With higher demands and standards for academic achievement, students face a 10 hour school day, longer than most adults with a paid working job.
Although the school day only lasts on average seven hours, students are piled with take home school, also known as homework.
A Stanford researcher discovered that too much homework can negatively affect kids, where their lives away from school with family, friends, and activities are heavily impacted.
Homework is allegedly supposed to prepare students for the future, but some students think it has the opposite effect.
Junior Alex Singer said, “Sophomore year was really hard, I spent a lot of time on homework and was always tired. Everyone says junior year is the hardest, but I spend much less time on homework, take a heavier class load, and have been performing better in my classes.”
The Stanford researchers used a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities to explore the student’s perceptions about homework and their health.
Out of the sample of students, the average annual household income exceeded $90,000 and 93 percent of the students went to college.
Each night, students attending these schools averaged about 3.1 hours of homework each night.
The Stanford research team has concluded that too much homework is harmful rather than helpful. Each night, it is ideal that students spend an hour and a half to two and a half hours on homework for high schoolers.
The studies have concluded that too much homework leads to higher stress levels, where only 1 percent of the students responded saying homework was not a stressor and 56 percent of students said that homework is a primary stressor.
In addition, homework can cause lack of sleep leading to other issues including headaches, weight loss, exhaustion, and stomach problems.
Due to high amounts of homework, some students had to drop extracurriculars they enjoyed to keep up with the high demands of academic achievement.
“Last year, I played highly competitive volleyball traveling out of state to compete against other teams and to be scouted by college recruiters. This year, I was forced to play in a lower league due to the demands and pressures of junior year,” said junior Alex Lay.
A recent school wide survey regarding homework has concluded that a vast majority of students have two to four hours of homework a night and partake in two to four hours of extracurricular activities each day.
“Many teachers want to help us improve and score higher on tests, however they don’t acknowledge that we have other classes and a life outside of school. Too much homework just makes it harder to feel motivated and will lead [students] to burn out faster,” said senior Monica Bayasgalan.
