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Mihir Bhakta
Ms. Gardner
English 10 Honors, Period 1
8 May 2014
Homework:
A Ruthless Stressor of Students
Students from the countries of Denmark, Japan and Czech Republic all have teachers who
assign little homework and are ranked high internationally. While students in America, Greece and
Thailand have a tremendous amount of homework and score the international average (Kalish 259).
Homework by definition is schoolwork that is completed at home by a student through the forms of
book work, worksheets, reading or projects. Homework has made a sufficient impact on our society, as
children are deprived from exercising due to them sitting in a fixed position for long hours, as students
are not able to experience youth very well, and having time to spend with family, thus weakening the
profound bond between child and parent. According to the Northwest Project, laws of going to school
are present if you are between the ages of eight and sixteen, however laws of doing homework are not
(qtd. in Mathews). This signifies that homework is not an obligation by law and it is not reinforced by
the authorities. Students should be given less homework because homework results in excess stress, has
the capability of preventing students especially high school and college students, from holding jobs and
becoming financially stable, and it causes physical problems such as eye strain, or headaches.
Homework should be done by students in order for them to gain a greater understanding of the
material covered in class, but also to consolidate skills, develop creativity and cultivate critical thinking
skills. Common Core State Standards, a newly developed curriculum designed to set new and rigorous
standards for core subjects like English and mathematics, calls for students to cultivate and expand
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their critical thinking skills and homework is often cited as a tool for accomplishing this important
endeavor( Chute). Eleanor Chute, education editor for the Post-Gazette, acknowledges that Common
Core wants students to do homework on a daily basis to strengthen the skills that will be needed to
accomplish future skills such as earning high marks on the SATs or any test. Chute states that
homework is not as a burden as it claims to be and from her results on her survey on college freshmen
of 2012, they report that six or more hours were spent on socializing and about 38.4% of the freshmen
population used that time to study and do homework. Through Chutes results, its apparent that
homework was not a priority to students, thus making the homework tyranny a false accusation.
Harris Cooper, a psychology professor at Duke University says, Homework helps prepare students for
school (qtd. in Malone). In short, homework does not over burden children as the research conducted
by Eleanor Chute and Harris Cooper entails as students are spending more time socializing than doing
their homework. Their research also signifies that homework is not used to overstress students, but to
cater to their academic needs and to aid them to practice new skills they have learned. It is true that
homework is used to assist students with their education, however excess amounts of homework have
led to students becoming over stressed, experiencing health problems, and are stripped away from
being a kid. Moreover, homework should not be the cause of teenage stress as they are unnecessarily
loaded with the struggle of their adolescence on their own, but to be plowed away with countless
worksheets and books does not suggest that homework is something that students of their adolescence
or even young adults want to do every single day. Also, homework is just an obstacle in peoples path
from enjoying the activities that they love to do like play soccer, spend quality time with family, but
most importantly, it's killing a nation of readers (Suskind).
Admittedly, homework does provide students practice with what was taught in class. However,
students feel extremely stressed out about the substantial workload they are burdened with. With kids
having a new astound hatred towards school and having to come home to hours of homework, its
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necessary for teachers to cut back on how much homework they assign, so students do not feel
overwhelmed. Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, conducted a
survey on the college freshmen of 2012 and based on her data, she discovered that 56% of indicated
homework is a primary cause of stress, 43% listed tests as a primary stressor and 33% listed grades
and/or getting good grades a primary stressor (Strauss) Pope states: Students who spent more hours
on homework tended to be more behaviorally engaged in school, but were simultaneously more
stressed about their school work(Strauss). In Popes research, homework takes a huge toll on the lives
of teens as it is has been proven to be a primary stressor in students. This proves that homework is
inadequate in meeting its essential goal of working as an aid for students. However, homework has
done the polar opposite of what it was intended to do: to help students grasp main ideas and broaden
their critical thinking dexterity. Furthermore, homework is a leading stressor to students and it is
unhealthy for children to experience such agony at a young age.
Students are unable to remain financially stable due to them being too occupied doing
homework. In the article issued by the California Drop-out Research Project, an affiliated project of the
University of Linguistic Minority Research Institute, students who are given financial resources are more
likely to graduate (Rumberger and Lim pg. 1). This connotes that many middle class families will have to
work longer shifts at work, or even enforce their children to hold jobs to make ends meet with their
financial problems. Valerie Strauss, Education Blogger for WashingtonPost.com, notes that a new
study finds that a heavy homework load negatively impacts the lives of high school students in upper
middle-class communities (Strauss). This evidence exhibits that students of the working class are the
most prone to having difficulty with homework. This signifies that students who hold jobs outside of
school are the ones having a hard time completing their homework due to their efforts to support their
family. Homework should be reduced because if too much is given, it becomes counter-productive but in
terms of the students who are full-time or part-time workers have the opportunity to earn the extra
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money needed without worrying about homework that needs to be do be after coming home from a
tiresome day at work.
Furthermore, homework is causing students to have physical and emotional problems as a result of
too much homework. Suniya Luthar, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, asserts,
rigorous (and fascinating research) first sounded the alarm on how our youth from upper-middle-class
communities are at risk for a number of serious disturbances, including drugs, alcohol abuse, depression
and anxiety (qtd. in Enayati). Students are often tremendous amounts of pressure to perform especially
of those in advance classes such as IB or AP and they often result in doing drugs and drinking alcohol to
ease their stress for a period of time. Without homework being a primary stressor in teens, self-harming
that usually is accommodated in drinking and drugs will be limited in a sense that students wont be
doing those horrible things as a measure to relieve their tension from hours of studying and doing
homework. Pope found in her work with Challenge Success, Stanford collaboration formed in response
to increasing emotional and mental health issues in American students, that homework kept coming up
as a tension point. We found a clear connection between the students' stress and physical impacts --
migraines, ulcers and other stomach problems, sleep deprivation and exhaustion, and weight loss, Pope
observed (qtd. in Enayati). Homework has detrimental effects on teens today. Not only does it lead
teens to take drugs and drink alcohol are good ways to ease the stress of school, but homework is
physically and emotionally draining children from performing at their pinnacle. Sleep deprivation is the
most common health problem that students are facing on a daily basis due to the excruciating demands
of doing homework for those classes. Sleep deprivation is only a minor physical problem that some
students may face; a more serious problem is that stomach ulcers and weight loss are attributed to the
depression that some students may undergo, as they are not willing to eat any form of food what so
ever, which by all means is immensely unhealthy. Its evident that homework is causing students to
have problems with sleep, mental stability and causing them to result in taking drugs and alcohol as a
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way to ease their tension; this signifies that homework is a leading stressor to students that can
ultimately lead to students harming their health in the process of them doing too much homework.
However, teens are actually harming themselves doing homework rather than gaining skills in which the
homework was meant to do.
In conclusion, homework should be decreased due to the following because excess amounts of
it leads to students becoming overly stressed about schools, some will not be able to remain financially
stable since homework conflicts with students keeping a job, and it can cause students to become
physically and mentally ill. On a societal point, a decrease in homework will allow students to be able to
pursue any activity they love to do: playing sports, spending time with family or even reading a book for
leisure rather than reading for an assignment. In a world of reduced homework, students will be free to
participate in any activity they wish such as joining the football team, cheerleading squad or the book
club. This eliminates any potential stressor that the students may experience, and it abolishes the
burdens of working students to complete their homework late at night, and granting them more hours
of sleep. With this change, students will be granted more hours of sleep, and a decrease of physical and
mental illnesses such as migraines, being exhausted for long periods of time and anxiety of homework
will be limited. Furthermore, do not let homework hinder you from your life, hinder homework away
from you.






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Works Cited
Chute, Eleanor. "Studies Show Homework Isn't Much of a Burden." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 19 Mar.
2014: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Enayati, Amanda. "Is Homework Making Your Child Sick?" CNN. Cable News Network, 21
Mar. 2014. Web. 07 May 2014.
Kalish, Nancy. "Tools for Homework Reform." The Case Against Homework. By Sara Bennett.
N.p.: Three Rivers, 2006. 259-60. Print.
Malone, Tara. "More Homework? Parents OK with That." Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL). 13 Aug. 2010:
11. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Mathews, Jay. "For a New Year, How About a New Approach to Homework?." Washington Post. 23
Dec. 2013: B.3. SIRS Issues Researcher.Web. 22 Apr. 2014
Rumberger, Russell, and Sun Ah Lim. "Why Students Drop Out of School: A Review of 25 Years of
Research." California Dropout Research Project. UC Santa Barbara, Oct. 2008. Web. 6 May 2014.
Strauss, Valerie. "Homework Hurts High-Achieving Students, Study Says." Washington Post - Blogs. 13
Mar. 2014: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Suskind, Dorothy. "What Students Would Do If They Did Not Do Their Homework." Phi Delta Kappan.
Sep. 2012: 52-55. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.