Freshman student-athlete, Yeva Balayan, comes home after a long day of school and a stressful volleyball game. It\u2019s 8 o\u2019clock and the last thing she wants to do is spend three hours doing homework. Her parents are expecting her to keep her grades up, but feel like they haven\u2019t spent time with her in a while. Yeva is overwhelmed and tired, and she decides to simply finish the assignment, but not to the best of her ability. By the time she showers and eats dinner, it\u2019s 11 o\u2019clock and she is going to bed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeva and many other students\u2019 mental health are deteriorating from this ongoing cycle which is coming from teachers and the educational systems. The lack of management that they hold and the number of stressors that they put on their students relating to homework are unbelievable. Students are told to join clubs, play sports, and get involved in their community \u2014 but then are constantly challenged by the amount of homework they are required to do daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Students are assigned too much homework from their teachers. Students are spending six-plus hours at school and still coming home with three hours of homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The educational system, as a whole, likes to assign homework assignments every day. In an article from Education Week Teacher<\/a>, where fifth-grade teacher Samantha Hulsman says, “I think parents expect their children to have homework nightly, and teachers assign daily homework because it’s what we’ve always done.” Homework has become the norm, but is too much of it really effective for students?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Duke Professor Harris Cooper<\/a>, it is important for students to have homework, but there should be a limit on the amount based on grade level. Cooper suggests the \u201c10-minute rule.” This is where students starting in the first grade have 10 minutes of homework per night and add an additional 10 minutes to each year resulting in 120 minutes of homework per night by twelfth grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This rule would help keep students organized and limit the time that they have to spend on homework each night and can result in less stress on students and an improvement in physical and emotional health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Limiting the time spent on homework can also result in better time management for both students and teachers. This is because the homework will be higher quality, over sheer quantity of work. A study led by <\/em>Stanford University<\/a> in 2013 found that high school students in high-achieving communities who spend too much time on homework experience more stress, physical health problems, a lack of balance in their lives, and alienation from society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n