research paper

Each day I find myself spending an average of more than 10 hours on school related work with about 6 hours of sleep each night. After about two days of this my body and brain can barely handle the work I must do in order to complete all of my after school assignments. After sitting in school for seven hours the last thing I or any other student wants to do is extend the school day into our daily lives, especially doing work that is evidently not going to benefit us in the long run. The homework being assigned by the vast majority of America’s schools is not only failing to efficiently serve its intended purpose, but it is also negatively affecting the well being of students, due to problems involving the quality and quantity of the assignments.

The excessive amount of homework that is assigned can lead to students staying up later and developing high levels of stress, both of which have numerous negatives affects. Teens not sleeping enough can be a hazard to their well being and that of others, many times this daily fatigue that teens experience is due to an overload of unnecessary homework. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as mentioned by author Siri Carpenter, 100,000 car accidents each year are caused by drowsiness and fatigue, half of which are the fault of young drivers. This shows that insufficient sleep of high school students can not only make it hard to function, but is also a matter of public safety. When staying up late doing homework creates potentially fatal problems like, these a line must be drawn. During school, this lack of sleep takes its toll on students and “has been linked to disciplinary issues, poor concentration and lack of motivation” (Carpenter 1). It is no s...

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... are doing busywork, they will put in very little effort, which is how the cycle of useless homework starts. The opposite is true as well; when a student understands the purpose and feels that doing the assignment will genuinely benefit them, they will be much more willing to put forth the effort to complete it.

Looking at the big picture, there is no question that homework seems to be doing a lot more damage than good. While there aren’t great benefits to doing homework in its current state, there are quite a few negative affects such as sleep deprivation, stress, damage to family life and taking away from time needed to do things we love like play sports or enjoy a hobby. I hope that one day the word “homework” will no longer make students cringe in hatred, but instead feel that they are doing themselves a favor by doing the reasonable and meaningful assignment.