As students, we are all painfully aware of the inconveniences of homework. Sometimes we don’t have the time to complete it, and other times we don’t want to do it simply because we already feel we know the material it’s supposed to teach. Yet, despite this, many of our teachers insist that we do it, either directly by collecting and grading it, or indirectly, by giving quizzes on details that are largely unnecessary for an overall understanding of the concept but can only be known from doing the homework.

So, should homework be required? For most classes, no. Instead, students should be encouraged to do it, but still be given enough leeway to not.

For example, take a social studies class in which students are assigned a daily reading. If one night, perhaps, the class is assigned reading on a subject with which a student already has familiarity at the depth required for that class, it is simply redundant for the student to spend time reading about that subject instead another one, even if it is for a different class. Yet, some teachers still give quizzes and tests with details only found in the book, not to mention that for AP classes, such details extremely rarely appear on AP Exams.

Also, if a teacher absolutely insists that students complete homework every night, he should be more understanding of the student’s schedule. In other words, if a math teacher assigns, let’s say, 30 problems for homework, then quizzes over that content in the next class, it would be both to the advantage of the teacher and student if the teacher allowed the student to take the quiz at a later date if the student didn’t have a chance to do the homework. With such a system in place, teachers could set a maximum number of times a student can ask to delay his or her homework. Thus, with teachers trusting students not to lie and students having a maximum number of times to ask for delayed homework, teachers and students would develop a better system of trust towards each other.