments. In fact, the
addition of after-school work subtracts vital hours of childhood,
causing an expansive amount of suffering for not just
youngsters in school, but their entire family. If no collective
and persistent effort is invested immediately to jumpstart the
clock, the future will undoubtedly hold catastrophic
consequences for children who never had time to be so.
As this is true education, let us begin with a definition:
definition, the fixed, clear meaning of a word, phrase, or idea.
The majority of educators, too weak-minded and rigid to realize
otherwise, have dubbed their twisted interpretation of education
as its true definition. But there is only one meaning. Education
is the yearning to discover what a person does not know he/she
did not know. It is embracing a seeker mentality, it is a never-

2. ending journey, and it is accepting to learn because of
experience rather than banking on it. Any exercise stifling the
natural and necessary craving to learn is sickening, for this
habitual practice renders the true definition of education
useless.
Can the homework problem be fixed? Luckily, we are clearly
not dealing with the intelligent, for which I would place heavy
shame upon for intentional carelessness. There is no tactful wit
or clever plotting against youngsters by assigning homework, so
teachers' intentions may in fact be satisfactory. Let us even
deem them "loving fools". But regardless of motive, any and all
who assign pointless busywork are hollow-headed enough to
desperately require the right guidance. After all, how can
adults possibly teach what they do not know or what they
cannot define?
The most frightening truth is how greatly homework hinders
hunger to learn. Most assignments sent home with children are
designed to, as so-called teachers say "re-enforce" the lessons
taught earlier in the day. Really, though, children are not fools.
Regurgitating facts, memorization, and thoughtlessly copying
down vocabulary words are not enlightening, it is not a task to
look forward to, and most of all children eventually lose the
desire to voluntarily seek out help. I welcome any argument
able to assert how children would, in fact, find slogging away at
worksheets appealing, but until then I need not say more. Ria
K, a fifteen year-old sophomore, spends three to six hours a
night on homework; the amount of time consistently matching
other high schoolers her age. "It’s drilling the problems into
my head," Ria exclaims. "School isn’t even about learning
anymore, it’s about grades and repetition . . . I’ve lost my love
of learning, and that’s sad." More effects of homework include
sleep deprivation (which leaves students mentally-unprepared

3. for the next day at school), high stress, lack of cultivating basic
life skills, family troubles, and even panic attacks. Mia, a high
school freshman who also participates in extracurricular
activities comes to her conclusion that "the focus of homework
seems to have shifted from quality to quantity, and students are
suffering." Horrid as this sounds, what other scenario can
explain why students have no appetite to learn when we are
spoon-feeding them trash? Worse, as pigs are fed slop before
lined up for slaughter, Ria and Mia are just as well condemned
to collapse, because quae est habitus manus singulas (what is
habit stays).
Assigning homework also enforces a cruel and hurtful statement
to both students and parents alike. When teachers believe that
they have the right to send children home with time-consuming
idle-work, their actions are equivalent to saying that they
cannot trust that the students learned the material well enough.
Therefore, teachers feel it necessary to supersede the parent's
wishes by welcoming themselves under the family's roof, to eat
up their personal time. This violation is worse than a slap in
the face, it is out-ragingly disrespectful, and more like the
betrayal of Judas's kiss because of its masked blow. Parents,
who do not know better, are fooled into surrendering the
premises without complaint because all they sincerely care for
is what they are under the impression that they are receiving: an
education for their children.
Now, refraining from anger in order to inspect rationally, I must
beseech: If teachers are fearful that a day full of lessons is not
enough, how truly efficient and effective are class time hours?
We already know the answer because homework exists, and
children are working "second shifts" as author and education
expert Alfie Kohn describes. But chaining children from afar
just for self-reassurance or fear of failure is absolutely foul

4. behavior, especially coming from leading educators.
W. E. B. Du Bois, an extremely wise writer, has a thorough
understanding of how any problem has the capability to be
fixed, and if not fixed, mended. His idea is simple to
understand: Every value starts within the individual, eventually
spreading to an entire society (or in this case, a classroom or
school). Mindset, or what happens on the small scale influences
what happens on the large scale. With his concept deduced in
combination with the definition of education, the start of
rebooting schooling practices can finally begin.
On top of ridding every child from homework, new and healthy
activities need to be actively incorporated into the family
routine. The goals for these practices is to strengthen three
parts of being a human to their utmost potential; having a
healthy mind, body, and soul/moral compass. These three
absolute necessities for youngsters and their family are
prerequisites for any true educational course.
To strengthen the mind, one of the most effective and
scientifically-proven ways is to read on a daily basis, because
reading motivates the brain to exercise literacy, problem-
solving, predictions, and drawing conclusions; all of which are
necessary to academic and life success. Dr. Seuss writes: "The
more that you read the more that you will know, the more that
you know the more places you'll go,” which could not be more
appropriately stated. Preferably, parents should read to their
children every night to set the appropriate example of sticking
to a constructive habit and to stress reading's importance.
Secondly, to acquire a healthy body, children need to be rested,

5. fit, and awake for class time, certainly doable with the absence
of homework. Plenty of sleep, a healthy immune system,
vitamin D, and robust nutrition, currently a luxury for many
students, should now be placed at parents' and teachers' priority.
These minimal standards cannot be overlooked under any
circumstances.
Lastly, to strengthen the soul. Daily interaction between family
members incorporates valuable lessons that parents feel
appropriate to teach their children. Parents and children play
two very different roles in the household; parents root down a
strong trunk of core values and children eventually emulate the
same beliefs through their own branches. A fruitful and
abundant family tree requires maintenance, but the results are
lasting. Strong family relationships created by regular,
everyday conversation can even repel pesticides that attempt to
creep in; poisons such as homework.
All three health necessities can easily be exercised every night
at the dinner table; the mind through talk and discussion, the
body through nutrition and rest, and the soul through family
time. Guaranteed, a new lifestyle with improved habits will
eventually prove education to be more than just homework.
When you first enrolled your child in school, was it your dream
to pronounce ownership of someone able to recite the area of a
triangle, or to an individual who would eventually graduate with
the passion of pursuing their own dreams, with hopefully some
life skills compiled along the way? Did you envision the
teacher raising your child with their inescapable influence? Did
you foresee never-ending exhaustion from children the ages of
sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, or younger?

6. Homework eliminates learning. The monotonous and repetitive
system is fueled by the idea that a successful grade can only be
accomplished through mindless work, rather than being
motivated intrinsically. I am so pained over this current
problem because of where it is assured to continue in the future.
I am scared to think that I myself may be the mother of an
unborn child who will have to endure worse schooling
conditions than there are now. What I want most dearly is what
the nation needs immediately. What I see as responsibility,
teachers see as unnecessary. What is most preposterous in
schools is what is seen as "normal" to them. Stop stopping and
re-redefine education to its correct meaning. Children are not
the key to the future; we are dangling the key in front of them,
even faking a toss, because until they are adults, we are
supposed to teach them. Wake up, and begin again. Teach
effective class lessons, send students home, and leave the rest to
be. Many children will thrive from no homework, whereas
some may burn their fingers a bit or stumble and take a hard
fall. But those are the children that would not have finished
homework, anyway (and even then, there is always something to
be learned from consequence). For the love of all that we have
worked for and what children will soon have to bear, begin now
with a fresh start and welcome a world without homework.
Works Cited:
Breaks, Suli. "Why I Hate School But Love Education || Spoken
Word." YouTube.
YouTube, 2 Dec. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI>
Fuglei, Monica. "The Homework Debate: The Case Against
Homework." Concordia
Portland Online. 14 Nov 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

7. < http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/news/the-homework-
debate-the-case-
against-homework/>
Khan, Salman. "Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education." TED
Talks. 1 Mar. 2011. Web.
13 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rei
nvent_education
?language=en>
Kohn, Alfie. The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too
Much of a Bad Thing.
Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Life Long, 2006. Print.
Oljavo, Holly E. "Do You Have Too Much Homework?" The
Learning Network Do You
Have Too Much Homework Comments. The New York Times,
16 June 2011.
Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
<http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/do-you-have-
too-much-
homework/?_r=0>
"Quotes About Reading." (3393 Quotes). Good Reads. Web. 18
Mar.
<2015.http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/reading>