Homework is very important. It gets you to practice intrinsic motivation - getting things done in your own time when nobody is forcing you to do them and when you have other, more appealing alternatives.
A big problem with school for me was that very little of it was framed in a way that made it seem useful. In subjects where I either understood the value (math for example, as I learned to program in my teens, so saw value in it to do things I wanted. While many of my peers followed the “it’s only useful if you want to be a math teacher” philosophy) or had some kind of extra interest in, I did well in, but even in subjects I chose to do, liked and was good at (eg German), I struggled trying to find the motivation to do any homework. Being forced to didn’t help, I would rather stare into space for an hour than actually spend the time on homework.
A big part of it, I think, was I needed downtime. I had already spend many hours in school and now was being told I needed to spend my time doing more school stuff? No thanks!
Even now, a couple of decades later, I need downtime to process the things that happened during the day. I’m a huge believer in Hammock Driven Development because of how important I feel thinking, reflection and downtime is.
EDIT: hell, I did really bad on one subject I used to be great at because of the homework: the homework load was too high so I dropped to the lower level class instead, which was the start of my downward spiral: it was too easy so I didn’t do much in it, the teacher didn’t push me and a few years later I struggled and never recovered. If the homework load were less, I would have stayed in the higher level class and, while I’m not certain, I’m pretty sure I could have at least maintained my ability instead of it deteriorating. I still believe I would have done better in my final exam at age 13 than I did at age 17 because of this.
It all boils down to not wanting to put any effort in the end.
Would you also say that programmers writing code on computers instead of pen & paper just "don't want to put any effort in"?
In the school during lesson, there is less privace as people look at you struggling and plus there is always someone to instantly nudge you.
I strongly believe that tests are an underutilized way to teach. Many seems to believe that you can't learn anything during tests, that they are only there to evaluate kids. However actually sitting and thinking about stuff is really important and tests helps with that.
Tests are not place for individual problem solving nor for figuring stuff out, they are for when you already learned that stuff and is proving to others that you did.
An entire essay on the subject: https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/getting-hit-head-lessons/
I do agree that's a useful life skill, but that is really scraping the barrel for reasons why homework works.
The problem there is we can find examples where there is no homework and a functional, thriving society behind it [0]
The Montessori Method of Education, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori, is a child-centered educational approach based on scientific observations of children. The method views the child as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a supportive, thoughtfully prepared learning environment. It attempts to develop children physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively.[1]
To me school is mostly about teachers checking on students instead of them actually explaining things. Once I was on a summer school in the Netherlands during university and I remember one of the professors saying that during the first 2 semesters they need the students to unlearn destructive behaviours from school. E.g. admitting when they don't know something and to ask. I'm from Germany but to me it seems like a problem occurring in many countries.