We’ve all been there: you’re hunched over a particularly tough assignment, knowing full well there are many on your to-do list. Overworked, exhausted, or simply bored, you can’t help but wish whoever came up with homework had never gotten the idea.
Believe it or not, the history behind who invented school homework is full of twists and turns. For one, you may have read about one Roberto Nevilis, who supposedly invented the concept either in 1095 or 1905 as a punishment.
Yet, that story is nothing but a hoax. So, today, let’s dive into the real history of homework and debunk some myths along the way.
We’ll take you on a journey from the very origins of homework to how attitudes toward it evolved over the past two centuries. By the end of it, you’ll hopefully gain a better understanding of why homework exists and how it came to be.
Roberto Nevilis: Nothing More than a Myth
Type the name Roberto Nevilis into the search bar on Wikipedia, and you’ll quickly find out that no pages even mention the name. And that’s for a good reason: there’s no evidence that Roberto Nevilis even existed!
Yet, multiple blog posts, Quora posts, and Reddit threads mention this name, calling this supposed Italian educator the man who created homework. The usual story goes like this: in 1905 or 1095, a Venetian school teacher called Roberto Nevilis was pondering how to encourage his students to work harder in class. His solution? Homework!
But he didn’t envision it as a way to improve recall or apply theoretical concepts to practice, which are the real benefits of homework. Supposedly, he came up with homework as a punishment for underperforming students.
This makes for an appealing story, especially if you feel like homework is a means of torture from hell. However, there’s simply no historical evidence to back up this story.
Besides, the timeline simply doesn’t hold up. In 1095, the formal education system simply didn’t exist, so there were no classes or schools to speak of. The year 1905, however, would be too late for the supposed invention of homework: in California, homework had officially been banned by a 1901 law!
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The Real Origins of Homework
So, how did homework really come to be? Well, the real history of homework can be traced all the way back to ancient times. Across Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, some philosophers and teachers gave similar instructions to their students. However, those weren’t written assignments, and students weren’t graded on how well they practiced at home. There’s no evidence that those tasks were even obligatory for students.
For example, Pliny the Younger, a lawyer and author, taught his followers to speak in public. He reportedly gave them tasks to practice their oratorship skills at home.
In Ancient China, however, students were exposed to a more familiar homework. They were asked to memorize certain facts and practice calligraphy in between classes.
In medieval Europe, the few fortunate whose families could afford private tutors would occasionally get extra tasks to complete at home. Although, once again, those didn’t necessarily involve written assignments.
But why was homework invented? Well, in the ancient world, one theme runs like a common thread. Homework is simply an opportunity to strengthen one’s skills and revise the taught material. It’s not a punishment, and it’s not a measure of the student’s success.
How Modern Homework Came to Be
If you want to dig deeper into how you got stuck with a bunch of homework today, we’ll have to fast-forward to the 19th century. Up to that point, the idea of giving a bit of extra work to learners wasn’t exactly new, but it wasn’t as widespread and standardized as it is today.
The Prussian education system was the first to adopt homework as a standard teaching method. We can trace the idea of making homework widespread to the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
Also credited with conceptualizing German nationalism, Fichte was the architect of Volkschule, the mandatory primary and lower state education system similar to what we all know today. In Volkschule, students were given homework. Interesting fact: children from an aristocratic background attending Realschule secondary schools were spared from it.
Homework arrived in the United States thanks to the efforts of one Horace Mann. Mann visited the Prussian Volkschule in the 1840s and brought back the idea of homework to his home state of Massachusetts, where he served on the Board of Education at the time.
Soon enough, the Prussian education system model spread across Europe and the United States, and so the idea of mandatory homework became widespread together with it.
The Evolution of Homework in the 20th Century
Homework quickly fell out of grace in the United States, however. In fact, Boston outright banned math homework in 1880, not even half a century after Horace Mann brought the idea to Massachusetts. California became the first state to ban homework for all students under 15 in 1901.
The reason behind this outcry? Parents and public figures alike believed the amount of homework assigned was too much for children and harmed their health. Some even pointed out that completing all homework took more time than children of the same age were allowed to legally work under the child labor laws.
For the first half of the 20th century, homework was mostly abandoned as an idea. However, the advent of the Cold War changed that. The U.S. government quickly realized that, to compete with the Soviet Union, the nation needed STEM experts to secure a competitive edge in the technology race. Homework made a comeback as part of the federal push for academic rigor.
The Information Age also marked a shift in how homework is done. As computers and the internet became the usual fixtures of U.S. households, assignments have evolved beyond textbooks and worksheets, too. Multimedia presentations and online quizzes are as popular, while the 2020 pandemic proved that learning could take place remotely in its entirety.
Why It’s Impossible to Credit One Person with Inventing Homework
Hopefully, you can see by now that homework isn’t exactly an invention that one person could be credited with. The idea of giving extra work to students to reinforce the taught material has existed since ancient times and evolved throughout the centuries.
Even attitudes toward homework have shifted tremendously over the course of the past 150 years. Think about it: homework was adopted, then banned, then re-adopted during the Cold War!
So, if you opened this article wondering who made homework, the answer might be somewhat underwhelming. Homework wasn’t invented by a single person; it came to be because thousands of teachers throughout history saw it as a valuable educational practice.
10 Fun & Interesting Facts About Homework
Depending on where you live, your experience with homework may be different. Here are some interesting facts about the state of homework around the globe and in the U.S.:
- China and Russia are the countries where 15-year-old students spend the highest number of hours doing homework, averaging at 13.8 hours and 9.7 hours per week, respectively.
- Finland and South Korea, in turn, are the two countries where students get the least amount of homework, with an average of 2.8 and 2.9 hours per week.
- Around the world, the average amount of homework reaches 4.9 hours per week, according to OECD.
- Homework is such an integral part of students’ lives today that it inspires memes (“Can I copy your homework?” “Yeah, just don’t do it word for word”) and TV shows (“The Dog Ate My Homework”, a British comedy panel show for kids).
- How careful students are about checking their homework also varies from country to country. Worldwide, 44% of students review their homework to make sure there are no mistakes. In Finland, the Netherlands, and Latvia, however, the percentage drops below 30%. However, it exceeds 80% in Cambodia, El Salvador, Uzbekistan, and Guatemala.
- Only 22% of U.S. Gen Z students reported they never wanted to use AI for schoolwork, as of 2025.
- In 2024, a global survey revealed that 86% of students across the world were using AI for schoolwork.
- Parents in India, Turkey, and Singapore spend the highest number of hours helping their kids with homework, with the average amounting to 12 hours, 8.7 hours, and 7.9 hours per week, respectively.
- In the U.S., 40% of adults think primary school students receive too much homework, with the percentage dropping slightly to 37% for high school.
- Yet, most U.S. adults (56%) wouldn’t support a homework ban in their school district today.
What’s the Point of Homework?
If you can’t get motivated to do homework, understanding its purpose might at least help make it less intimidating. Today, there are six types of homework tasks you might receive, each with its own particular purpose:
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Final Thoughts
The history of homework is cloaked in mystery, but we can trace its origins all the way to the ancient world. And while we’d encourage your curiosity, remember: there’s no clear-cut answer to the question of who invented homework and why. So, don’t fall prey to unsubstantiated myths like the one involving Roberto Nevilis!
Like it or not, homework is here to stay. As you could see, there’s simply not enough support for outright banning it, although some might prefer to see its amounts dialed down. So, make your peace with it. After all, it is meant to improve knowledge retention, build on it, and teach you to apply theory to practice.
Even knowing all that, you might still get stuck with an assignment. In that case, remember that you don’t have to deal with it on your own. You can get help from one of our homework experts to get unstuck!
