Opinion Story!

    Does your homework load ever feel like the world is literally on your shoulders? For me, everyday I groan in how heavy my body feels carrying the stress of remembering what I have to do that night for my classes. The amount of school work we are required to do after school hours is ridiculous.

    Homework is something that is given out by our professors and teachers daily. Either unfinished class work, notes, lessons, or projects, homework isn't a task that we can opt out of. As teachers are human too, most of the time when they give out hours of homework I question whether they have a life or not.

     I am confused as to how 90 minutes is not enough to teach a lesson and get some practice in? The fact that in some circumstances teachers have THE STUDENTS teach themselves the lesson for homework is besides the point of being a teacher isn't it? Teachers are not paid for the students to teach themselves. We go to school to be taught and learn and work. Professors at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. who are studying the effectiveness of a flipped classroom have recently stated that Flipped classrooms are proving to be ineffective. My point exactly.

    I understand homework being necessary in some cases. If a student has unfinished classwork, or needs to go into further research about a topic, then yes, assign it for homework. Just not HOURS of it. I think homework can be enlightening, and can keep you from wasting time watching TV or playing video games, but students do need breaks and time for other activities. Australian researchers have recently discovered that the more homework a student has, the lower the scores on tests they get. This might be hard to believe, but they have also came to a conclusion that homework is one of the main reasons a teenager is suffering from depression. Between 10% to 15% of high schoolers suffer from some form of depression. Why are teachers adding to the rate?

    On most evenings, I have after school rehearsals for theatre, music lessons, and dance practices. I rarely get to sit down and eat with my family anymore or spend time with my eleven year old sister, who sis growing up so quickly without me being a witness of the beauty. On nights where I have no activities, my family wants to go out and eat, go see a movie, or go swim in the pool. I always decline and tell them to go without me, for I fear I will be ravaged the next day from no sleep because I will have stayed up all night doing the endless hours of work assigned.

     Each night, most students have at least one or two assignments from their core classes. And then depending on what their other classes are, work from those as well. There have been many cases where students go to clinics suffering from insomnia because his turned around homework schedule was wrecking his sleep. On average, high school students get 6.5-7.6 hours of sleep each night, causing severe headaches, and can make the body weak and unable to fight off any sicknesses.
    I believe students and teachers need to create a compromise. If a student is spending more than an hour and a half on pointless busy work, then he or she shouldn't have to complete it.

     Homework is one of the main reasons teenagers and students don't get sleep at night. Sleep deprivation is so common now, that people have just gotten used to it. "I'll just drink coffee in the morning!" Unfortunately lost sleep can not ever be made up and will eventually catch up with you. Staying up all night doing homework is far from healthy. All of these students are going to be tired of school that it is going to scare them away from college! 31% of students don't attend college after graduating from high school. Elementary school, middle school, high school, should not make you venture further from continuing on with your education in fear of it consuming your happiness.

    Homework is ridiculous, and I think I have a good amount of people who would say the same. Dear Teachers, get it together and teach efficiently in class and maybe assign a small task. Not something that will take away from me growing up with my family or preventing me form pursuing things I enjoy.