Volume 2 | Issue 5 | Mar 2021
Karina Marzpanyan| Eliza Galstyan | Shadiq Iqbal | Gisela Kizirian | Matthew Chirinian |
Yolanda Valdez |Anais Khachatryan| Sophie Khorozyan| Nareg Isaghoulian| Emili Shaginian
| Narek Hakobyan I Emil Shamirian l Anahit Kazaryan l Evan Eiseman-Vasquez
l Advisers : Chris Stanley, Armineh Alexan, Ben Dionisio, Marine Avakyan, Terry Medina l
Thomas Jefferson Elementary School
Who Invented Homework?
By Anais Khachatryan
Homework has become a component of our everyday lives.
So… who invented homework? Nobody knows for sure but they
truly will pay! Roberto Nevilis is given the credit of inventing
homework, but he appears to be more of a web myth than a
historical person. However, Horace Mann, a 19th century
politician and education reformer, played a big part in the history
of homework. While visiting Germany, he was fascinated by the
Volksschule system and decided to bring some of its concepts,
including homework, back to America. Students going to the
Volksschulen got assignments to be finished at home at their
own pace. These assignments were mandatory.
A few decades later, in 1901, when the idea of homework
traveled across the Atlantic, California got rid of it with a
homework ban. This ban stayed in effect for all kids under age
15 until 1917. Around the same time, newspapers and
magazines told parents and doctors that homework is harmful to
kids’ health. In 1930, a group called the American Child Health
Association declared that homework was some sort of child
labor. Since laws against child labor had recently been passed,
this proclamation didn´tmake others like homework.
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, teachers
started looking for more personal and relevant homework
assignments for students. That is how essays like ´´Write about
your weekend started. After World War ll ended, the Cold War
started a rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United
States. When Sputnik 1 launched in 1957, it started a huge
competition between Americans and Russians, including their
kids. The U.S education authorities decided that difficult
homework was the only way to ensure that American kids didn’t
fall behind Russian kids. They wanted Americans to be doctors
or mathematicians.
Homework helps students catch up with work that they don´t
understand. It also teaches students the importance of staying
organized and doing independent work. So, who should we
blame for homework? That’s an open-ended question.
