The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article this week by Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, a clinical psychologist, family therapist, and author of, among other things, Letters to Sam: A Grandfather’s Lessons on Love, Loss, and the Gifts of Life. I was excited to read Dr. Gottlieb’s article because he talks about what students themselves can do to deal with the homework problem. Only days earlier, I’d been asked by Teen Vogue what teens can do. It’s unfortunate that we don’t hear very much from students, since they’re the people most affected by homework and education policies. (On this blog, I’ve posted a poem by a teenager and a few students have left comments, but I’d love to have more entries by students. So spread the word.)
I asked Dr. Gottlieb whether I could post his article and he graciously told me I could. I hope you like it as much as I did.
Inside Out | Teenagers Drastically Need More Downtime
By Dan Gottlieb
To all adolescents,
You need more time.
Ninety percent of the high school students I speak with say they are under great stress. Most of it is time-related, and much of that is a combination of too much homework and too little sleep. You need time to sleep (physicians say nine hours a night at your age), to read whatever you want to read, to dream about your future, to just hang out. You and I are not the only ones who know this. A new study by local pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg demonstrates how important unstructured play (a.k.a. hanging out) is for children’s development. The same is true for adolescents.
Free time fosters creativity and emotional development. It gives you the opportunity to deepen relationships and learn about yourself. Without free time, I worry that you could grow into adulthood valuing yourself more for your performance than for your humanity – therefore putting yourself at greater risk of self-absorption, depression and anxiety disorders.
Mental health professionals all over the country are concerned, but nothing seems to change. Perhaps, in talking to adults, we’ve been addressing the wrong people.
So, how can you create more time? Let’s start with homework. The three to four hours a night I’m told is typical is way too much. Many well-respected educators say students should be assigned about 10 minutes of homework per grade (20 minutes in second grade, etc.).
For seniors in high school, that means two hours or so a night. Harris M. Cooper, a psychology professor at Duke University and author of The Battle Over Homework, agrees; so does the National Parent Teacher Association. In their new book, The Case Against Homework, Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish find no evidence that homework helps elementary school students at all. And the U.S. Department of Education has said elementary students should be given a maximum of five math problems a night. Yet many children are sent home with dozens of math problems and words to memorize.
Convinced? Here’s what you can do about it:
At each school, form a committee to deal with this issue. Check at least one of the above books out of the library and start gathering evidence for your argument.
Have every student on the committee document how much time he or she is spending on each subject – and tell each teacher how much time it all adds up to. Many teachers may not be aware of how much homework you get from other teachers.
Try to get parents on your committee. I know many parents resent all the homework because it virtually eliminates precious family time. But parents should not take the lead in this project. They should be there to support you because this is your project, not theirs.
Set up a meeting with school administrators. Show them your data. Ask them for evidence of the benefits provided by this amount of homework. Perhaps you could begin a dialogue about how much homework is reasonable and relevant – and how it could be coordinated among teachers.
Ask administrators if they would designate a “homework coordinator” so students are not buried by multiple large assignments.
If you believe you are not being heard, try getting more parents to join your committee, and then bring them – and your argument – to the PTA.
Finally, keep me posted on your successes and failures so we can continue the discussion.
Any good education teaches you how to navigate your way in life. If, when you graduate, you see injustice in the world, I hope you will feel a sense of responsibility backed by the power to do something about it.
Begin now. If you believe your homework assignments are unjust, do something about them. Do it for yourself, for your future, and for the younger children behind you. You might end up changing the culture.
Stop Homework 
I have been working on my homework for 7 hours now…and it is just math…and i cried three times doing it…and it is still not finished…also research shows that homework does not help at all with these standardized tests, only causing elementary school students to do somewhat better at tests, and others to do worse. Also homework does help with sleep. Now, many have learned that yes, they can stay up for 48 hours straight! And get through school with 1 hour of sleep! Great, huh?
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Just end it please… I’m falling asleep, still need to shower and have three large pages of homework to do……
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under way too much stress and have so little time to get so much done. spanish teacher bombards us with 8 finals and expects us to memorize 600 vocab words and we have other classes. JUST TOO MUCH WORK
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I find that homework is way to stressful it is depriving me of sleep and I struggle to keep what little of a social life I have. Right now I have a persuasive essay assessment to prepare for that will determine what national I’ll sit and it the first week of the new school year. I also need to do my maths and history homework which alone take up about an hour or two. I would rather study for the two tests that are coming up but I have all this homework to complete. It’s also annoying when I forget to do homework and the teachers make it seem like the end of the world.
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I am now in 8th grade and I have to read and annotate a passage and write a short summary about the passage and then I have to color and label all the 50 states and their capital and then describe the economy landscape and climate and then take a history online test and figure out how to take a screenshot on the computer and then do Math and then of course there’s studying for all 4 core classes and then I have to practice my trombone and then I have to get all 8 of my sillabus. And it’s only the third day of this school year! What am I going to do? Any suggestions?
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By the way somebody erased most of the comments
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As a high school accounting teacher, I am always debating the amount of homework I give. Receiving completed homework from students who have a rough home life or who work evenings is a challenge, particularly if they don’t like the subject matter. Complicated by the mandate of standardized test to evaluate students and teachers, I’ve realized that almost all formative assessments must take place in the classroom, so I can get a better immediate perspective of their progress. Basing their progress on homework that has not been attempted is useless. We work continually during class time, but acoounting homework is minimal. However, I use a different approach with my honors students. Formative assessments are just as common, but the homework becomes more exploration centered and inquisitive in nature.
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I have just started my ninth year in school. Im wrapping up my second week in an “Early College” Highschool. Im on a college campus going to school in a tiny cramped building with 200 other children. You’d expect a ton of homework at an “Early College” but this is just absurd. I, for the past 2 weeks (including weekends) have had only 2 days to myself away from homework and school. I previously came from a 1000 kid middle school that was not that organized. It is a big change, but honestly. Every night so far here at this school I did homework for at least 2 hours when I get home. Class starts at 8:50 AM and school ends at 3:00PM but I get home around 4:45PM because my bus takes almost two hours to take me home. So that takes more time off my “self” time. I get home, and I jump straight into homework, because if i do not I will be up all night. I am currently doing a huge amount of math homework that takes me about 2 minutes a problem and it is destroying me. My grades are going to fall and I going to destroy myself with my own work. My teachers attitudes are nice, but the work is not.
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I have to read 20 pages out of a history text book. Sure I am in an AP class but that’s just too much.
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I hate homework. I’m a good student. I get the top grades. I always do all of my in-class work, and if I don’t complete it, I will do it at home.
Homework does not help me. It only adds to my stress. I don’t just do my work and get it done, I give everything 100%, and I feel like homework doesn’t deserve the same energy which my ACTUAL ASSESSMENTS deserve, as personally, I find homework rarely contributes anything towards my assessments. Really, all I need to do is internals and get credits from them. In my final year of school, petty homework which does NOTHING to help me get my university entrance seems trivial and ultimately useless, and like a waste of time, yet teachers still do ‘homework checks’ and will enforce detentions where necessary.
I have had one teacher who didn’t give any homework. He would remind us that we should be studying and practicing our skills, because we needed to maintain the ability to complete certain tasks, as we moved forward into new sections of the same assessment.
He said he believed in ‘natural consequences’. If we don’t put the time into study, we won’t get the good grades. He would tell us pages of work which would be relevant if we wanted practice, and would give us tasks which we could do if we wanted extra practice, but nothing was compulsory. I really liked it. I got good grades. I worked hard. It wasn’t my favourite subject, so I didn’t give it probably quite as much as I could have, but it taught me a valuable lesson. I worked hard, so I got the grade I deserved. The girl who sat beside me didn’t study a day in her life. She didn’t want to, and so she failed. And that was what she deserved.
I put in effort if I want to pass. It’s a teacher’s job to teach, but a student has far more responsibility in their learning than a teacher. You have to try. You have to be willing.
Forcing students to do homework is not the way to achieve this. Encouraging students to take responsibility for their learning is what’s important, and helping them to do so.
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I’m in year 11 and I do homework on average 2+ hours a night. We are expected to do, in yr 11, 10-15 hours of ‘study’ per week, which equals about 2 hours a night. That’s okay, I could do that, but we also get about 10-15 hours of homework each week. That means about 4 hours a night. I have a part time job and I work about 10 hours a week so I get little free time (and none of my free time is stress-free, I always feel like I should be doing homework or worrying that I won’t get it all done). My bus only gets in at about 4:15, so by the time I do all of that it’d be 8:30, and then I’m usually so exhausted that I either go straight to bed, or stay up late to get in all the leisure activities I’m missing out on (reading, movies, etc) then I’m exhausted the next day. It’s never ending and I’m always tired. I am starting to dread getting out of bed in the morning because I know that I will just be doing work all day. This weekend I am working today 2-8:30pm, then tomorrow 5-8pm and I have two tests to study for and a physics exam! I have noticed lately that the only time I feel not stressed is when there’s no way I could be doing homework – when I’m in the shower or in bed. Consequently our water bill has been going up because I’ve been spending more and more time in the shower, dreading having to get out and start working again!
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Senior in highschool (homeschooled)
Monday: College probs and stats class from 10:30-12:30, job 2-5, went home mowed then did other chores, went to sleep around 3
Tuesday: 5 hours of construction work, job 4-5, homework, mowed other yard, started work on walkway/stepping stones
Wednesday: Probs and stats again, personal finance, job 3-5, more work on walkway
Thursday: 5 more hours of construction, job 4-5, other chores
Friday: co-op all day
I’m depressed and exhausted, my parents are always on my ass about… Oh lol gotta go.. They want me to take a practice act test… See what I mean? I never get a break 😦
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I’ve currently been up well over 48 hours. My head is pounding and I’m sweating all over. I have a pile of paper stacked up on the side of my desk, all filled with work. I haven’t spoken to my sister or girlfriend in a week and I had to give up my counselling sessions because I had literally no time for them. But, of course, the teachers are always right, and homework is helping us… Haha…
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I’m a Sophomore. Everyone in my class is drowning in English homework, Chemistry homework, Algebra 2 homework, and World History homework. Some of us are alright, but others, like my friend, are freaking out WAY too much. I’m pretty sure my friend hasn’t slept in 2 days, and right now she’s telling me that instead of looking up reasons why homework isn’t very good for us, I should be, what else, doing my homework. We’re all getting stressed, and no one’s ever in a good mood anymore! It sucks, and I’m kinda getting tired of everyone snapping at each other…
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Im in the ninth grade and the everyone says its the easiest grade of the 4 years but everyday on average i get about 4 or 5 hours of homework then straight to bed and that isn’t good and it causes me stress and much, much anxiety and i hardly get time to myself, the only time i get to myself is in the shower, if there isn’t someone banging on the door to hurry up 😦
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you tots understand me
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i can’t do anything ever its homework school a bit of sleep
thats it
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I’m a sophomore. I try my best to get straight A’s, and I usually do. In fact, my parents are super strict and won’t accept less than that. Per night, I get at least 2 hours of homework, usually more like 4-6 though. I’m also in the musical for pit and in really heavy English/writing classes and math classes that I shouldn’t be in until much later. Needless to say, I have a lot of work. School starts at 7:30, so I wake up at 6. It ends at 2:38, 2 on Wednesdays. I am also in the pit for the school musical, so 2 days a week I am at school until 8. I try to go to sleep at 12 every night, but even that isn’t possible most nights, especially not rehearsal nights. I am always sleep-deprived, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t exhausted. Not to mention the fact that I have both anxiety and depression, so that causes a lot of difficulties. Giving students loads of homework does nothing but stress them out. It hurts our mental health and destroys our sleep schedules.
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High school freshmen here. I understand every district has different curriculums and homework may be different… but look, it gets INSANE when you go to school for 8 hours. As of which I am spending ARP (Additional Resource Period -Basically Study Hall) on homework/projects (a full 30 mins) and then I am spending LUNCH doing homework too. Otherwise I would get a heck ton of work to do when I get home. I am even doing homework on the bus back home. Almost every second of my waking is filled with homework. I get home at about 3:49pm… and guess what? It’s flippin 8:56pm here. 4pm-9pm and the only thing on my mind is HOMEWORK!!! Taking away necessary time for my body needs, I am FORCED to take about 4-5 hours of homework EVERY SINGLE NIGHT on (sometimes Monday) Tuesday-Friday! Sometimes I finish up at a crazy 10pm and then I flop on bed. Then I am expected to get up at 6:35am and drag myself through school. Meanwhile expecting to soak everything up. I mean I can take this for probably a while longer before I crack. But hey… that’s why I’m all for getting those precious break time hours in. Well, it isn’t all that great. Now, I normally spend 3-5 hours during the WEEEEKKKEENNNDDD Friday,Saturday,Sunday.. to cleanup my homework and make sure I understand all the concepts. Guys it isn’t so bad in Middle School. It’s when you get to high school, especially when you got an AP class and just added another chemistry class to do online… that’s when stress starts it’s way up your spine. Beware. Schedule your precious time wisely. Don’t spend too much time on a worksheet/paper due a few days ago. Smash your priorities first. Make sure they are down for goood. Listen well in class, don’t miss a word. Or else you’ll spend every waking second at home and on the weekends on schoolwork. All you’ll have to think about would be work work work paper paper pencil eraser binary code javascript 1877 worker union strikes “Je voudrais” -french *Math *Biology *chemistry *The tests that I’ll be facing to fight this Friday (5) tests btw. Yep 5 tests plus a jolly load of homework RIGHT NOW!
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I have Physics homework, Pre-Cal homework, scholarship essays, Dual credit projects, one of which I need to interview someone from college who is interested in the same career I have (easy, right?), another is an essay over bloodshed in the early days of American discovery, online tests over the weekend, Saturday tutorials for the ACT, and still have to study for the ACT which is on the 22nd, and today is the 14th.
I really like how such little things can make or break a future, it really helps.
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Currently, I am doing an assignment on this always relevant topic. Between the comments and the letter above, it almost seems that I could use this page for all my sources!
Now for my two cents on this topic:
Balancing family time, a job, and classes seem to clash with anyone’s schedule. Far too often I’ve had to cancel previously planned events because of an overwhelming workload. The stress that it all brings is rather concerning – and this doesn’t even factor the emotional, physical, and psychological stress that lies outside of school. Not all teachers are apathetic, but most would not accept a panic attack as a reason to be exempt from a fifty problem worksheet. I truly believe that homework should be sharply reduced; just think of all the benefits!
-It would raise a large percentage of students’ GPAs
-This would further implement in class demonstrations
-Reduce stress in the classroom setting
-Even allow for the affected students to have more social time
Honestly, allowing a staggering amount of homework to be assigned on a nightly basis is a truly incompassionate display of the schools themselves.
I say we start a riot, people!
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I am in 8th grade and am already swamped in homework. I had a checkpoint for a major National History day project yesterday, a checkpoint for another English project on Tuesday and another checkpoint for a different project coming up on December 2nd and guess what, I have nothing done for all of them. I was up late doing a project yesterday, went to sleep around 12 or 1 and then got up at 5:30 to finish my normal homework. I am completely stressed out, I cry multiple times every week, and my parents are always on my back. I’m trying to stay strong but don’t know how much more I can take before I crack and get depressed. I barely made it through school and pretty much slept through first period Algebra. I should be getting ten hours of sleep a night and instead I’m getting ten a week. Leisure is not part of my vocabulary. I dread waking up every morning and literally cry every Monday because I know another stressful week awaits me. My mind can’t focus on one thing for a long period of time and doing one project for seven hours doesn’t help. I have to keep on taking breaks every half an hour or else I will go nuts! I have seriously considered quitting school and working at McDonalds for 5 dollars an hour. Those aren’t healthy thoughts for a thirteen year old.
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This is the age to party and have fun not to spend nights working on math and history. Teachers say that homework is supposed to help with studying for tests but I find that doesn’t help at all. Lol I have to go work on my project that was due yesterday.
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Oooh. Did I mention that I am canceling after school activities just to get a STUPID PROJECT done!!!!
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Teachers must think that we don’t do anything else after school ends. We have other responsibilities, like sports,and other activities. They should try to remember from when back when they were teens, and think if they would want to do homework the same night of a dope party.
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I am still a preteen, and i go to a very high-standard grammar school. Our school has lots of homework policies in place to reduce stress, such as not setting homework for the next day, and no homework over holidays (eg summer holidays, christmas holidays, half term, ect). And yet, all of these policies dont actually have any effect on the AMOUNT of homework given to students like myself, which is the main issue. Several of my classmates have recently taken to using apps on their phones to help deal with stress, or websites on their computers. However, this still isnt SOLVING the problem, just making it more bearable. On average, i get 2-3 pieces of homework every day, each one must take a MINIMUM of twenty minutes, and anybody who doesnt hand it in for whatever reason (even a legitimate excuse) gets an instant detention. It makes school life very stressful, as we are constantly woryying about having done the homework right, or enough of it, or forgotten to include something. The pressure our teachers put us under is simply too much and there is one teacher who will even give you detentions if you DID do your homework, if it isnt done ‘to a high-enough standard’. The teacher in question also keeps regular checks on our homework and detention logs on the school system, as she is deputy-head. ITS TOO STRESSFUL.
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I have to write a paragraph about some music we did in school, a poem for English, solve fifty-two maths problems, fill in a sheet on the Bayeux Tapestry, revise for a Latin test, revise for a French test, revise for a grammar test, create a alternative cultural identity for Art, write a three-page essay on how mathematics can be applied to real-life situations, highlight the points of a map where triangulation points would be most effective/useful, create a chart to show the emphasis different religions put into different aspects of life and learn 22 words in advance of my next Latin lesson so we dont have to learn them in class. AND THATS JUST FROM THIS WEEK!!!!!!!! Ive had to quit after-school swimming just to keep up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I’m only in eighth grade, but I’m taking honors geometry at a high school. I have SO MUCH HOMEWORK because I sometimes miss other classes because of my weird math schedule (I’m literally finishing up an essay that other people DID IN CLASS as I write this.) I’m a kind of person that doesn’t need a lot of sleep, but I’m often doing homework until 11 at night – somehow managing to eat dinner. I’m SICK of it. My teachers have no idea I already have a huge workload from other classes. And sadly, I couldn’t do the school musical this year (even though I’m a really good actress) because of my workload.
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I HATE HOMEWORK WHY DO WE NEED HOMEWORK ANYWAY?
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hi, i hate coming home with a bunch of homework
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WTF,WTF,WTF. I am doing hw right now and it sucks. HOMEWORK BE GONE!!!! I found this page because i am writing a paper on y hw is not neccary.
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I am a 9 grader and hw is full of shit. I go to school for 7 hours, after school sports, an average of 7-9 hours of homework each night, an average of 4 hours of sleep per night during the week, and most days, I even have to wake up early for extra help in my classes or for school clubs and committees. I am ranked highly in my class and so is my sister and we both spend about the same time on homework each night. I even got to the point 3 days ago where I was sitting in my English class and started sobbing. I had a mental breakdown in the middle of my class and my teacher acted like it wasn’t even happening. Most of my classes are easy but assign way to much busy work and I have an average of 6-9 quizzes and 2-3 tests per week. And my school only has 4 classes per semester. Sometimes, we will even have 3 quizzes in one class all on the same day. Nothing is preparing me for the future, it is all busy work. I have had to do homework all day and ultimately decide at 4 am to go into my parents room, wake them up, and tell them that I need to take a mental health day in order to catch up on all of my work. None of my classmates care as much about school as I do and yet, even with all of my ectra effort and time, I still have the worst grades I have made in my entire life. I am crying almost every night and if I ever get to watch an episode of my TV shows that I recorded 3 months ago or get to sleepover during the weekend, I am lucky. The only thing keeping me going is holiday breaks and summer. I always feel stressed and under too much pressure. My eye has been twitching for months straight and on top of that, I recently broke my tailbone and have been taken out of a lot of school for doctors appointments. I am behind by so little, and yet, it makes me feel as if life after high school isn’t worth everything I am doing.
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Ok, I hate homework, and I bet most students do. But what I hate most of all is “busy work.” I can maybe understand the homework if it is relevant to the lesson and actually helps you understand it. But half the homework I get from teachers (and I’m in middle school honors classes) is NOT EVEN HELPING ME UNDERSTAND ANYTHING AT ALL. Sure assign us and hour of homework, maybe two if I’m in a good mood (lol) but only if it helps me understand something and isn’t just work you assign for us just for the heck of it.
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I agree with all the comments here. I’m a high school student and we get way too much homework. I spend around 3-4 hours a night and by the time I’m finished I’m exhausted and just want to go to bed. I hardly have time for my hobbies during the school year. Most adult will just say thats because you’re taking advanced classes (if thats the case) but now thats kind of an expectation to take AP and Honors courses if you want to get into a good college. I’m always stressed about tests and homework and honestly it’s probably unhealthy. I understand the concept of homework and reinforcing what you learned but after having 7 hours of classes do I really need an additional 4 hours when I get home? It’s really frustrating.
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I thought I was one of the only people with this problem. I get home at 3:30 then go straight to mixed martial arts until 9:30! then I am up until 2-4 or I don’t sleep at all that night finishing homework, and usually I fall asleep around 2:30 at my desk in my room then don’t finish the homework. Then, that bring my grades down because I often have to skip some of the other assignments I think I can’t finish. 😦
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my schedule also makes me very depressed and stressed and I think about suicide on a daily basis and I’m only in 8th grade, and to top it all of nobody likes me at school and nobody views me as a friend all because of the stupid m***** F****** HOMEWORK. ;(
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I am 14 years old and i feel like there is way to much homework i am barley passing my classes and am failing two i am getting tired of this i need a break homework isn’t good its bad and the school i go to dosnt help
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Homework is going to be the absolute death of me. Im a seventh grader and almost each night, I get sent home with essays from my english and history classes, plus pages upon pages to do from my math a textbook, and research to do for science. Not to mention the our extra cycle classes that give us useless busywork to do just because they can. Teachers are being paid to teach us AT SCHOOL. Yet they still take our family time, our friends, our alone time just to relax. Not just that, but a lot of students including me have sports and/or after school activities to do. Missing just a day of school would leave you so far behind, so having the flu for a WEEK wont do any good when I go back to school, get miles of homework I needed to do plus classwork, and have my grade drop dramatically due to this. Having homework is putting more stress onto a teen than any ADULT should ever endure.
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I agree, there are freshman in high school that I’ve met, and they have told me how stressful homework can be. I don’t think that the teachers understand that the one homework assignment is not the only one, it is added to a substantial plate. It may help but it’s keeping teenagers up later than midnight, and the tests need to be studied for on one’s own time. And how about time consuming? A high school teen needs 9 hours of sleep. That teen is at school for 7. It typically takes an hour for a student to get ready and drive to school from the moment they wake up. Also an hour must be sat aside for the time it takes to eat breakfast/dinner at home. Then a two hour sports practice after that (sports are important for making friends and living a healthy life). Plus another hour to get changed, showed and drive back home. Then the average 3.5 hours of homework a night. That adds up to 24.5 hours! And they have to do this 5 days a week. Notice how there was no time for family, entertainment, or any free time at all. How can a high school student have a job? How can they pay for gas? We are killing high school students with homework. I believe homework has its advantages like helping kids remember what they learned and giving them practice, but I feel it should be optional. Why assign me 20 problems for something I only need 4-5 to get? If schools care any about a student getting sleep, they would start by fixing this homework problem. This is the reason that so many teens drop out of school, they feel overwhelmed, stressed, empty. There is nothing they can do about it though, because without good grades in high school, they know they will be ruining their own future. By not doing homework they are digging themselves into a hole, a hole that is so difficult to climb out of, that they just give up, and drop out of school and give up on life. It needs to stop, soon.
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I’m just a sixth grader, so I might not have as much experience with this… but the amount of homework this says high schoolers have is the same amount as me. About 3-4 hours at night. Also, in elementary school, every day after school, the entire class was told to do about 30 math problems for homework, and sometimes even more in other classes. And right now I’m in the middle of doing homework that will definitely take until at least midnight tonight… and I started about an hour ago.
This seriously needs to stop.
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Im in grade 8 and homework hasn’t gotten bad yet (2-4 hours a night) but as Im reading all of your comments I cant help but notice my dreams of becoming a good student at a world famous university going down the drain. I already feel overworked and its the second week of school. All my teachers say that they only give 20 minutes of HW per night +any stuff you dont finish in class, and then they assign a huge project due in 2 days and talk FOR THE WHOLE CLASS, leaving us to do it at home. I want them to know what it feels like, or at very least realize that hw for all the classes really piles up. I’m a human, but im starting to feel like a robot. I hope that someone of authority reads these comments and does something about it because WE ARE PEOPLE TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Each of my teachers says that they “only” give an hour a night, but they don’t realize that with 6 teachers, it piles up so quickly… And some say that the only hw they assign is what you don’t finish in class. They assign a 3 page essay DUE TOMORROW only to talk for the whole class, leaving me to do it at home. Throw in a learning disability, a club or sport that lasts until at least 6 every night, and you have my life. In every single class, our teachers tell us that there are 3 steps to success. Do all your homework, join as many clubs and teams as you can, and get at least 9 hours of sleep, but they don’t tell you how to do all 3.
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I strongly agree with this. I have only 6 hours of non-school time and not-sleeping time (which isn’t up to par, by the way.), and about 1-3 of those hours are taken up by Homework, 1 is taken up by fulfilling my not-rest-related needs (eating, drinking, etc.), and 0-2 are taken up by appointments that pertain to me being able to live as a functional person. (2 therapies and 1 eye-treatment appt.) Oh, and my Mum considers me “lazy” because I spend my 4-0 hours on relaxing/studying subjects that aren’t in the curriculum/gaming and yet still complain about not having enough freetime. What kind of world do the students of today live in?
Unfortunately, starting a committee would require multiple students’ freetime lining up and the same students also wanting to participate in a committee in their freetime, and that isn’t really reasonable.
I second what Furious george said, I do hope someone in authority is reading these.
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