Is there such a thing as too much homework? Yes!! Every student says at one time or another that they have too much homework, as if the teachers, administrators, parents, deans, or anyone else cares. Honestly, they don't. This is especially true if a student takes multiple honors or advanced placement classes, which give the most homework. The teacher simply says that "it is an advanced course, meaning that there has to be more homework." I do not understand why teachers act this way. Learning is meant to be done in school, so by extension, so should work. It even makes more sense to do homework in school because one can ask the teacher for help, something that a student cannot do at home.
What makes the homework even worse is that teachers never communicate and frankly, they do not want to. It allows them to give as much homework as they see fit, without feeling bad about overworking their students. A student who takes advanced English and advanced History will have at least 3 hours of homework for these two classes every night. Why? - because reading a chapter in a history book is very dull, even for history lovers, and takes a long time; same with English. Reading in English is NEVER for pure enjoyment, but to analyze diction, tone, theme, motive, etc, which all take time as well. Add to this the rest of your classes, and you are looking at around 5-6 hours of homework EVERY night. So school ends at 3:00 pm and most students will get home around 4. This means that with all of the homework, the student cannot hope to go to sleep before 10:30, accounting for dinner and short breaks during studying. This leaves no time to "enjoy life," as I like to say, because life has turned into work. For students in after school activities, they are lucky to finish their homework by midnight. I know some students who work until 2 am every morning because they must in order to finish all of their homework. I do not think that homework is meant to work students to death.
I was talking with a friend of mine while playing tennis and he told me that when he was in school years ago, that there was not much homework. He said that he had about an hour of lunch when he could work if he wanted and a study hall almost every day to finish the rest of his homework. My friend only had an hour or so of homework every night and could spend all of his free time on other aspects of his education, such as learning to play an instrument. Today there is barely enough time for students to sleep, let alone master the violin. There really is TOO MUCH HOMEWORK!!!!
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