Piles upon piles of emotional homework can forever damage a student’s mental health.

Students need a mental health break after school to focus on other activities. This is extremely difficult to accomplish with the current homework load from many teachers.

Most teachers hand out homework as a harmless attempt to increase practice with specific topics covered in class. This intended practice can turn sour if not handled the right way. Too much time spent focusing on school and homework can cause an imbalance in free time and time spent on homework. This can lead to anxiety, sleep deprivation, and overall more stress.

On the other hand, teachers are trying to prepare their students for college or an exam/midterm. However, if students are paying attention in class and getting their work done, they should be able to choose to do the assignment as extra practice. 

After a long day of school, students should not have to worry about having to complete additional assignments. Some people might say that homework is extra practice or assigned to make sure the students better understand the concept. This is not always the case.  Teachers may not understand that the “added practice” or “additional work” often causes more stress and anxiety.

Students learn at different paces, and what a teacher may perceive as a “quick assignment” may take the student hours to complete.  Many young and impressionable teens are held to an extremely high standard on a daily basis. 

Think about it this way: if you do thirty minutes of homework from each class it adds up to be three hours additional to the seven-hour school day. That is a total of ten hours of work daily. This is more than the standard eight-hour workday for adults. This example shows that students are expected to work longer than some adults in their professional jobs, which is unacceptable.

Overall, students are drowning in piles of homework and their mental health is suffering. Teachers need to reduce or completely cut out homework in the standard high school curriculum to put students more at ease.