The trouble with homework

Homework is a word that every single student hates to hear. I can tell you that I don’t enjoy when the teacher say that horrific word! Once you hit high school you spend at least an hour or two or even more on homework per night. So basically, we go to school for at least 5 hours a day plus an hour or two or even more spent on homework depending on how much you have for the following day. As teens it’s scientifically proven that we need 9 to 9 and a half  hours of sleep at night, we’re also told to get exercise because it’s good for you and as humans we all want to go out and socialize once in a while. If you’re like me and involved in a lot of extracurricular activities, getting the amount of sleep needed at my age at night is kind of impossible. Most days, I stay in after school until 4:30, I come home to have just enough time to eat and then I’m gone again until at least 8 or 9 depending on the activity. So really, the only time I have to do my homework is later in the evening and so if I have two hours’ worth, it’ll most likely be late before I finish. Let’s keep in mind that I have to be at school for 8:00 the following morning which means I have to be up at 7:00AM in order to be ready for then and I didn’t go to bed last night until midnight. So that right there isn’t my full night’s worth of sleep.

How does a teen my age handle all this you may ask? Honestly, it can be very stressful at times because we’re constantly worried about if we’ll have enough time to get everything done for the next day. Really, we basically need a schedule and try to follow it as much as possible even though we all know that’s kind of hard to do.

Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t get any homework at all, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I don’t think we should be getting the amount of homework that we do. It causes extra stress and doesn’t allow us to get the sleep or exercise that we should be getting. Also, we don’t get to go out and socialize as much as we want to. How are we supposed to do these things when all our extra time is always taken up by homework?

At the end of the day, it is important for us teens stretch our legs and minds in other directions, rather than school work and homework.

Karlie Keats, Secondary 2, English Class, École Mgr Scheffer