What do you think?
Rate this book
Is Homework a waste of time?
Each book in this series features a topic that acts as a springboard for discussion and debate on related issues, telling readers how to think, not what to think.
56 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2007
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 24, 2014
During the course of the non-fiction books unit, I read the book, Is Homework a Waste of Time? By Kate Shuster. The book had many statistics, and interesting facts that I could connect to. Many teenagers have homework daily and the amount of homework cuts into time of playing sports, getting fresh air, and doing activities kids enjoy to do. During this book, It gave a lot of facts about the effects of homework.
My first impression of the book was that I was going to connect with a lot of the ideas such as not spending time with family. I have had days where I had three hours of homework and activities to do and couldn’t get everything done. This has taken away from having a dinner and spending time with family. Some new learning I acquired was that there was a time where homework didn’t exist. This made me think how schools operated during that period of time, and how that rule can be put into effect in our everyday learning. This system of schooling would solve the homework problem today, and give children a time to have fun and enjoy themselves. If the system were effective, then there would be no problem bringing that rule back.
This book educated me on a lot of ideas that I never considered. For example, homework keeps parents involved in children's schooling. As stated in the book that the average kid watches 2 hours of television a day. But homework would solve the problem of not spending time with family if the parents help with homework. But from my perspective I would much rather play basketball with my dad or watch T.V. with my brother than do homework. Doing homework for kids is more like a chore than a fun activity, so doing something other than homework would be any kids ideal afternoon. Also stated in the book is that if a student stays up all night working on different projects, they are losing sleep. This will affect their performance at school the next day. This has happened to me a decent amount of times in the past couple of years. If your performance in school isn’t good the next day, thats a problem. So, having no homework would solve the issue and give kids a enough time for rest.
I recommend this book to any kids that are experiencing a lot of homework. It will inform you of the problem of too much homework for kids. It gives you a lot of ideas you may have never considered like sleep, or even family time. This book was the best non- fiction book I read during this unit because I could connect to it, and so will you. I really enjoyed this book and maybe it will solve the problem of too much homework in schools all around the world.
My first impression of the book was that I was going to connect with a lot of the ideas such as not spending time with family. I have had days where I had three hours of homework and activities to do and couldn’t get everything done. This has taken away from having a dinner and spending time with family. Some new learning I acquired was that there was a time where homework didn’t exist. This made me think how schools operated during that period of time, and how that rule can be put into effect in our everyday learning. This system of schooling would solve the homework problem today, and give children a time to have fun and enjoy themselves. If the system were effective, then there would be no problem bringing that rule back.
This book educated me on a lot of ideas that I never considered. For example, homework keeps parents involved in children's schooling. As stated in the book that the average kid watches 2 hours of television a day. But homework would solve the problem of not spending time with family if the parents help with homework. But from my perspective I would much rather play basketball with my dad or watch T.V. with my brother than do homework. Doing homework for kids is more like a chore than a fun activity, so doing something other than homework would be any kids ideal afternoon. Also stated in the book is that if a student stays up all night working on different projects, they are losing sleep. This will affect their performance at school the next day. This has happened to me a decent amount of times in the past couple of years. If your performance in school isn’t good the next day, thats a problem. So, having no homework would solve the issue and give kids a enough time for rest.
I recommend this book to any kids that are experiencing a lot of homework. It will inform you of the problem of too much homework for kids. It gives you a lot of ideas you may have never considered like sleep, or even family time. This book was the best non- fiction book I read during this unit because I could connect to it, and so will you. I really enjoyed this book and maybe it will solve the problem of too much homework in schools all around the world.
November 12, 2013
I read Is Homework a Waste of Time by Kate Shuster because I’m a student who doesn’t like homework and I was looking for evidence to support my case. This book is about homework and whether or not it actually helps students to do better in school. While this book could be read by people of all ages, it is really written for students of a lower reading level and because of that I found it boring and too simple at times. Probably the biggest example of this is in the first five pages and throughout the rest of the book when the author tells the reader how to form an opinion based on facts rather than bias. The author also uses a vocabulary that I found to be bland and basic. Since this didn’t challenge me and provide me with facts that I found interesting, I couldn’t get into the book and really want to pick it up. Kind of going along with not being able to get into the book is what I learned about myself from reading this book. I learned that I can actually get into a non fiction book. While it’s not like reading a fiction book I enjoy, if the facts are interesting enough and I can relate to the topic, I can actually enjoy reading a nonfiction book.
While this book is written for a younger audience compared to most of the books I read, it did do an ok job in conveying the authors claim. The author of this book tries to keep a neutral opinion throughout the book, which she did really well, although I think it took away from her claim. Because she is so focused on telling the reader how to form an unbiased opinion which I already knew how to do, she spent less time actually talking about the subject and resorted to talking almost in the third person she was so detached. While this would help someone who needed to work on forming an opinion. What I keep finding myself saying over and over again, which I guess is one of my main points, is that this book is a great book if you are at a beginning reading level for nonfiction where you need to work on forming an opinion. Otherwise I would recommend a different book on the topic that went more in depth instead of just scratching the surface.
While this book is written for a younger audience compared to most of the books I read, it did do an ok job in conveying the authors claim. The author of this book tries to keep a neutral opinion throughout the book, which she did really well, although I think it took away from her claim. Because she is so focused on telling the reader how to form an unbiased opinion which I already knew how to do, she spent less time actually talking about the subject and resorted to talking almost in the third person she was so detached. While this would help someone who needed to work on forming an opinion. What I keep finding myself saying over and over again, which I guess is one of my main points, is that this book is a great book if you are at a beginning reading level for nonfiction where you need to work on forming an opinion. Otherwise I would recommend a different book on the topic that went more in depth instead of just scratching the surface.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews