While I was in high school, one of the things that constantly kept me alert about my studies and spurred me to go the extra mile for research to acquire knowledge was an assignment.
I can recall vividly how my mathematics teacher would make us solve all the exercises attached to any topic he taught us in school as an assignment, and it made us so engaged that we always prayed for holidays.
I won't lie, I hated assignments badly; it felt like it was a kind of barrier to having fun and simply enjoying my life. Anytime I had one, it was like a burden on my shoulders.
Yet, I can't deny the fact that my academic performance grew to its peak because of the extra work my teachers gave me to do at home after school.
I can't imagine what it would look like if homework were taken out of the system.
Assignment itself is part of education, and there are many reasons why teachers give assignments to students, which may include encouraging self learning, assessing understanding, and practicing what was taught for better understanding.
It was through homework that I became someone who loves self learning. Every time my teachers give me homework, in the process of doing it, I study and even go further to research other things, and that has always helped me to be a step ahead of my classmates. Today, i even preferred self learning than being under someone. I understand things better and faster if i studied them on my own.o
Without assignments in schools, students would become lazy and slow in learning. It is no longer news that it's not all students who understand 100% of what their teachers teach in the class; some of them need to go back home and practice before they become acquainted with it.
Most times, wanting to study without having a test the next day isn't that easy, but when it comes as an assignment, and the proof that you have studied it is to write something down or make a presentation the next day, will make you see it as a priority and give it all you have.
That extra learning student get from their parents or by themselves at home often makes them understand better. It's more like they are both learning from school and at home. It is such a plus for them.
This is why it is bad for parents to solve assignments for their children completely. Ideally, they are supposed to just teach them and allow them to solve it by themselves so that they will get a better understanding.
The aim of assignments is not to get scores and boost grades alone, it's to foster and test understanding.
Aside assignment fostering learning, it keeps the children engaged at home. It prevents them from roaming about and playing. If it were to be taken out, all that children will do is to come back from school and keep playing till they are tired. I bet no parent would like that for their children.
Learning is not just a school thing, it is something done both in school and at home to achieve mastery. If by chance, it becomes something done only in school, then we should be ready to watch our kids become lazy, slow, and degraded in their academics.