Depending on what grade you are in, the types of classes you are taking – regular, honors, AP or dual credit – and what life looks like for you outside of school, your homework load can vary. Maybe it’s pretty light – no more than 1 hour a day – or manageable – 2-3 hours per day. But, what if it’s too much for you to handle?
For me, homework can sometimes be exactly this: too much to handle. I may have more than four hours of homework each day, sometimes five hours – even six hours. Last year, for example, I took mostly regular classes and a few honors classes and had more than four hours of homework on most nights – even without any AP classes – and this was with being able to stay focused and without procrastinating.
This can cause unwanted stress and anxiety for me because I want to get everything done, but that may not always be possible. Because of this, I may stay up late doing homework, trying my best to get each assignment done on time and end up losing hours of needed sleep. Not getting enough sleep has had an impact on my energy levels and mood, causing me to feel exhausted during school. But stress, anxiety and sleep aren’t only what’s impacting my health. I’ve also suffered from headaches and migraines from spending hours doing homework without having time for breaks and having less family time and personal time for other activities.
While homework has had negative impacts on my mental health, it also caused me to make some hard decisions. For instance, because I’ve struggled to balance extracurriculars with the hours of homework I’ve had, I’ve had to put a pause on one extracurricular: playing the harp. While it’s a passion project for me, I’ve had little to no time to practice and take weekly lessons to play my harp between completing hours of homework and getting enough sleep. Students should never have to choose homework over their extracurriculars.
However, that’s not all. I’ve also had to make another hard decision: dropping down a level in a class. While I know how important it is to challenge myself, I couldn’t handle hours of homework for one single class each night. It wasn’t realistic. The homework load impacted my mental health and well-being negatively which helped me to realize that dropping down a level in the class was the right decision for me to make.
Student experiences
Knowing my personal experience with homework, I was curious about other students’ experiences with homework.
As a student at Dexter High School in Dexter, Michigan, where I used to live, junior Amelia Musleh’s homework has varied between high school years.
“In past years, it’s been really light and I’ve got most of my stuff done in class,” Musleh said. “But this year, it’s the second week of school for me already [and] I have at least an hour a night, usually, of stuff that needs to be done.”
Junior Mala Ballolla went to a Montessori School back in Minnesota and stopped after 10th grade. There, she averaged an hour of homework each day. Similarly, she believes that she will have about one and a half hours of homework once she is able to transition to LHS after missing three weeks of school here.
Junior Max Holland has a similar amount of homework with about one to two hours of homework each day with most of it coming from the AP classes that he is taking such as AP US History and AP Environmental Science.
Like Holland, a lot of junior Calli Liu’s homework comes from an AP class.
“Most of my homework comes from AP US history and that takes maybe an hour or two and then the rest of my other homework also takes about an hour,” she said. She averages about 15 hours of homework each week.
According to a survey conducted through Google Forms from Sept. 12 – Sept. 16 where students were asked about their homework opinion and experience, the majority of the students surveyed have 1-2 hours of homework per day while the homework that students have per week varied, with the majority of students having between 3 and 15 hours of homework per week.
Like Holland and Liu, according to the same survey conducted, 76.3% of students feel that advanced classes such as AP, Honors and Dual Credit classes are a contributor that can make it more difficult for them to complete their homework.
Balancing homework and extracurriculars
Once Ballolla begins dancing again after putting it on pause while she transitions to LHS, she believes that her homework will be less manageable on rehearsal days.
“If I were to have rehearsal twice a week for two hours, I think those specific days would be really loaded with work and I would definitely be up late and not getting enough sleep,” she said.
Because a student’s life is more than school and homework, teachers need to understand that students need to have a balance between them. It can be important for teachers and students to get as much done during class so that it’s manageable outside of class.
“For adults,” Mr. Wellington, a science teacher, said, “it’s important for us to keep in mind that we’re encouraging kids to do things outside of class, so [we need to] make sure that we’re structuring things in such a way that [students] can spend time doing other things outside of class, rather than just doing homework and studying.”
Ballolla agrees that life outside of school needs to be considered with the amount of homework given to students.
“I think that high school students are waking up really early, going to school for five days and then proceed to have three hours of homework every night in addition to extracurriculars,” she said. “That’s a lot of school stuff without a lot of personal time in there. So I do believe that the workload should be a bit more manageable, but it varies from student [to student] depending on how much [students] are able to do in a certain amount of time.”
According to the same survey conducted, 86.8% of students feel that extracurricular activities such as clubs, sports and fine arts is a contributor that can make it more difficult for them to complete their homework. Likewise, 35% of students feel that jobs or volunteering is a contributor that can make it more difficult for them to complete their homework.
Impact on mental health
While teachers need to consider students’ extracurriculars when assigning homework, students’ mental health and well-being is another important factor to consider.
Mr. Wellington understands how homework can impact how much sleep a student gets.
“When [homework] gets to the point where they’re not getting enough sleep, I think that plays a huge role and [is] a big negative impact on their well being if they’re not getting enough sleep at night,” he said.
Similarly, according to a survey by The Better Sleep Council where teenagers were surveyed about their sleep during the school year, 57% said they do not get enough sleep, 79% said they get seven hours of sleep or less, 67% said they get five to seven hours of sleep and 0.2% get eight hours of sleep or more.
The stress of having to juggle homework can also “hurt [a student’s] mental health if they have so much homework on top of everything else that they’re doing, which adds to what they have responsibility wise and they can’t really keep up with everything,” Mr. Gluskin, an English teacher, said.
Mr. Brenner, a retired math teacher, agrees that “if your load is too heavy, it does have an impact on your mental health and stresses you out and at some point it’s not worth it.”
As a student, the amount of homework has impacted Holland’s mental health.
“I see the value in homework and its purpose; however, it does bring a great deal of stress,” he said. Specifically, he worries about deadlines and whether or not he can get an assignment done or if an assignment will hurt his grade.
In contrast, Liu hasn’t seen homework impact her mental health and well-being too much.
“I don’t normally feel stressed about it, but sometimes I do feel a bit rushed and I have to stay up late,” she said. “I’m normally able to get it done and the teachers are pretty flexible or lenient with it most of the time.”
A student’s course load can be a good indicator of whether or not homework is impacting a student’s mental health and well-being, in addition to how many teachers are assigning homework and students’ commitments outside of school, according to Mr. Gluskin.
Homework doesn’t always have to impact a student’s mental health and well-being negatively.
“I also think that if you work hard and do the homework and you’re successful, it brings success,” Mr. Brenner said.
According to the same survey conducted, 83.9% of students either strongly agree or agree that personally homework is a stressor. 11.3% of students are neutral. Less than 5% of students either strongly disagree or disagree that personally homework is a stressor.
Benefits of homework
While homework can take away from students’ time outside of school and can have a negative impact on their mental health, there are benefits to assigning students homework.
For instance, homework teaches students “how to manage stress in a low stakes environment” and “how to manage anxiety” according to Mr. Duffy, a social studies teacher. These skills can help students to prepare for life.
Similarly, Liu believes that homework has taught her valuable life skills, such as time management and how to manage procrastination.
Likewise, Ballolla sees the positives of a larger homework load, such as her college workload.
“Just having to have that many things juggling through your mind constantly is also a great practice for later in life, when you have a job and you have multiple aspects that you have to worry about in your work in addition to your personal life,” Ballolla said.
Is homework actually necessary?
While some may argue that homework is not necessary, homework can be a critical part to the school curriculum, such as the fact that there is only 45 minutes of in-class student interaction. This is not always enough time for students to learn and practice new concepts.
“The school board tells us what we have to teach and it’s more than anybody can teach in a 39 week school year,” Mr. Duffy said. “So we have to assign homework because we have so little time for student interaction.”
Similarly, Mr. Brenner sees homework as necessary for students because it prepares them for tests.
According to the same survey conducted, 14.3% of students state ‘Yes’, 16.2% state ‘No’, 63.9% state ‘Maybe/It Depends’ and 5.6% state ‘Other’ as homework being necessary.
Time spent on homework
Although homework can benefit students in many ways, in order to make sure that homework doesn’t impact students too negatively, it should have a limit.
Musleh believes that students shouldn’t have more than 30 minutes to an hour of homework each night.
“[It should be] enough that they’re grasping concepts and everything, but not too much that it’s too hard to balance with everything else,” she said.
Similarly, Mr. Wellington believes that students should spend minimal time on homework.
“I don’t think students should, on a normal day, have more than maybe an hour to an hour and a half of homework, if possible,” he said. “That’s not possible every day, but I know in my classes, I try to get as much done as I can during class so they don’t have as much to do outside of class.”
Likewise, in order to decrease the time students spend on homework, Holland believes that the homework given to students should either be work that students weren’t able to finish in class or practice work.
While students’ homework load can vary and homework can sometimes be beneficial, students’ homework should never get to the point where it impacts them in a negative way. Homework shouldn’t negatively affect students’ mental health to the point where it causes them unwanted stress, anxiety, exhaustion and even depression. Furthermore, students’ should be able to balance their extracurriculars with their homework in order to have social time and more of a life outside of school. That’s why the idea of homework needs to be reconsidered.
