Students are given homework for their classes usually every night and are expected to complete assignments on time. Appropriate amounts of homework should be given, varying from grade to grade.
Doing other activities not related to school is a good way of helping with stress and making you feel more motivated to do schoolwork. Finding a schedule in which you can balance your school life and your out-of-school life, whether that includes sports, friends or sleep, is healthy.
Sophomore Becca Hwang said that homework takes her about two hours and 15 minutes every night. Hwang is also a student-athlete on the cross-country and track and field teams. Her practices usually last between 3 to 5 p.m.. “I actually find myself being more motivated after my sports practices because I feel like I’ve had a chance to take my mind off of the pressure in school,” Hwang said.
Having outlets to help with the constant pressure of school is important in having a balanced lifestyle. According to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Exercise improves alertness, attention and motivation while helping to build new brain cells to help you store information.”
Hwang said that her honors chemistry and AP NSL government classes take up most of her homework time. “The time it takes me to complete my chemistry homework takes me 20-40 minutes. For AP gov, I try to spend about an hour and 30 minutes every day studying for the AP exam,” Hwang said.
Too much homework every night could be detrimental to one’s mental health, affecting them more negatively than positively. This could easily lead to burn out and a loss of motivation. “I just want to go home and rest,” freshman Amen Tekleab said.
Stanford University collected data on the amount of homework students are doing every night and the factors that went along with it. The study found that, “56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category.”
Additionally, data collected from Stanford University looked at the student’s relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The study showed that students saw homework as “pointless” or “mindless” tasks in order to keep their grades up. According to Stanford University, “This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points.”
Sophomore Jeremy Shapiro said that the most time-consuming class doing homework for him is AP NSL. “They are not particularly hard and are mostly graded on completion, but they tend to be three or more pages in length, causing them to take a decent amount of time even if I work quickly,” Shapiro said. “Most students do not get home until 3, and having more than an hour of their off time solely dedicated to homework will give them very little to recuperate from the day. This does depend on how quickly you work and there isn’t an exact average threshold you can place on students, especially ones varying in the types of class they take.”
AP and honors classes seem to take up most of students’ homework time. “If you are taking all APs and honors classes then you know your homework load is going to be significantly higher and that should factor in your mindset during the decision-making process,” Shapiro said.
