Homework. Every student’s favorite topic to complain about. I complain about homework just as much as the person next to me. But, despite all of our protests, to our parents and teacher’s ears, our objection often goes unheard.
Our tired eyes fighting to stay open. Our blank stares revealing nothing but a lack of interest instead of the obvious truth that we’ve already been worked to the bone.
Nonetheless, we persevere through it all in the hope that break will give us the relief we need. We spend weeks getting little sleep, convincing ourselves that it will all be worth it for the excellent grade and that we’ll be able to catch up on all of our rest during the next break.
Just as we’re about to be released for our glorious time off, teachers assign piles of homework to be finished by the time school starts back up again reasoning; if you have time off, you’ll have more time to do homework and study for upcoming tests.
The increased workload continuing over break has a negative effect on us teens. As we get older, we naturally need more sleep, and despite the school district’s best efforts to help, sleep is a thing of the past for most highschoolers. According to Nationwide Children’s, “The average amount of sleep that teenagers get is between seven and 7 1/4 hours. However, they need between nine and 9 1/2 hours.”
During the break, students spend most of their time doing homework and preparing for the week ahead, leaving little to no time to have fun with family and friends. If your parents decide to take you on a trip, you end up spending the entire time stressing about all of the homework that needs to be done instead of focusing on the people you’re with.
If students don’t have enough time to finish all of their homework, they’ll resort to doing it quickly. This defeats the purpose of homework itself because it’s done for completion rather than to learn and solidify the lesson taught in class. However, if students were given the same assignments after the break, they would be more focused on school, and in turn, the homework would be done with more percision and overall be much more effective.
Homework is primarily used as a practice to make sure students understand the lesson that was taught in class. We don’t learn any more material on the day before break than any other day, so it’s pointless to assign more homework than usual.
I understand that it’s essential that the class doesn’t fall behind, especially for AP testing, but the break is all the more important for students taking AP classes who undergo more stress because of the increased workload. A better fix to this problem is to construct and stick to a lesson plan that ensures there will be enough time for all of the lessons without the need to assign more homework over break.
Kids need time to have fun and get away from the stress of their school lives. All I ask is that homework does not get in the way of them spending time with friends and family over break or getting the rest they deserve.
