Today’s letter is from high school student, Sophia Warren, a 10th grader in Brooklyn, New York.
I Love School, But It’s Killing Me
by Sophia Warren
Dear Sara,
My name’s Sophia Warren (we’ve met before a few times now). I’m a sophomore currently at Packer in Brooklyn Heights, NY. Packer is a school that prides itself on the gifted children that attend it and the rigorous academics that they offer. For years I have spent hours on homework. Beginning in the second grade, I sat through standarized tests, I worked on handwriting, and filled out math work book after math work book.
When I was in the fourth grade, each student was assigned an “independent study project.” Most kids were told that they would be working on spelling, logic problems, etc. I was told that I would be writing a novel, working at least a half an hour on it every night plus completing my other homework. At first I was in love with the idea, happy to be exempt from spelling, but it soon took a turn and I found myself miserable and with writer’s block. I was just nine years old and I came home everyday, sat down, stared at my paper, and spent the next hour crying out of frustration. My mom had no idea what to do with me. She finally spoke to my teacher and said that although I had not been writing anything, I had in fact been thinking about the story. He said that my think was not work and that I would not be allowed to go outside the next day during recess and that I would have to work while everyone else had “free time” in the classroom. I spent four months of fourth grade sitting in the classroom at a desk and working while everyone else was permitted to have fun and run around. It did not seem fair to me and it still doesn’t. The finished product kept me up until almost five in the morning. The story was over 160 pages at completion.
I have always wanted to be a writer, but that assignment killed my love of writing for over a year. I figured that if it was that painful to write, I did not want to.
At the present, I spend over six hours on homework a night. It is only just
the beginning of the year and I have already realized that my social life will have to wait until the summer. Almost all of my friends are outside of my school and having six hours of homework a night gives me absolutely no time to see them whatsoever. I go out Saturday nights and work continuously all day on Sunday. I never get more than six hours of sleep a night. I have accepted already that this year I will have little fun, see my family rarely, never spend time with them, not see my friends as much as I would like, and not have nearly enough time to do the things I like. I love music. I’ve played the cello for years now and I’ve recently quit orchestra because I just didn’t have time for it. It was taking up free periods that I needed to complete assignments in. I also love to go the concerts, I love live music, I love booking shows, and I love being part of a community that revolves around excellent music. I find that internships I once had and loved now need to be discarded. I hate that things I enjoyed doing in the summer need to be shoved to the back of my closet until a year from now.
The saddest thing about all of this is that I truly love school. I really love it, but it’s killing me. I’m actually physically uncomfortable right now, my coloring is off, and I’ve already gotten the cold that I will have for the rest of the year. My immune system is already falling apart and I find myself drinking Emergen-C every morning just to keep me alive through the week.
Today I auditioned for the play. Rehearsals run for about four hours a day. I would get home at around seven-thirty every evening and then sit down to do all of my homework. Even the director doesn’t understand. She’s planned a tech rehearsal on Halloween! It’s a holiday! It’s a time to have fun! I put on my schedule that I cannot go to that and that I will not go to rehearsal on Fridays.
It’s healthy to have fun, is it not? It’s not fair that I don’t have time to read, draw, play the cello, see my friends, have dinner with my little brother, or go to the movies with my mom. I live in New York City. I want to submerge myself in its culture and learn from that and instead I spend everyday sitting in my room, slaving away.
A perfect example of the toll homework is taking on my life (and it’s only the second week of school!): Last night I sat down to do my French homework. French is one of my favorite subjects and I assumed the work would pass quickly. Turns out that I had to look up twenty-five vocabulary words, write sentences for each of them, and then write twelve sentences about the girl who sits next to me. I quickly realized that the work was going to take me a very long time. I begin to work and along comes my brother. He’s in the eighth grade, also at Packer. He’s also working on French homework. He’s struggling through his work as well and he keeps asking me questions. This is the saddest thing; we end up fighting! He gets upset because I tell him that I don’t have time to help him and to please stop talking to me and I get angry because he’s upset. I start to feel bad and five minutes later we’re both yelling at each other. My mom comes upstairs and we’re yelling and she starts yelling and my dad comes home from work and everyone’s upset. It puts him in a bad mood and the next thing you know, everyone is angry at one another all because of frustration about homework. I really wish this wasn’t the case.
I’m reading your book right now (there’s no telling how long it will take me though with this much work to do). I hope that I can just explain to my teachers. My teachers are always pretending that they’re conscious of the homework problems but they have the nerve to blame it on time management skills. They blame it on me! I am a fast worker and it takes me six hours. A boy told me just today that his history homework alone took him almost three hours last night.
I don’t want to hate school or learning, but everytime I say anything it is dismissed as irrational and an exaggeration. My teachers just don’t get it. I really wish they did because I find myself counting down the days until winter break already. I don’t have time to do anything I want to do. It makes me cringe to think about junior year and college pressure and the SATs. I have enough on my plate right now. My English teacher just gave us a list of TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY vocabulary words. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY. That’s insane. We’ll be tested on it at the end of the year to help us for the SATs. High school has been a horror so far. I hear it gets worse. It makes me not want to go to college, which is really sad. I wish my mom would homeschool me, but not all parents have time for that or are qualified to do that. I wish there was somewhere that let me do things I love. I think I am a smart person- not to boast or anything, but I really do think that I’m smart and hardworking. I’m a straight A student and I pride myself in that, but the kids who don’t do homework always talk about what they did after school.
My A is costing me my social life.
Thanks for voicing your opinion on homework. I wish there were more people ready to stand up for both children and parents.
Stop Homework 
i completely agree im a sophomore in hs and i am constantly stressed over homework even when i am not assigned any i frequently get scared that i do and have a panic attack that i dont know what it is or i left it in my locker
LikeLike
i dont what to do!!!! MY SCHOOL ITS KILLING ME!!! WE ARE STARTING IGCSE AND OUR COURSEWORKS !!!! im learning french and doing 6-7 hours of coursework everyday. I HAVENT SLEEP SINCE SCHOOL STARTED AND IS AFFECTING ME A LOT!!!! I HAVE PANICK ATTACKS EVERYDAY BECAUSE SOMETIMES I DONT UNDESRTAND A DAMN TNING, AND OUR TEACHERS ALWAYS SCARES US THAT IF WE DONT GET A MINIMUN OF 5 C on our IGCSE EXAMS they will kick us out from the school!
LikeLike
Thank you so much for posting this! I’m a freshman in high school, and it’s a relief to read that my school isn’t the only homework-crazed institution in America.
In middle school, I was a top-scoring student. National Junior Honor Society, Model UN, Mock Trial, Future Problem Solvers, lots of homework, essays, math, science, music department, etc. Over the years, I had formed strong relationships with my peers and my teachers. School was perfect: I knew that I wanted to succeed, and I honestly believed that I could.
Now, however, high school has begun. It’s been less than a month, and I’m suffocating under a mountain of honors homework. Each teacher has promised us that this is only the beginning — that we can expect his or her class to become increasingly time-consuming within the oncoming weeks. That would be okay, except that everyone has said it: Math, English, Science, History, Spanish, Latin…
I was awake doing homework until at least one (usually later) every night last week, then awake at 5:00 a.m. to get ready and catch the bus (and I often needed to study on the bus, too). That’s less than four hours of sleep each night. I need to sleep at some point, so I can’t possibly survive if all of my classes really do become even more tedious.
I loved middle school; I was so involved, so sure of myself. I worked hard – I frequently spent late nights doing homework – but I never felt so overwhelmed that I wanted to give up entirely. And I always subconsciously knew that if I did become overwhelmed, I could explain the situation to a teacher, and he or she would understand. But now the response would be the same from everyone: “This class is too much for you? Then you’re welcome to move to a lower level.”
The teachers in my high school (it’s a public school) take pride in giving as much homework as possible. They accuse us of wasting hours of the night on Facebook or watching television, yet they fail to realize that it is often the stress and pressure that so much homework exerts on us that compels us to take breaks. And we should be able to take breaks, shouldn’t we?
I spent the summer writing a history essay, an English essay, and working on Spanish projects. I was already fed up with homework by the time I entered school in September. My father spent the last seven months running for a local political office, so I’ve barely seen him. On September 14, he lost the primary. That night, my entire family gathered at a restaurant to watch the polls. Everyone was there: my uncle from Maine, my aunt from South Carolina, my cousins from Boston, relatives from Pennsylvania. I wanted desperately to go, to see my family and to support my dad, yet I had too much homework. The following morning, the local newspaper showed a picture of my dad, my mom, and my two sisters together as the results came in. I was the only one who wasn’t there, and I still was up until 2 a.m. that night doing homework.
Like Sophia, I love school. I love to learn and to succeed, and I know that I can be successful. But, honestly, I’m tired. I’m a freshman and I haven’t “played outside” in years. Most of all, I miss reading. An English teacher in middle school was extremely inspirational: she taught me to love literature and writing. I, too, was hoping to teach English someday, yet my current English teacher, as well as the other teachers in my school, assign such an enormous amount of homework that I don’t have any time now to pleasure read or to write. I feel guilty that I’m even writing this — I’m sure there’s something I should be studying for right now.
The truth is, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I spend an three hours on assignments that could probably be completed in two-and-a-half hours. But, considering the way that my teachers grade, I have no other option.
School has sparked competitions and resentment between my friends, stress in my family, and exhaustion. I want to spend time with my family, to practice violin, to read classic novels of my choice, and to simultaneously succeed in school. Some teachers are wonderful and intelligent, but others aren’t about to change their ways. I don’t want to drop any honors courses — it simply doesn’t seem like me. I know that sounds insane to some people, but many students in my school know exactly what I am talking about. And yet, as I think about the essay I have to finish before Monday, the science test, the English test, and the week ahead, I feel defeated.
LikeLike
Sorry, I meant:
“…my current English teacher, as well as the other teachers in my school, assigns such an enormous amount of homework that I don’t have any time now to pleasure read or to write.”
LikeLike
Wow-
Reading all these has really given me strength, actually. I am only in 8th grade, but as all of my classes are AP, it doesn’t feel like I am only 13. Honestly, it seems like I have the responsibility of a 25 year old! After an average of 4-7 hours of homework every night, I am expected to help around the house, make my own meal (because I am a vegetarian and the rest of my family is not), and get into bed by 9:00. I used to love to read for hours in bed- now I sneak a flashlight under the covers and finish my Physics homework. You would think my parents would understand because my mom went to Georgetown and became an attorney right away. Neither of them seem to understand the weight load of my homework nowadays, and my relationship with them is sickening due to my anger and irritation. I have become very sensitive and depressed, and I often nearly cry in the middle of my Algebra class when I see how much homework we have. I have had a cold/cough for almost a month now, and I rarely get 8 hrs of sleep. Reading the above comments, it seems like many of you are feelig the exact same. It is not so much that I have my parents or teachers expecting me to get perfect grades- I pressure myself. It has come to the point that If I get a B on an assignment, it is a failire. I don’t think this counts as childhood, but since when has anything been fair?
I am very sorry for the rant, and I probably seem really whiny, but I needed to get it out. It seems like nobody else understands that school is so important to me. I have almost no true friends because I don’t have enough time or energy to give them- and I wouldn’t to be my friend either. I have noticed such a personality and behavior change ever since junior high, and it makes me really sad sometimes. Thanks for reading!
LikeLike
After reading this article, i nearly fell to my knees. It’s unbelievably brutal.
Unfortunatly, im in the same situation.
I just started year 9 (grade 8) and so far, its not going so well. I get atleast 6 hours of homework a day, along with netball practice and scuba diving for nearly 2 hours each. Our school has provided us with a homework timetable, but it seems that the teachers arent paying much attention to it. We end up getting homework from every subject when we are SUPPOSED to get homework for 3 subjects maximum a day. Our science teacher is unbearable (sorry to say):P. Science is the most terrifying topic when it comes to homework. We get at least 3 hours of science homework, everyday. We even have double lessons, and thats when we get double the homework, and its usually due the next day. Last week, i had 2 reports due, 10 double-paged sheets, and 4 pages of textbook questions due on the same day! This week, he even gave us homework when we were supposed to study for the science exam=S Nearly all of my classmates ended up finishing the homework, rather than studying- they didnt feel so good after the exam =S. I do allocate my time correctly- and i dont slack off.
I usually come home after school at 3:00. I barely have time to eat my lunch. I go upstairs, open up my laptop, and start the homework. I stay awake up till 2 o’clock in the morning, doing either history or science. All the students in my class decided to complain about the homework- especially science, but we were afraid. On wednesday, we told our science teacher that we have a homework timetable you have to follow. he started laughing and said that he couldnt read (or some lame joke like that). We told him that we can read it for him and it clearly says that your not supposed to give us homework today. He said that if u have time to complain, you have time to do your homework. And that was pretty much the end of it.
In math, my fellow classmate ripped out a paper from his maths book , and passed it around the class. He said that if we wanted our science teacher to follow the homework timetable, we had to sign it. I refused, because i thought that it might be a bit too much.
On saturday, the first thing im going to do is sign my name on to that piece of paper.
Homework is like the new child labour. =(
LikeLike
I’m doing a petition assignment for my Social Studies class on the bad effects of homework. This has been helpful in my research, and i completely agree. I have a sister in high school and at several points all her homework and lack of sleep led to some fights that would be worthy of the title “World War 3”. I’ve heard that some schools lengthen their school days by a few hours and in return the students never receive homework,I wish all schools did that especially since I go to high school next year and am definitely not anticipating the work. You have been very helpful Sophia, keep up the good work!
LikeLike
Thank you, everyone! As a high school student battling a consistent stream of “all-nighters”, I truly appreciate reading what people have to say. My parents have begun to acknowledge that I am overburdened by A.P. classes and homework, but there’s little they can do. Most teachers (not all, of course) tend to blame late nights on poor time management and procrastination, but, truthfully, most A students procrastinate little. If they do, the procrastination is a result of dread: not dread of working, but a fear of the foreboding hours that will be consumed by either impossible tasks or the other extreme: busywork.
I think the real issue is the every teacher feels obligated to assign a hefty chunk of homework every night. Assignments are proof that the teacher is doing his/her work. To neglect to assign homework is like slacking off, so, teachers dish out assignments whether or not they are necessary. Many teachers, however, fail to realize that most students take 5-7 classes each day, and that each teacher feels a similar obligation. The result is an afternoon, evening, and night consumed by work following an entire school day. The work isn’t always unnecessary, but much of it could be accomplished in the classroom.
Students need to be taught in class. My math teacher spends entire periods review the previous night’s homework and then quizzing us on it. Instead of expecting us to learn the information at home, she could be teaching us the concepts. My history and science teacher do the same: review homework during class rather than teaching.
We all need time for ourselves: not necessarily to fall asleep in front of the television, but to read, learn, and enjoy ourselves. I’ve had wonderful teachers in the past, some of whom have had a lasting effect on me. But right now, I feel as if high school has taken a part of me, as if I have to put life on pause for four years in order to succeed. I’m hoping that maybe, in college, life will officially begin. That probably sounds crazy, but it’s what motivates me to keep going, day after day after day…
LikeLike
I would hate to be in your situation. I live in Arkansas and go to CCHS. I thought we had allot of homework but after reading this i notice that I have it easy. I’m a freshman and we have many multi-grade classes. We also have laptops and have a presentation a week in speech, Constantly work in economics, have an Algebra assignment a night, are constantly working on stuff in English, and rarely have projects in Physical Science and agri. With this I have plenty of time to spend in Band and Color Guard. If you really get sick of it transfer to another school.
LikeLike
i fucking hate school
LikeLike
Too much homework kills. I believe that the reason I was a bit stressed some times during Jr High was because of procrastination, but as I go into my freshman year, I’m taking all honors classes, so I expect a metric ton of homework every night. I can only hope that it only takes me about 3-4 hours to complete and not 6. I really hope you get your life back. I can only hope that mine won’t fall apart.
LikeLike
Homework almost killed me. Literally. If there was no summer, I would have become suicidal. Reasons for this?
1. My grandma was DYING and all they cared about at that school was that I had a D in history.
2. I was skipping lunches to get some of my work done so I could have a single hour of free time.
3. I lived in my office. I ate there and hardly had time for a shower.
4. I nearly had to QUIT creative writing, art and horses, all of the hobbies I had, to do my homework.
5. It ruined my relationship with my family. The closest thing to a CONVERSATION I had with them was about homework, either fighting over it, or being interrogated of what was due.
Results: A skinny, pale, depressed, anxiety ridden me.
And yet everyone was mad at me for not turning in my homework on time and not thoroughly enough.
LikeLike
You described my daughter’s experience. As her parents, we monitored carefully, adjusted accordingly (read. Go to sleep. I do not care if it’s not done. Your health is the most important thing here) and were always on the lookout for the fallout.
LikeLike
I guess my situation isn’t as bad as yours… I’m in year 8. Not many of my teachers give me too much homework. It’s really just maths that’s the problem. Last weekend, I got 14 pages of Maths homework. I’m a perfectionist with homework and I like to make it all neat and tidy. I spent 4 hours on Saturday in the library, and 3 hours on Sunday, at home. That’s 7 hours of Maths homework. By the end of it I was almost in tears of happiness that I had finished it!! When I handed it in to my teacher she said, “You could of done better” Done better on what??
LikeLike
I have had similar experiences to many of the people who have left comments on this site before me. I am a junior in high school, and I feel like I can’t wait a second longer to be finished with it all. Not just junior year, but all of high school. Summer vacations are my saving grace. I don’t know what I would do without them.
I typically have 5-6 hrs of homework a night. I start working when I get home from school, and don’t stop until dinner time, and then continue after. I often find myself abandoning my family at meal times, instead scarfing down my food quickly, standing alone in the kitchen.
I often don’t get to bed until midnight or later, and on bad days (which are becoming more frequent than not), I get up at 4 AM to continue working.
I put all of my energy into maintaining A grades, but this is taking it’s toll physically and emotionally. I feel tired all the time, and I get sick easily. I am depressed, anxious, and extremely stressed, and I feel that the excessive amounts of homework I am assigned every day can take the blame.
I often come home, riled up, frustrated, and upset about the amount of work I have to do. My days almost always end in tears, and this in turn creates a lot of tension elsewhere. I am exhausted, and about ready to give up.
At my school, we have a student handbook. In the handbook, it clearly states that students should have no more than 2 hrs of homework in total every night. Most teachers understand this as each one of them gets to assign 2hrs of homework every night.
Teachers also have no clue about how much time work takes, especially for people who care about their grades. For example, my Pre-Calculus teacher assigned us 25 questions for homework. This sounds reasonable until you realize that each question has parts a-f in it. This adds up to 150 questions. When I asked her about it, she said quite submissively “Oh, it should only take you 10 minutes maximum.” 10 minutes?!? Maybe it would take her 10 minutes to answer 150 questions, but it didn’t for me. One hour in and I still had 40 more to go.
My mom is a teacher, but she is on my side. If and when she assigns homework, it isn’t a lot, and she makes sure that her students understand that after they have worked solidly on it for 30 minutes, they can stop, no matter how much they have done, without a huge detriment to their grade, so long as their parents have confirmed it.
High school has been a disaster for me so far. I envy those people who seem to take the copious amounts of work in their stride. I don’t have time for my family, for friends, for reading (which I love), and for art, one of my most favorite things in the world. I have had to give up all of my free time and it is driving me crazy.
I can’t wait to get out of this mess.
LikeLike
Student above, thank you for taking the time to spell it out for us.Readers here, please take this student’s essay to heart. It is extremely typical of A Day in the Life of my daughter’s high school. Add to that mix the student who works that hard and does NOT get straight A’s. Not because they aren’t smart, to wit, they are in fact, highly gifted. But they are twice exceptional and the school does not offer accommodations. The best she could get, after many meetings and a pricey consultant, is an extra day to turn things in. Doesn’t help the matter, just exacerbates the anxiety and stress.
The student above is not exaggerating. I urge every teacher to read carefully what this student wrote. And this goes for parents as well who believe that working kids to death prepares them for life. It only prepares them for exhaustion, burnout and depression.
If we made adults work this hard, there would be a riot. There is NO adult reading this site who works as hard as the student above. She is not exaggerating. My daughter attended a high achieving high school. If I needed to meet with my daughter (bring her something, talk to her about something time sensitive), I dropped by at lunch. I’d watch these teenagers stagger down the hallway. They were bleary eyed from serious sleep deprivation and weighted down with overstuffed backpacks. My heart just broke, watching them.
It’s not that these kids didn’t like their school. They were hardworking, smart, earnest, aimed to please. They wanted to be in an environment with other like minded serious learners. Rather than celebrate this unique vibrant place of learning, adults in their midst merely took advantage of their commitment.
I’m still puzzled why, to administrators and so-called educators, gifted education means, let’s occupy every second of their time and encroach seriously on their sleep. Not a single gifted organization supports this misguided and extremely dangerous approach.
LikeLike
In Middle School, I was a perfectionist. I got straight As and enough sleep, but I had lost my yearning to learn. I had no social life, was always anxious, and developed a sleeping problem. Instead of learning, I memorized. I got awards for being such a good student, and that pushed me to be even harder on myself. When summers came, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was afraid to let myself go and be happy because I felt that that would somehow make me not serious about school. The summer going into Freshman year of high school, it dawned on me that if I keep my perfectionism up, I will end up going to an amazing college and being miserable. I learned how to be happy, relax, and act like the kid I was. As soon as high school started I stopped trying to be perfect. I joined clubs, sports teams, made great friends, and got good grades. Although my grades weren’t as good as before, I was happy and healthy. I have stopped trying to fit into what colleges want, but rather be myself and explore the colleges that fit me. Today I am a happy sophomore. I learn, relax, sleep, eat, excersize, and laugh everyday. I am the Vice President of my class, almost always make honor roll, and an avid skiier. I do this because I want to, and not because I think it will look good on my college transcripts. It’s good to be high-achieving, but not when you make it your life. The point in life is to balance and combine success and happiness. Never focus too much on one thing. Balancing school, extra activities, social life, and family is key. Most of my understanding of how to be a strong, happy, smart teenager goes to a book I HIGHLY recommend, “The 6 Most Important Decisions You’ll Make.” It saved my life.
LikeLike
Man. Junior year in high school is crappy. I found ways to survive my last two years by simply doing my assignments. Now, I am required to complete assignments and study like a crazy person. It sucks. I feel so lost in school. Worrying about getting into college scares me to death. I’m really freaked out. Teachers assign too much homework and it is not interesting whatsoever. Fudge. I am so frustrated, I don’t even know what to do.
LikeLike
Have you ever heard of the IB program? You might want to include it in your research! I’m in IB and it sounds exactly as you describe. My history teacher does the same as yours except his class is all about group work. He doesn’t really teach us anything. Anyways, the workload is ridiculous and I often don’t go to bed until 10 at the earliest 12 at the latest, and that’s really good. A lot of my friends don’t sleep until 1 or 2 and we all wake up around 5/6am. So that really takes a toll on your health and memory. I always feel like, no matter if i finish the homework for that day, there is more and more I can do, like an endless supply. I hope everything goes well with you and wish you luck!
LikeLike
My daughter was thinking of a full IB degree when she was in 8th grade, the lone year we homeschooled. She got into a selective magnet for high school and the school’s college level offerings were AP, not IB. I am so glad she didn’t do IB, in the end. After researching the program and talking to kids (not the parents, the children), I came away with a distinct dislike of the curriculum.
I’m all for inquiry, analysis, creativity, stretching the mind. I’m a strong advocate on meeting children where they are, and if they are gifted, they should be given room to grow and expand. But the IB strikes me as just one long grind. Very industrious but how much is truly gained in the end?
We now know a great deal about severe sleep deprivation’s toll on learning but it’s memory and retention we should be really worried about. If you don’t commit all that cramming to memory, in the end, you’ve barely learned a thing.
LikeLike
I completely agree with you homeworkblues. I mean, I not even in the IB program yet. Only juniors and seniors can be in the IB program, sophomores and under get put into the MYP program and must complete that before moving onto IB. I’m a freshman, and I honestly agree that, with all of the tests the IB teachers are conducting on a wide variety of subjects, we will have to cram at one point or learn to cram every time. A lot of people say IB just teaches you how to “BS” your work, which is ludacris.
In addition, I’ve heard that IB really only looks good on a college application if you apply to a college in the west coast, since the east is more familiar with AP.
I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I am not going to do full IB. I will probably do associates, which is only testing in 4 IB subjects. it’s still a lot though.
The only teacher I absolutely love is my English teacher. He is without a doubt one of the most relatable and fun teachers I’ve ever had, and due to the style of his teaching, I’ve gained so much knowledge. We need more teachers like him, who honestly care for their students.
LikeLike
i’m a middle school student and I have about 3-4 hours of homework a night.
I get up early to go to band and chours and stay at school two hours after for drama. I also have CCD on wednesday, this year I am making my confermation which means essays wich I have no time for.
Appartently in my district 8th grade has more hw then 9th.
My social life is quickly deteriorating.
I’m lucky and somehow manage to do something on weekends.
The real problum is that all teachers think of themselves, “it’ll take you twenty minutes” they say. It take me about 30, but 30 minutes from seven teachers adds up.
it says that we Americans have the writes to life, liberty, and the prasute of happyness. I’m not happy, my freedom is gone the teachers control that (not even my own parents!), and there is more to life than just surviving, I want to live not just hang on.
a 13 year old should not feel stressed the way I do. i’m a kid, and I want to have my childhood back. Thats why i’m making a petition with my friend, and using hw as my topic for writing.
LikeLike
Hi Emma,
I’m so glad to hear that you and your friend are making a petition and also writing about homework. When my son was in 8th grade, he also circulated a petition among his classmates and, as a result, the school met with the students and they had a chance to talk about the impact homework had on their lives. They even got some reduction in the homework load.
I hope you have the same success.
And, in the meantime, have you asked your parents to talk to your teachers or the school? You should not have to be in this alone.
Good luck and thanks for writing here. Come back again and let us know how everything is working out.
LikeLike
It’s midnight. I’m not about to write a sob-story. I seriously do not have the time to vouch for sympathy. But this was a great article, really. Now I’ll get back to my homework.
LikeLike
G, how sad. I remember many many many nights where midnight came and went, and homework completion did not. I hope you were able to get some sleep last night.
LikeLike
G, how sad. I remember many many many nights where midnight came and went and homework completion did not. How sad our youth stay up way too late to finish homework, only to be tired and ineffective the following day.
I hope you got some sleep last night.
LikeLike
I posted twice because my comment appeared not to appear the first time. Blog owner, please delete #75 since I added for #76.
LikeLike
My brother suggested I may like this blog. He was once totally right. This put up truly made my day. You can not imagine simply how a lot time I had spent for this information! Thank you!
LikeLike
I know how you feel. I’m in seventh grade, and I’m in a ninth grade math and reading class. I feel proud to be in these classes, but it pisses me off how much work we are assigned daily. Although, unlike you, I truly hate school. I find it as slavery. I also don’t have many friends, as I’m extremely shy, and I have a stuttering impediment. I walk around in school with a straight “military” back, and a serious face, and I feel even more miserable. In reality, I am actually very hyper, and my friends tell me that I am extremely funny. I only act this way around my close friends, though, while everybody else either thinks that I’m extremely quiet. Back to school work, I push myself so hard, as I hope to get to this very prestigious catholic high school. Then, I hope to get into West Point, lead a US Army unit, then transfer into the Special Forces. Anyway, the reason I mentioned all of that is because I have all of this pressure on me. This year is my worst academic year. I was in a 1-year advanced math class, but I fell like the dumbest student in my Algebra class. My whole life, I was the person that would raise their hand constantly, and would respond to a teacher’s question with huge words. Last marking period, I got a C for Algebra. Never would I have imagined getting a C on my report card. A C+ on a quiz was already devastating to me. To sum it all up, I believe that the most significant factor to my struggle is the excessive amount of homework assigned. It’s ridiculous. I don’t have a life anymore. I’m already depressed at school, but I can’t even have one hour of leisure time at home anymore. I shouldn’t complain, though. You have even harder work, and you have more to lose. I’m assuming you made it out of school by now, but if you are in college, good luck, and may your professors realize how much effort you put into your work.
LikeLike
feel, not fell XD
LikeLike
i grow up in a strict indian household and the only important aspect of life to my parents is my education, im not saying its bad or anything, i make straight a’s too. but when i or my sister get one grade below a 91 my parents yell at me and the whole family starts fighting. i only think to myself that all these hours i put into my education will pay of later after these last 3 years of high school and 4years of college.
LikeLike
I feel you, I’ts my freshman year and I was unwillingly forced to take A.P. U.S. History, PSI physics and 6 other honors classes. I usually go to sleep at about 2:30 a.m and have to wake up at 6:00 to get ready, and walk two miles to get to school. After School I walk 1.8 miles to my little brother’s school, pick him up and arrive home at 4:30. At that point I immediately start on homework and the cycle repeats. I have not watched TV in days? weeks? months? and my friends are seen exclusively at school.
LikeLike
My child goes through this and is only in 8th grade. She has no time to do fun things anymore because all her time is spent on doing homework. It’s gotten to the point where she is losing a lot of sleep. She’s in all of the advanced classes which give more homework. It seems like the smarter the child is, they get punished with more homework.
LikeLike
Ugh. Big moronic fat American school system is messing us kids up. We deserve to be free and this is so totally not fair and unfair. Ugh so much hw to catch up on for being SICK cause I am skipping school to be sick. So yeah.
LikeLike
Homework always made me feel depressed,parents like to see their kids happy and achieving,not stressed and unhappy!
LikeLike
My daughter is in 5th grade… she is highly academically gifted. Every night she recives 3 to 4 hours of homework. She is loosing time with her sister and family. She has three teachers. I support homework… but this is too much! Please tell me what you think. The recommendations for her scholl is 10 minutes per grade. This is insane!!!!
LikeLike
I feel your pain. I’m an A student but homework has taken its toll on me. Rarely do I ever get more than six hours of sleep a night (most of the time its five) and my social life has dwindled down to zilch. I really do like to learn, but the sheer amount of assignments has discouraged me from wanting to go to school and completely eliminated any free time to do the things that I love. Every other Saturday, for the past several months, my dad has taken my siblings to the movies while I stay home, too afraid that if I go I won’t finish my homework. You could blame the excessive amount of time spent doing homework on my compulsion to over achieve, but I’ve been taught to do things to the best of my ability and if I don’t give it my all, then it isn’t my best. Just a few weeks ago one of my teachers said that since we still have a lot of work to do and only a few left, us students don’t have time to “dink around” anymore. That comment enraged me. Maybe if the teachers hadn’t been “dinking around” for the entire year our homework load would be a little more even so as it wouldn’t all have to be piled on at the end of the year! I don’t want to say anything to the teachers because it makes me feel like I’m whining, but they really are overloading us, so what am I supposed to do about it? My only consolation is that summer has to come, and by taking it one day at a time I manage but what happens next year when I hit high school?
LikeLike
I too go to packer, but I am in the middle school. I cant say I have as much homework as you, or anyone else writing in the comments. If I could work on my homework without procrastination, it would take me an hour, maybe two. However, I find that very difficult to do. Usually, my “homework” takes me 3-4 hours to complete. That still isn’t a lot, but I do extracurricular activities until around 6:00 three times a week.
Currently, I am not happy. I have very little free time, and I would like more. I want to have fun and enjoy myself. I want to read. I want to watch TV. I want to play video games. I want to hang out with my friends.
But I can’t, because of my homework.
I sincerely do not apologize to anyone who thinks I am complaining about only 1-2 hours of homework. This is my life and I want to have fun with it.
LikeLike
Sorry, in the last section of my comment, there the “not” is not suppose to be there.
I sincerely do apologize to anyone who thinks I am complaining about only 1-2 hours of homework. This is my life and I want to have fun with it.
LikeLike
Right here is the right web site for anyone who would
like to find out about this topic. You know so much its almost hard to argue with you
(not that I really will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a fresh spin on a topic that’s been discussed for years. Wonderful stuff, just great!
LikeLike
Homework makes me feel like my life is falling apart I find my self crying almost every night over homework and I get bad grades, which causes my parents to yell at me. I’m not dumb either. I Love science and history in fact I do ok in those classes. I know everything in the class and the teachers even say i’m smart. It’s just the homework that gets me every time. I’m terrible at learning stuff alone. Homework makes me feel helpless.
LikeLike
sorry left this out and couldn’t help adding this. I like science so much I find myself watching science documentaries on TV and could listen to science theories for hours. I have always wanted to be a scientist, but because of my grades, I probaly never will.
LikeLike
You said: the people around you talk about the things they did after school because they DID NOT DO THEIR HOMEWORK.
Feel free to be one of them.
Feel free not to study: feel free to play ten different instruments and act for four hours a day – you clearly know what your priorities are. Maybe you’ll be a concert pianist or lead on Broadway. Who needs exams then?
Feel free to read and draw. Maybe you’ll be a professional artist. Maybe you’ll earn money by reading books.
Yeah. Right. There’s a reason these are leisure activities.
The world doesn’t care about the size of your heart or how much time you spent or whether or not you play the cello (unless you’re in a professional orchestra) how long you spend reading, what movies you’ve been watching, it cares what it can get from you, and for every one of you who throws their hands in the air “I can’t do this shit, it’s bad for my health, there’s too much” there are three other people to take your fucking place, there are people who would kill for the opportunity to be in your position – living in a country with the right to education.
Here’s an idea, give up school and trade places with somebody who doesn’t have it. Just don’t work. Just drift along. And watch the countries where kids who know what poverty is power past you in the next few decades. It’ll happen.
LikeLike
I read this and can’t help but feel for these people. In a horrid attempt to procrastinate (and for what reason), I have taken the liberty to see if anyone is sharing my pain. If you all want to hear some things that aren’t right, take a gander.
It is currently 1:10am, i still have 11 assigments including one project due tomorrow.
To start this off, I go to a tier-1 school in Massachusetts and take 5 AP Courses.
Try saying I procrastinate. I spend my entire Sunday and at least 2-4 hours of my Saturday doing homework. Sunday night I realized that I had overlooked a project and went to sleep at 5:45am. I woke up at 6:30, went to school, got home at 3:00, did homework until 3:30am. Miraculously got 3 whole hours of sleep, again went to school, got back at 3:00, here I am now, expecting to get to bed hopefully by 6:00am.
This may seem bad, but it was heaven compared to my week the week before midyear exams. Our teachers assigned so many projects that I ended up working nonstop for four days straight, without any sleep. My mom found me staring at my computer at 6:30 in the morning on thursday, literally hallucinating from severe sleep deprivation, and she decided that I couldn’t go to school. Because I missed school that day, I had to stay after on Friday for an hour, and I was assigned an extraordinary amount of weekend homework. As for the maximum homework i’ve had in one class for one night, we once got assigned 30 pages of worksheets for AP Chem, just 8 packets that the teacher had managed to find online and decided to distribute to us because a kid was talking while she was playing a video and reading a magazine.
I consistently ask my mom “is this what school was like when you were a kid?” because I cannot bring myself believe anything could be this bad. My mom always says “I had to deal with it just like you”, but I find that very hard to believe. This woman went to an average difficulty school in North Carolina and graduated with a 4.0gpa, and she wonders why I can’t pull A+ on my AP Bio exams, where a 20 page answer could be worth zero points if you don’t say exactly what they want you to say. Many of my friends have SAT scores in the range of 2300-2400 and they are so addicted to pills like Adderall, Ritalin, and Focalin that they have developed physical and psychological dependencies. I just genuinely wonder, is there any way that school can be as hard as it is today? I don’t believe that’s humanly possible, at least in my case, or any case for anyone in a school that is top 50 in the nation.
I feel for all of you, I truly do, but school has gotten way too far out of hand.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to do homework until 6:00am now.
LikeLike
I’m sorry, but you chose all those AP classes, right? Then homework is of course to be expected. I’m juggling 6 AP classes, Debate Team, and Beta Club in junior year, so my regular bedtime is 1 AM, and I’ve learned to accept it. I actually wish I got more homework in AP Biology, so I wouldn’t have failed the exam with a 2. Don’t think about your social life, think about your competition. Think about your future. And if you don’t, well, no one’s stopping you. Party away. I, for one, will try my absolute hardest to achieve my dreams, even if it means selling my soul. (Just kidding!) But seriously, it’s only going to get worse from here, so be prepared.
LikeLike
I wish to that homework was oultawed but it is there to help us do better in school
LikeLike
I completely understand what you’re going through! I don’t have much advice except talk to your teachers or principle with at least one or two other students about this problem. They are obviously trying to prepare you for testing and “the real world,” but they aren’t doing a very good job. Sure, sometimes you will have 6 hours of work and 6 hours of sleep once you get a job, but it is so irrational that you go to school for at least 6 (that’s just a minimal assumption with lunch taken away) hours and get 6 hours of homework! 12 hours of work times 5 days (or more) a week equals OVER 60 HOURS OF WORK PER WEEK! The average working hours of an adult is 40-44 hours per week! How do they expect a teenager to work over 30% more than the average adult?!?! Plus, you should be allowed to have free time and enjoy yourself, like any teen! This issue is ridiculous and needs to be resolved. (I am an eighth grader, so I can kind of relate.)
LikeLike
Well i just wanted to give a short note i will say take your education and do your homework you will benefit atlast listen to your parents or elders when their are speaking don’t stew your teeth or turn up your nose listen to them because if you do not you will reget it later in life you will have to depen on people don’t you want to drive a car or even work to earn money and support your family as for me , my self an i i have study in universe of Guyana and now moved to new york i am even the owner of a big company take my advise ok i will stop here now hope you guys out there agree
LikeLike
I agree with the last comment you right even i am a owner of a company too and my family are really proud for me.
LikeLike
they gives students to much homeworks in diwali
LikeLike