Starting from elementary school, homework has been assigned every single day of the school year. Personally, for the past 10 years, I don’t recall a time where I haven’t had homework assigned, even including winter and spring breaks. Whether it’d be math or english homework, there was always an assignment for that night that was due the next class. Some people did it, some people didn’t. It is important to note that the students who didn’t do the homework should not be blamed for their actions. Homework is immoral, causing the increase in stress, the stripped personal freedom, as well as the unnecessary amount of time needed to complete this extra amount of homework. We must think about how these different effects of homework impact students daily and especially their future.

Stress: As a 16 year old in a high school and college program, I can say that homework is one of the most stressful things to even think about. Just thinking about the homework causes my mind to freak out. The amount of homework per teacher, as well as the time and effort each teacher expects for every assignment gets very stressful overtime. Can we even imagine how kids in elementary school feel about homework as well? Having to juggle sports, my outside life, and school, plus homework is a stressful thing to do at such a young age. There is always things that I have to always think about, but when I am doing it every single day of my life, it can get tiring and demanding overtime. From an article labeled “11 Common Causes of School Stress For Students” by Oxford Learning, they convey the idea that homework is one of the most stressful things that students have to deal with, saying that, “This can cause a stressful cycle where homework piles up and your child doesn’t have the time or energy to complete it all—leading to even more stress” (4). Having multiple teachers each day assign homework as if they are the only class that students are taking can be very frustrating. Not only this, but sleep loss is an important effect due to being stressed from homework. An article named “Teens, Sleep and Homework Survey Results” shows a study from the sleepbettercouncil that gives a statistic about students saying, “According to the survey, 57 percent of teenagers said that they don’t get enough sleep, with 67 reporting that they get just five to seven hours a night” (2). Being too stressed from homework causes teenagers to lose sleep, affecting their physical and mental health. Students are staying up late to complete the homework, or there is just too much to do, and they have to sacrifice sleep in order to turn the assignment in the next day. If the homework policy was changed, then we would be able to have less stress and more sleep.

Personal Time: A lot of our time after school is spent working on the loads of homework that is due the next day. Obviously, many teachers are not considerate to pretty much all the students that have to deal with the similar workloads from other teachers. Going home after 6-8 hours of school is to rest, not to continue the tragedy of what we call school in our own homes. S Frederickson exemplifies the agony of homework saying, “homework is the violation of human rights that destroys the border between school and home” (3) One of our human rights is the right to play, according to the UN, due to the fact that some children were forced to do labor when they were supposed to be having fun. Homework is something that has to be carried throughout their school life, and it never stops at school. Time after school should be used to hang out with friends and have fun, relieving the stress from the actual school day. Homework takes too much of our personal time, eventually eating away all of personal time as we move into higher grade levels. Our personal freedom is stripped right from our hands, from meaningless pieces of paper in a way that we can never gain that time back.

Meaningless: The majority of the time I was in school, a large percentage of the work I was forced to take home was exceedingly senseless. I could go to school the next day and that assignment might not even be turned in, or it wouldn’t apply to anything that we have learned. I speak from experience, so others might disagree with what they went through with homework. However, loads of my classes were like this throughout my life, and thinking about the number of students in each of my classes, as well as around the district, I cannot be the only person who thought that homework was worthless. Students are also more inclined to copy homework from other students that already did it. These are specifically the students that were stressed and were pretty busy with their personal life. The homework assigned is absurdly pointless that copying another student’s work is something that peers resort to because they know that they won’t learn anything from actually doing it. Edutopia points out that, “Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments” (1). Not only do they find homework meaningless, but students are overwhelmed from the homework from other classes that they would much rather focus on the bigger projects rather than the other unimportant pieces of paper they were given. Though this is very much true around my district, my current school is different from my previous ones. I get assigned homework that is beneficial to my learning, and will help for in class activities. However, not all schools are a college/high school program. My teachers do not assign random homework that we know we won’t benefit from. Going on with this point, not every school in America has the best teachers instructing them. We must remember that there are many teachers who assign homework because “that’s what they are supposed to do.” Still, homework is ridiculously degrading to students, which I have seen from my other friends at other schools. Many of them complain that the assignments taken home are worthless and won’t mean anything. Overall, we have come to an understanding that homework isn’t very productive, causing stress, removal of the right to freedom, as well as the useless time spent doing the work. We must change the homework system, maybe by removing the entire thing, or at least minimizing the amount given to students.

Works Cited

Simmons, Andrew. “Why Students Cheat-and What to Do About It.” Edutopia, George Lucas

Educational Foundation, 28 Apr. 2018, www.edutopia.org/article/why-students-cheat-and-what-do-about-it.

“Teens, Sleep and Homework Survey Results.” Better Sleep Council | Start Every

Day with a Good Night's Sleep, Mt-admin1

Bettersleep.org/Wp-Content/Uploads/2018/09/Logo.svg, 12 Dec. 2018,

bettersleep.org/press/press-releases/teens-sleep-and-homework-survey-results/.

“Why Homework Violates Students' Rights.” Homework Help, 2 Feb. 2017,

www.assignmentexpert.com/blog/can-too-much-homework-violate-students-rights/.

“11 Common Causes of School Stress For Students.” Oxford Learning, 17 May 2018,

www.oxfordlearning.com/causes-of-school-stress/.