Homework is work that teachers expect students to do on their own time outside of school. But do students have the time? With extracurricular activities, outside jobs and responsibilities, there simply is not enough time for  students, specifically high-school students, to complete homework. As such, homework should simply be removed – it is not well-designed, and it is not well-received.  It is a thing of the past.

Homework can take valuable time away from students’ lives outside of the school day. Students, who play a sport, are in theater, band, or any other extracurricular activity often finding themselves in tough spots where they need to make difficult choices. These students  stay out late, working on these activities, and by the time they get home they either don’t have enough time to finish their homework or they end up staying up late into the night or early morning trying to finish. This can interfere with their school performance the next day.

An overload of homework and not enough time to finish it can have serious consequences for students.  This stress and frustration can potentially lead to health problems in serious cases. In a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, 30 percent of teens reported feeling sad or depressed because of stress. Another 23 percent said they skip meals because of the stress from schoolwork. When students are piled up with homework and have no free time, they miss out on life.

Students who are overloaded with homework cannot even look forward to spending time with their families because they are preoccupied with homework. Even parents become frustrated with homework when they have to stay up and take hours out of their time to help their child complete large sums of work. There’s no time for family, exercise, or fun time such as drawing or reading, and definitely very little time for a social life. Homework only piles onto the already stressful and complicated lives of teens.

Homework has been shown to have no real effect on the achievement in school and on tests, so why is it still given to students? If it has little benefit but has so many negative consequences, than why do teachers and parents still push students to do homework? Homework is a tiring thing, which only exhausts the brain. It should be discontinued and stopped, that way students can have that heavy burden taken off their backs and finally enjoy the lives that they have been given.