A lot of kids spend most of their time at school, doing school work, and participating in school related activities or clubs, especially during their high school years. Being a high school student myself, teachers assign anywhere from half an hour of homework, to more than two hours of homework a night. Every senior has to have at least five and a half credits, or five classes and gym, to graduate. If each teacher, every day assigned an average of about a half hour of homework every night, that would be around two and a half hours of homework, give or take. At Colonie Central High School, students go to school for about six and a half hours. That time, plus two and a half hours of homework is a total of nine hours a day where a student is revolved around school work. Among other students, I am involved in several different clubs including iCare, as the executive volunteering coordinator, and spend at least two hours a day organizing or planning one event or the other. Some students also play sports, which takes another two hours a day for practice or games, and many have a part time job. That’s around 13 hours a day, excluding work, which most students only have time for on the weekends. This leaves approximately 3 hours to be with friends or family, and some free time to relax, taking away the eight hours we’re supposed to get of sleep every night to be healthy. Is all of this helping teenagers to grow?
Many studies prove that too much homework has been proven to show “stress and negative health effects.” Hours and hours of homework is burning out students and causing many to not want to come to school. One study published in The Journal of Experimental Education, stated that more than two hours of homework per night is counterproductive. In Healthlines article,”Is Too Much Homework Bad for Kids' Health?”, Jenna Flannigan wrote, “When it came to stress, more than 70 percent of students said they were “often or always stressed over schoolwork,” with 56 percent listing homework as a primary stressor. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor. The researchers asked students whether they experienced physical symptoms of stress, such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems. More than 80 percent of students reported having at least one stress-related symptom in the past month, and 44 percent said they had experienced three or more symptoms.” Some parents believe that high schoolers don’t want to do their homework because they’re lazy or just don’t care enough to do it, but in reality, it can be harmful to students mental and physical health . Seniors who have to focus on school work, choosing colleges, extracurricular activities, and also parents’ expectations, are under tremendous amount of stress. A journalist from The Washington Post wrote an article called, “Homework could have an effect on kids’ health. Should schools ban it?”, and stated that “Empirical studies have linked excessive homework to sleep disruption, indicating a negative relationship between the amount of homework, perceived stress and physical health. But for elementary school students, even 30 minutes of homework a night, if combined with other sources of academic stress, can have a negative impact.” This topic is highly discussed throughout the world, not only in America, and many studies have taken place because of it’s importance. People all over the world are questioning whither homework is helping, or actually hurting students. Teachers need to modify the work they assign their students, to make students want to learn, and live a healthy life mentally and physically. We should eliminate busy work, and focus on assignments that will help students to be better learners, and grow mentally.
Erin O’Keefe
