It is well known that schools give out homework for students to do on a daily basis. Whether the homework is easy and takes five minutes to do or it takes more than a few days to do, a lot of students can agree with me that homework isn’t fun to do. At more advanced schools especially, the amount of homework can be outrageous and because of that, it effects them in various ways.

Sleep Schedule

We all know how sleep is important for human beings. In schools, the amount of homework given can affect the student’s sleep schedule, which in return, affects their school performance. Being exhausted in school would make the student less tired during classes because they stayed up to do their homework, which is very time-consuming.

Students have things they need to do just like everyone else but homework builds up, so they can’t focus on the things they want to do because homework needs to be completed so the student’s grades don’t drop.

A lot of students are very active in school and do clubs and sports and become tired after their practices or club meetings. Since homework is given out almost daily, students have to rush and do it before their meetings or practices or do it after the fact.

Unfortunately, meetings and practices take a while to get done, which puts students at the end of the day where they are exhausted and don’t want to do their work. 

A lot of students may or may not have time to do their homework or they simply are too tired to do their homework. Despite this, they have to do their homework to maintain their grades.

Depending on what type of homework a student gets, it could drag out, which affects their sleep schedule. A lot of students don’t get enough sleep because of how homework drags itself out, so students would have to stay up to complete it, which gives them only a few hours of sleep and affects their school performance.

For students who don’t do any clubs or sports, homework is probably the cause. Parents may not want their children to have grades below average and would use any means necessary to make sure they have a good grade which means not letting them play sports or participate in clubs. This doesn’t mean that they are any less impacted by the insane amounts of homework. 

Stress

Stress is a feeling of tension emotionally and physically, which is common for people and sometimes unhealthy. Stressing out about homework is common among students. In some classes, homework could consist of packets to do and complete for the next class, so students would stress about it until it gets completed. Stress is bad and can affect students in negative ways.

Too much stress can result in health problems and relationship problems. Stress can affect a person’s emotions and make them angry or sad, leading to a decrease of mental health or even physical health. This effect can even cause relationships to break. 

Time

Depending on the amount of homework a person has, it could take a few hours to complete. Because of this, students won’t have enough time to spend time with their friends or family. A lot of students are more worried about their grades than their relationships and that isn’t healthy.

Spending more time on homework than friends and family can result in a deteriorating mental state because a lot of students are so stressed about homework, they forget about their own needs socially and actively.

A lot of classes give out daily homework, so the student has to do whatever the amount of homework is each day. Homework is very time consuming and it usually takes ten to a few hours to complete depending on the class. 

Doing so much homework during the day would also affect the student’s relationships. Since students sacrifice their time to do their homework, they won’t have as much time to hang out with friends and family. Granted, the student might not have a lot of homework to do, it is still time consuming. Students all are different and all take different amounts of time to do their homework. Because of this, certain students won’t have a lot of time to spend time with family and friends just because each student takes a different amount of times to do their work.

What can we do?

Schools can lower the amount of homework they decide to give the students. It would be helpful for students and lower the stress and tiredness they feel from doing it. Many students can agree that they would feel better not doing a large amount of homework each day and would benefit from the extra time mentally.

A lot of people, especially parents, think it is beneficial to have a lot of homework to make sure that the students know what they are doing. I agree that we do need homework but we need a limited amount. Teachers should apply homework to the real-world or give out mini-projects that allow students to express their creativity. Studies from The Journal of Experimental Education show that students who do more than two hours of homework will suffer more behavioral, mental and relationship problems.