Wearing down our lives

What exactly does homework accomplish? Some believe homework can help raise test scores and improve the responsibility of the student. While this may be true in some cases, homework is destroying the lives of many students today. We already spend thirty-three hours every week at school. That isn’t including the extra time spent at home completing assignments. I understand teachers have curriculum that has to be taught, and this curriculum has to be taught by certain dates.

That means the teachers can’t spend too much class time working on a single assignment, but it takes little effort to shorten the assignment so it can be completed in class. If it isn’t worth our class time, why should we use our free time completing it? Shortening assignments wouldn’t just make it easier on the students it would also decrease the time teachers have to spend grading them. Not only is our time away from school meant to be for relaxing, but a lot of kids don’t have the proper learning environment to complete school work at home. Our homes are full of tempting distractions. These can range from your sibling playing Xbox to a major fight between parents. These distractions make it hard to focus, which can cause us to miss more problems than we would if we would have had time to complete the assignment in a quiet, orderly classroom.

As our classes get more complicated our parents are no longer sufficient sources of help on homework assignments. If you calculate the distractions and the lack of help at home our grades suddenly begin to fall just because the teachers made our assignment too long. Again, I understand that help is available before and after school, but some students don’t have the luxury of having their own personal chauffeurs; therefore, it is difficult to attend these meetings. Homework causes unnecessary stress to the lives of students. This stress can lead to teen depression, or students may even resort to using drugs and alcohol to relieve the stress. Stress can also lead to weight gain.

If this weight gain continues, it could result in an obese child. Homework can make it difficult to use natural and healthy ways to relieve stress such as being with friends. Homework doesn’t make life any easier for the already complicated life a teenager. Homework isn’t always because of the teachers. Everyone has bad days and sometimes you just don’t feel like doing anything.

That’s no excuse for not doing your assignment. Sometimes students talk or don’t work diligently throughout the hour. That is their fault, and in both cases makes having homework alright. Assigning homework not only dictates our lives, it means that we have to stay home and spend time doing something that our life is already centered around. Homework is a complete and utter waste of our time.

Stress caused by homework can lead us into depression or drug use as an outlet. Homework is okay sometimes, especially when it’s the students fault, but not everyday. Teenagers need to relax, and don’t need to be up until the early hours of the morning working on homework assignments. The problems of homework can easily be avoided by just creating shorter assignments. Teachers, please: shorten those assignments!