Homework is important to education, but it is not necessary to have excessive amounts of it that cause stress and mental health problems. As the year progresses, there seems to be more homework given out on top of group projects and finals. People stay up all night doing homework for various classes when they could be sleeping and getting energized for the next day.

According to Stanford research, “fifty-six percent of students considered homework to be a primary stressor.”

“Suicide rates doubled among girls and rose by more than 30 percent among teen boys and young men between 2007 and 2015,”according to the updated breakdown from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since there is so much homework being handed out, students are forced to stay up late at night to do it all or they will get a bad grade in the class for not doing it. They then have to get up super early to be ready for school on time the next morning. This causes sleep deprivation which can also lead to health issues.

According to Better Health, “insufficient sleep, inadequate quality of sleep or disruptions to the sleep-wake cycle have consequences for how we function in the daytime, causing sleepiness and fatigue. Lack of sleep can also affect a child’s school performance and could be linked to increased risk of emotional problems such as depression.”

High school is supposed to be the best time of our lives; we’re supposed to have fun, take risks, and figure ourselves out. Instead, we stay home on the weekends doing homework, studying for tests, and applying to colleges.  High school students tend to spend a minimum of 17.5 hours on homework a week.

While the homework volume is overwhelming, it is also still really important to the scholastic process. Math, Science, Foreign Language and English all need homework to help reinforce learning and comprehension.

According to the Center for Public Education, “researchers claim that homework helps students develop responsibility, life skills and the ability to manage task. It provides experiential learning, increased motivation, opportunities to learn to cope with difficulties and distractions, and academic benefits.”

Homework reinforces the lesson that was just taught/learned so that the student can understand what to do. It is also a good gauge for knowing if a student is struggling with a specific concept.

Teachers should coordinate with the department and all give out the same amount and a reasonable amount of homework as the others. There are some teachers that give out twice as much homework as someone else in the same subject department.

Homework is a great thing but in smaller increments. Excessive homework detracts away from the main reason homework is necessary. Too much homework makes students not want to go to school or not do their homework which makes grades drop and students do poorly. Just the right amount of homework helps students with their studies and obtain information better.