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 
Homework???
It’s a good way to get us studying but not always, as it may add stress. Teens need their own time for doing their own thing (say post stamp collecting). Without homework dominating their spear evening time or weekends. But just do homework anyway there are great benefits such as good grades.
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Homework???
It’s a good way to get us studying but not always, as it may add stress and lack of sleep. Teens need their own time for doing their own thing (say post stamp collecting). Without homework dominating their spear evening time or weekends. But just do homework anyway there are great benefits such as good grades.
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Stop homework. We go to school for more than 6 hours a day, so what’s the need of homework? Homework just makes our life more stressful and destroys the enjoyment of holidays. Sometimes our homework goes up to late night and we don’t get enough sleep.Homework should be banned throughout the world.
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Please help reduce hw. I just want more freetime. Not evan for me mostsly. My lil Bro just turned 7 I can help him with his hw but when it comes to mine i just don’t have enough time to do anything with him like play catch basketball football or just talk. Now I know your thinking what about you’re dad well he passed away when I was ten so all the things I got to learn from him can be only taught to my bro thru me which again I don’t have time for because when I finish at 2 I go to bed and wake up at 5 the next day to do it all over again please help this sucks
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Hiii i am innama i think that teachers will give us too much homework and they dont think that what impact should be create on their studets their health may be disturbed so i dont say that teacher should give hw they give but they dont give toooooooooooooooo much hw
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I’m only in 6th grade and at my school teachers are really hard on students. We are given 1 or 2 assignments every day in most of my classes! We barely have time to socialize in school and I’m so stressed. School starts again in a WEEK. And I still haven’t finished my school math packet which and 17 pages FRONT & BACK mostly every page! Not to mention we have to complete about 40 LONG division problems! I not sure I’ll ever finish! And I’ve even though of using a calculator but that makes me feel super guilty, and even if I were to cheat we have to show our work for EVERY SINGLE problem! It really sucks! I hope I finish because last night I stayed up till 3:41 am working on my packet and passed out in my desk chair. I really hope I finish… 😦
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Anyways I know I’m only going into 6th grade and I pray for highshoolers who get a lot more then I am. I though summer was to take a BREAK from school? It’s not acceptable to give such HUGE packets to kids my age.
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Im in junior high and the amount of homework is insane!! i am always freaking out and pacing because i am overwhelmed this is all true we get at least 4 hours of homework
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I am a freshman at Cypress Bay High School. I get 3 hours of homework every day, but with my ADD it takes me 5 hours to complete it. When I get home from school I immediately fall asleep because I’m so stressed and tired. I don’t wake up until 9pm and even now, typing this at 1am I am bawling my eyes trying to stay awake, five hours of homework looming over my head that I have to get done before school starts. If I’m lucky I might be able to take an hour long nap, but most days when I go to school I haven’t slept in 24 hours. Please, abolish homework. I can’t go on like this.
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I agree I’m taking IB Art this year and the amount of work we have to do is rediculous 4 projects and 25 pages in a journal I know it’s IB but that’s way to much I’v been doing it all summer which completely gave me no time for anything and school starts tomorrow and I’m not even close to being done I’v been so stressed out and in tears several time I’m never going to finish it because it all needs to be handed in tomorrow And I’m not close to being done I really want to drop the class but don’t want people to judge me or disappoint anyone I don’t know what to do I need help
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five hours of homework looming over my head that I have to get done before school starts. blogcomments
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Hi my name is melody. I 100% agree i never get time to hang out with my family . I go home i take a shower, then i go straight to my homework . i usally spend 7 hrs of doing homework. i just wanna know whats wrong with wanting to hang out with family. (crying) i barely even have time to eat. i think its making me deppresed (crying)
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HI MY NAME IS MELODY. I AGREE WITH EVERYONE. I GET 7HRS OF HOMEWORK AND I DONT EVEN GET TIME TO EAT, OR HANG OUT WITH FAMILY. BY THE TIME IM DONE WITH HOMEWORK EVERYONES ASLEEP. I THINK ITS MAKING ME DEPRESSED(SAD)
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THEN AGAIN IT IS A COLLEGE PREP SCHOOL
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I’m a junior in high school who has always taken AP and Honors courses in school. Every day I go to school, and when I get out I have 3-6 hours of sports practice, and then I get home to 7 or more hours worth of homework and the cycle continues. It’s only the first full week of school and I’m extremely sleep deprived and upset. I’ve been awake for 5 days trying to complete a single English assignment that is due tonight. Stop the insanity plEase !!!
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I am a Sophomore at a nationally ranked high school where we are encouraged heavily to participate in extra-circulars while juggling the homework of 4-6 classes everyday. My freshman year I was involved in two extra-circulars one of which being football, from 7am to 3pm I am was in classes just learning and getting assigned endless amounts of homework, then from 3pm to 6pm I was at football practice everyday of the week, next I would come home so tired I would shower and lay in bed until I felt that I had a semi-sufficient amount of downtime before I started my homework which would often be at 9pm, then I would struggle to fight off being tired from the long day and try to complete my three hours worth of homework. Usually I would get 30 minutes of that homework done and after that I would try to find time to watch a single episode of a T.V. show and get to bed around 12am to get up around 6am giving me only 6 hours of sleep, or 2/3 the recommended amount. Stress from this lifestyle built up and boy did I see results of it. I failed a quarter of my English class of which the other quarter I got a D+ in, I had a D in Spanish and History at times throughout the semester, I only received an A in P.E. and Intro to Business. As a result of my poor grades I was robbed of my lunch which starved me and gave me 40 less minutes a day to socialize. My gpa for Freshman year was around 2.4 however in 8th grade I went to a private school with a weighted scale where a B there is an A at my high school and I was on honor roll all four quarters receiving a gpa of around 3.5. My sophomore year I am involved in two non-athletic activities which is much better but still brutal, everyday I go to the local library right from school and spend at least two hours there to only get most of my homework done because when I come home if I don’t have book work left I have two hours of reading for English which I refuse to do because I need time to relax and experience life. On top of that I have drivers ed and I will soon need a job to support my use of a car not to mention the idea of hanging out with friends. I refer to the life of a high school student as the struggle. I can perform as expected but only under extreme stress I fear I will burn out soon I just wish administrators were more competent in America. I would love to organize a committee but I don’t have time or a loud enough voice. This is a huge error in the American way of education by the time educators see results of this it will be to late for those of us in school now.
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This is 100% true. I’m only a freshman and I was up until 2 AM doing homework this morning/last night. I got 4 hours of sleep. I come home from school, and since I’m involved in my school dance program, I have about an hour to get changed, have a snack, and get started on my work. Then I go to dance for an hour. After that it’s around 5 and I’ve barely touched on my homework. I’m in all honors. I take around 45 minutes to practice piano, then I do my work until 7. At 7 I eat dinner and then go back to homework at around 8. Sometimes I have to write an essay, sometimes I have to do a science lab, sometimes both. These take time. I should be in bed at 10 to get 8 hours of sleep. Hah. As if! After the huge pile of homework and projects I get, I ALSO have to study for tests- one in each subject maybe every two weeks or so. A different test every day. By then it’s at LEAST 12. Somewhere along there I find a little time to relax and watch Netflix for maybe 45 minutes or scroll through Instagram. I’ve even found myself taking naps. This is completely ridiculous!! How am I supposed to perform well if I’m falling asleep on top of my textbook in class? I don’t think I’ve gone to sleep before 12:30 once this whole school year.
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I agree fully. The only thing about my school is that we have 5-6 hours of work a night, and we are swamped on the weekends too. Cell projects, hours of 30 part math problems, three-fold MLA paragraphs, you name it, I have to do it. I’m getting no more than 4 hours of sleep a night and my grades are suffering as a result of it. Ending the battle against homework will probably end up saving more than two full day’s worth of time for sleeping and doing what I enjoy. I never have more than 30 minutes to do what I want per day. They make us wake up at 6:00 am too 😦
So yeah. I agree.
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(Same guy as above)
The stress is so great I curl up into a ball and cry, almost every night. And that’s not with any sports practice or anything. For once, I’m glad I’m non-athletic O_O
I just can’t deal with all of this bullsh*t homework.
I’m only 5 weeks into my freshman year in highschool. Help ;-;
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I have another point to prove.
I ask my parents, my sisters, everyone I know. Nobody can figure the homework out. Seriously, they expect 14 year olds to protect the Earth by creating “Lines of best fit” and plugging the equation into a Laser cannon to destroy asteroids?
Yes, that is a legitimate math problem. LASER CANNONS GIVEN TO TEENAGERS. Dafuq, commoncore?
Almost every problem in homework nowadays has like 10 parts. So even if we did get 5 problems a night, it would be more like 50.
I’m going to go cry now, because the stress on my shoulders is triggering my Bipolar, Chronic Depression, and Anxiety disorders, all of which were born of stress in the first place.
Send help ;-;
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3-4 hours of homework each night?
I wish.
I have up to 6 hours of homework on some nights…
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This couldn’t be more true. I can’t think of a time during the day where I can just lay down and relax. I can barely find time to shower some days. I am able to call my friends once a week, if that often, and the call can usually only last about 10 minutes. Sometimes I break down and cry because of the stress. I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything that needs to be done – however, since time can’t be added – schools need to realize we are kids, not robots, and that to live we require sleep. But with all the homework people start pulling ll nighters and stuff and I just really hope some school teacher or principal sees this because I personally am struggling right now, i feel overwhelmed and sometimes I just want to cry.
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This weekend:
Friday
School, Haircut, College campus tour, Date night with my girlfriend
Saturday
Last Annual Father-Son Canoe Trip for guys in my class (7:00-9:00)
Sunday
Church, Work at my part-time job, Homework time
This weekend’s homework:
First Block- Five page paper assigned Thursday, Due Monday
2nd Block- 100+ question take home physics test given Friday
3rd Block- Senior Project Internship (I hate to imagine what it would be like if I had another class that gave homework)
4th Block- Chapter 3 was due Friday, Chapter 4 was due Monday, now Wednesday (1 Chapter= 4 homework sets and an online quiz)
Schoolwide Homework- Post Seminar Assignment due Monday
I understand that I attend an academic magnet school, but I also like to have a life every once and a little while. I googled “too much homework” while looking up a quote for my paper, found this, and thought I’d put in my two cents to focus my thoughts.
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*EDIT
To clarify the Canoe Tip was in fact 7AM to 9PM, the point being that it consumed the entire day
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Yeah its true,im in 6th grade and we have a teacher who gives us a crapload of homework 5 exercise sheets in Math,(front AND back)5 words copy x3 times in English and one HUGE text to learn to say out loud in History.Plus to learn 6 theories in Science and one problem also to solve in Math.This sucks we need to stop im against homework hate me all you want im telling my opinion.I only get 4 hours of sleep which isnt normal for my age,Sometimes i’ll stay up until 3 AM and finish homework and I cant even hang out with my friends on the weekends neither go out and Im super stressed out to the point of crying and puking I have anxiety and my mom pressures me and yells at me when I try to explain that im tired and my head hurts and she’ll get me grounded i’ve gotten to the point of starving myself for homework and this isnt good im AGAINST HOMEWORK!!!
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It’s 1:30am, I have five exams tomorrow, I’ve been busy all night, an I still have to study for three of them, do 2 packets, an online assignment, and an outline all before tomorrow. This or something like it has happened every single night for the past 3 weeks, and I haven’t gotten over 4 hours of sleep per night since school started. I love how the school system values formulas and state tests over the health, welfare, and happiness of teens. No one has a social life anymore, and if you do, it’s looked down upon among many teachers, since the kids who actually hang out places sometimes typically can’t also have good grades (there just isn’t enough time). This whole system is so entirely pointless and so many teens in America are so stressed and struggling all the time to try to fit it all in when we just can’t. If you are a teacher and you’re reading this, take a second to realize that you’re screwing up people’s mental and physical health by stressing us out so much. I swear this is just one big rat race to nowhere.
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Also can I just say that the whole system so completely doesn’t work for people with a great big fun combo of anxiety, add, ocd, and depression…I haven’t had a day without breaking down and sobbing for a while since the first day of school. They’re convinced the only reason we’re stressed is because of bullying or something but it’s the hw!
the time stamp is wrong on this just putting that out there it’s 1:43 not 12:43
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Yes. I totally agree that teens need less homework. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for school, work, homework, and sleep. Something usually has to be sacrificed, and that something is SLEEP.
I have a few health problems and low energy to begin with, but add working after school and staying up late to do homework, followed by having to wake up at six in the morning to get ready for school, and that’s a recipe for feeling worse and worse by the day.
I actually had to call in sick for work on a Saturday, just so I could sleep in and use those extra free hours to do homework instead. I have no such thing as a social life; I would only consider spending a few hours to hang out if it was during a winter/spring break or something. The hobbies I used to pursue actively (videogames, reading, knitting, etc.) in my younger years have all fallen by the wayside, and I don’t even bother spending time watching television anymore. The mindless activities that help me relax now stress me out instead, because that is time taken away from homework, and ultimately sleep.
And they say it gets worse in college . . .
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3 to 4 hours of homework a night is considered bad? I’m lucky if I have less than 7 or 8, and I’m a senior in high school. And that’s just doing the day to day assignments. I don’t even have time to study for tests. The problem is way worse for those of us in AP or advanced classes. We get all of the homework while the people in lower classes who need it get hardly any. Why are the kids who don’t need the extra help getting all of the extra work?
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Homework is the worst thing in the world. I’m only in 7th grade and we get essays and 40 questions per sheet of homework everyday. Even on weekends. I mean I am sort of ok with the weekday homework (not that much) but then over the weekend I am piled up with more homework then the week. WORDLY WISE WHYYYYY?
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I normally have 3-4 hours of this torture on weekends. Because I split it amongst the 2 days. On weekdays I could be up till 11 or 12 doing stupid math homework that isn’t needed
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I agree with everything. Homework is BOGUS. People need social time and time to hang out. They should allow kids to do homework in class and if not finished tossed in the trashed on a reasonable basis
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I’m a high school student and a football player, and am having to deal with personal problems and friends problems and family problems. and then I come home and do homework til literally 3:00 in the morning and I just want to relax and go to bed. so I would like homework to go away.
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I agree with you Andrew Self, the fact that we get loaded with homework over the weekend and the fact that we don’t even get to enjoy our weekends is totally ridiculous, it infuriates me!
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Guess what? I am a Senior in High School and I get a lot of homework, too. Add Anxiety, OCD, and Autism to my pathetic personality and I get everything done slower. I can barely concentrate! It’s annoying! Being Autistic is Frustrating! I have OCD and Anxiety like crazy! I spend a lot of time on Homework. Michelle Obama is the one who wanted us students to get more homework! I’m so exhausted from school that I fell asleep at 8 last night and woke up at 4 in the morning, oh my God! Ahhhh! Seriously right now?! Oh my God! Wow! So Frustrating, I am tired of getting Homework on weekends! Do any of you normal students have any idea how hard it is to be Autistic?! I have trouble with concentration because of my Dumb Anxiety! Are you kidding me right now?! Wow! Homework sucks, reduce it! We teenagers need more time to do other stuff besides Homework, whoever you people are who wrote this Article, get Homework reduced, I can’t take it anymore! Oh my God! I am Irritated! I never asked for these dumb disabilities I have! No one asked for them! Yet some of us are born with these disabilities anyway! It’s what makes life stupid! Wow! I’m tired of getting homework on weekends, I can barely enjoy my weekends! Uhhhhhhhhj!
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I read crap repeatedly and write slow!
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More people should be complaining than this by the way!
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200 complaints is not enough!
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Apparently having two hours of homework plus a speech once every week along with a quiz in every subject isn’t enough for getting passing grades. I understand that homework is practice so we can improve on subjects, and I would know. Currently I’m getting a C in algebra. But I’m pretty sure the reason why I’m getting that C is because there is a huge penalty for not completing your homework as it counts for forty percent of your grade and that my homework takes about four to five hours on average. This along with some viola lessons at school and going to Boys and Girls Club after school means that I get home at six. So on a good day, I get to sleep at around eleven or twelve. I’m basically depriving myself of sleep to get a worksheet packet done. Our teachers should actually meet up and see how much homework they’re giving out combined. But they don’t. Nope. Nada. Not in a million years. What I’m trying to say is…
Teachers should meet up. For our sake.
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I do cross country, and my coach is kind of a psycho. We have about 6 practices a week, and each practice is about 2 hours long. I live about 30 minutes away from school. When school ends at 3:30 I go right to cross country and get to work. I finally get home at about 6:15 because of carpooling. Then I have about 45 minutes to do my homework, eat dinner for about 45 minutes, and then it’s 7:45 and I’ve had only 45 minutes to do homework. I have to go upstairs at about 8:30, so most nights I only have 1 and a half hours to do homework. I have a lot of homework to do (2 hours) and I do homework pretty quickly. Some of my friends stay up until 10 working on homework. We need to lower our homework load.
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As a recent high school graduate, the statement that most students get 3-4 hours of homework per night does not sound accurate to me. I remember starting in 7th grade through the end of high school, I would begin my homework around 4 and finish around 11 or midnight. There was one particularly tough semester where I wouldn’t make it to bed until 3 am about 1 day a week. Most of my friends had similar schedules. Perhaps my circle was not representative of the normal workload.
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Let’s start an anti-homework committee on this website.
WHOSWITHMEHERE
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I’m just a grade 7 student and I get LOADS AND LOADS of hw everyday from school !!! Every day I’ll have to work until 2 am because of all my homework. Straight after I get home from school at 4:30, I’ll have to start doing my homework immediately!
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Hi I’m from Northern Ireland (UK) and I’m 13 years old (I’m I’m third year in secondary school). I definitely agree that we should stop homework. I’d rather do more work in school than do it at home. And this “learn independently” idea teachers have is stupid and wrong! Homework is linked to a lot of suicides in teenagers these days because they are stressed and aren’t able to sleep or socialise enough because of the homework!!!
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*and I’m
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We need more people to complain, we need to be heard. WE NEED TO CREATE AN ANTI-HOMEWORK PARAMILITARY!!!! WHOS WITH ME!!! STOP HOMEWORK!!!????????????????????????????????????????????????
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*STOP HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn I hate it when I accidentally hit question mark loads of times instead of exclamation mark! I didn’t see it and my instinct posted it!
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Some of the comments above were written nine years ago, yet they are more relevant than ever. I’m 13, in year 9-(third year of secondary school) from the north of England, and it annoys me so much that we spend so much time on academic subjects. I’m a set one student for all academic subjects, but I hate not having enough time to socialize, do creative things such as art and just have the freedom to spend my weekend in the way I want to. School is five days a week- and should not seep into any pupil’s time off. Personally, I don’t think a Tory government helps, especially after Michael Gove destroyed the education system- they’ve even changed GCSEs!
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I can’t agree with this post more. I literally spend from 3:15-10:00 at night doing homework and studying. This results in no time to do anything else. On the weekends, I can only hang out with my friends for about 4 hours all together because I have a million tests and projects due Monday.
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I come home every day with homework and it is so stressful!!
In fact i am working on a summary and we have to do a rough draft and a final copy and all due tomorrow! this is to much and i have a lot of math homework also studding and i am just going crazy
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