My brother wakes up at 4:45 a.m. to get to mandatory football workouts every school day. He does not get home from football practice until 8:00 p.m. Most doctors recommend eight hours of sleep. With this in mind, theoretically, my brother has 45 minutes to do homework and go to bed. Most students do not get eight hours of sleep, and I am not saying he should do 45 minutes of homework, and then go to bed. However, If the homework takes two hours, then he already will not sleep eight hours, and of course this does not allow any extra time for other activities that he may want to do. Football is not mandatory, and it should not affect his academic life at all.
Excessive homework greatly affects students; especially ones that participate in extracurricular activities. This can be minimized with less homework and fewer big assignments. If there are many small assignments, then students can stay on track by doing small amounts of homework per night, and accomplishing desired academic goals. Another option is to have special courses for students involved in extracurricular activities. These courses could be designed to move at a slower pace throughout the semester. In conclusion, homework amounts can be changed to benefit students involved in extracurricular activities.
The amount of homework students have now is very ridiculous. Almost all teens have at least six or seven hours of their day in school, and then are expected to do another two or three hours of homework. Plus almost 50% of high school student participate in a sport after school, which includes another two hours of practice Monday through Friday and possibly Saturday. Now, yes there are solutions to getting your homework done. Study halls, tutoring sessions and just putting time away to do the work are good ways to complete work in time. In many cases also, it is the student’s fault for the incompletion of their work due to procrastination, but there is still clearly an overload of homework for students. Overall, teachers need to find a proper balance of work inside and outside of the classroom.
Teacher’s expectations of their students can range variously. The ones who have high expectations are going to give their students a larger load of homework. Also, the level of class affects the load too. Students who are gifted, honor, or AP classes are, of course, going to be challenged more by their teachers. Part of this challengement is the homework. Obviously, going through high school is not going to be easy. Each and every kid will be imposed to difficult work. No matter how smart someone is, they are not going to be able to go all four years without doing their homework and studying. Everyone can see that the amount of work outside of the classroom has increased since even five or ten years ago. However, this is not an excuse for students to complain and put off their work.