An average school day is about 6 hours. Students from ages 5 through 18 are required to sit through many hours of schooling, just to go home and complete even more school work.
With the abundant amount of homework we receive, how are we expected to have time to sleep, eat, spend time with family and friends, obtain a job and participate in extracurricular activities?
Homework negatively affects a student’s mental health and is not effective.
First, with a large workload and little time after school, students are more tempted to cheat. By the time they get out of school their main priority is not to learn after 6 hours of sitting at a desk all day. They’re eager to finish their homework as fast as possible, even if that means cheating.
Students likely resort to copying a classmate’s answers or using the internet, so they can finally tackle other responsibilities they may have and even get a chance to relax or hangout with friends and family.
Some may say homework helps teachers make sure students understand the criteria being taught, or it gives students the chance to review what’s being taught in class.
Let’s be honest, many teachers don’t even look over the homework completed by students, they just check off that the work was completed and move on.
Also, by the time students get home the last thing they care about is understanding material they already spent the majority of their day learning about. It’s very likely that students will not put their best effort into their after school assignments, so teachers are unable to accurately gauge whether a student is understanding when their best work is not put forward.
Studies have shown that homework negatively affects the mental health of students. Sleep Health Journal’s studies revealed that homework may trigger depression in students.
Homework is a huge factor that leads to stress amongst students as well.
Denise Pope, Stanford lecturer conducted a research that was published in The Journal of Experimental Education. It revealed that even physical health issues were caused in addition to high stress levels due to 2+ hours of homework each night.
Depression, anxiety and stress are just a few mental battles that can be caused by homework.
When students stay up late completing homework, they’re prone to sleep deprivation. They wake up early for school, and go to sleep late trying to finish the assignments they were assigned for homework. The lack of sleep caused by homework may take a toll on their grades in school as well.
It has been proven that homework even causes students to become drained and lose interest in school.
The school needs to reconsider its homework policy.
