Students vs. Homework

“School work should be left at school, not taken home everyday.” – Emilee Rost

Brianna Martin, Editor

Schools all over the United States, especially South Broward High School, are giving more homework than what is needed, causing students to be more stressed and overwhelmed. As the years go by, homework becomes more of a severe problem, not only for the students but for the families as well. Homework is becoming more of an interruption in students home life and their personal lives. It has been proven already to increase depression levels. Because of this, I believe teachers are being inconsiderate of the students’ lives. If teachers were to give less homework, students might enjoy getting an education instead of giving up on it.

As David Ryabov, a student from South Broward High School states, “Homework is time-consuming and if I understand the subject, then why would I need to be given more work to do? Homework shouldn’t even be graded.” As licolnliontales states in their article, “we found that homework can cause stress that could possibly lead to depression because it makes people feel overwhelmed…” Although back in the day and even now, homework is meant to help, it isn’t making much of a difference for the students. Not in a profitable way. As Desi Martin, the father of Brianna Martin states, “homework is causing students to learn how to hate school.” So, the question is, how do we know for sure that homework is improving the students’ performance in school?

Health-line talks about elementary school students and states in their article that, “extra assignments may lead to family stress, especially when parents with limited education aren’t confident in their ability to help kids with the work.” This means that this causes more stress for the students because even the parents are limited to helping their child. Researchers have conducted that family fights about homework were 60% more likely to happen when parents didn’t have a college degree. If no homework were to be given to our students, it is proven that they would have less stressful afternoons and children and families would be able to participate more in extra-curricular activities. But when in regards to high school students, that’s a whole other ball game.

High school is known to be a very social environment and the students do benefit from this believe it or not. So, this also relates to social activities outside of school as well. According to ‘Child’s Psychology’, “regular social interaction plays a critical role in brain development. Children who get plenty of opportunities to interact with friends and family can gain valuable social, conflict management, and impulse control skills. When homework reduces this time, brain development may suffer.” High school students are constantly bombarded with piles of homework which decreases their time to get out and improve social skills. This leads to other health issues, not only physically, but mostly mentally.

Overall, if homework is getting in between family time, going out with friends, or even preventing you from going to soccer practice, then it is clear to say that the students are getting too much homework. As a student of South Broward High school, I state this as a fact, and we as students should have the right to have more freedom and the right to choose what we want to do with this freedom, not including the homework!