Sleepless Nights

By Isabella Thong

Oct. 8, 2019

Homework, every student is bound to be given work by a teacher to do at home. Students are expected to complete their homework every night before the next school day. While the extra practice pays off for some students, it is worth the student’s time, stress and sleep? Some nights are easy-going and there is barely any homework on the agenda for a student. Then out of nowhere there will be nights where a student is up until 2 in the morning doing their homework. This applies to students with work or extracurricular activities leading after school leading to a later start in homework.

For example, on a Thursday night, a high school girl got home from a track meet which ended around 8 o’clock. After she ate and showered, she realized she had a paper due the next day, on top of the homework from other classes. That night she stayed up till 3 o’clock in the morning, when she woke up, she felt energized but as soon as she started to take notes in her history class she felt a headache, and the words on the board began to scramble, and then she fell asleep. When the bell rang, she looked at the notes she had taken and noticed they made zero sense. After her practice that day she showered, ate, and then collapsed on her bed after finishing her homework before 10 that night. At that point she did not care if she was doing it right, she just wanted to get enough sleep.

Stanford researcher Clifton B. Parker found that students who spend too much time on homework experience more stress, physical health problems, a lack of balance, and alienation from society. It’s no secret that homework can be a huge stressor in teens, up to 90% of teens in the US are sleep deprived causing students to have headaches, depression, weight gain, and other severe health problems. Furthermore, when students complain that they have too much homework, and it's not just “typical adolescents complaining”.

How could we prevent students from having these sleepless nights? One solution would be for teachers of each subject in school to talk about big assignments, projects, and the homework they are planning to give students. This way students would not have to worry about having a late start in homework, they won’t have to stress about having enough sleep that night, and they’ll be able to make time for friends and family. With a lighter homework load students can be able to enjoy some time after school at their games or at work and not think about how much homework they have when they get home.