Who's the cruel, cruel person who invented homework?

Let's find out on today's episode of Colossal Questions.

In the past, getting an education was nothing like we picture it today.

No chalkboards, no recess, no assemblies or pizza parties.

Even no schoolhouses.

That's right.

For most of history, children would receive their schooling at home and only the rich and powerful could afford to educate their kids.

That's because most families were way too busy farming, working, and just trying to get by, and the kids needed to help.

Rich families and lords would pay tutors to come to their home to teach their kids.

Back then, kids weren't getting homework.

If you think about it, it's kind of hard to assign a kid homework when the whole thing is happening at home.

So, when did homework become the never ending nightly nightmare we know it as today?

It was in the 1950s that things started to change and homework finally reared its ugly head.

At the time, the US was competing with the Soviet Union and tried to get any competitive edge they could find.

One of the ways they wanted to get the upper hand was by raising smarter kids.

Teachers and school districts were encouraged to assign more homework so that American students would out-compete their Soviet counterparts and grow up to be scientists and engineers.

And by the 1950s, less families needed their kids to stay at home and work the fields.

So there wasn't a huge outcry from parents once the assignments started rolling in.

And now you know where homework came from.

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