Is Homework Getting to Be Too Much

Homework can cause students' mental and overall health to worsen. In Indiana, students average about 4.7 hours of homework each day, which is over the average amount experts recommend. Indiana also has the 6th highest amount of homework out of all the states in the US for elementary and middle school students. Homework can even disrupt sleep patterns and cause students to perform poorly in school. According to Stanford.edu, when students were asked about homework, most of them said that homework was the leading cause of their stress. Students already stress about everyday life, and adding more stress like homework isn’t very helpful in this situation. 

Homework can affect students' lives outside of school, whether you realize it or not. It can take up time that could be used for other things like hanging out with friends and family, reading, and even just relaxing. Social interaction is a very important part of our daily lives, even if we don’t notice it, so having a heavy amount of homework can limit it. Having an excessive amount of homework can also make it hard to balance it with other things like sports, clubs, or other after-school activities. Jasmine Dixon, an 8th grader at EJHS who gets lots of homework, states, “I think sometimes I get too much homework from one class. Then sometimes, with my after-school activities, those classes that I have homework in pile up, and I have to do it at 9:30 pm.”

Now you're probably thinking, well, why can’t we just get rid of homework and studying completely? Well, as nice as that may sound, it is unlikely to happen, so with all this being said, there are ways to make homework amounts not so bad while also being pretty bearable. “I don't really like homework, but it does help to a point. If you are doing the same thing over and over again, then it just gets to be too much.” Jasmine states as well. Methods such as the “10-minute rule” could benefit students, and here is how it works. For each grade you're in, you get that many minutes in tens for homework, so let's put it this way: if you're in 5th grade, you get 50 minutes of homework, which isn’t necessarily that bad if all you need to do is read that night. Along with homework, if you're considering studying for a huge test as homework, you're not wrong, but you can make it less of a huge homework assignment if you choose. Say your test is in a week, and you study a little bit each day so the information sticks; that way, you won’t be cramming for a huge test the night before and can relax a little and give yourself some slack.