Many students at Central High School feel that homework is stressful, unhelpful and time-consuming. According to a poll conducted by “The Register”, with 54 responses, 61% of students say homework improves their academic performance, but 80% said it affects their mental health negatively.
Most students spend around one to two hours on homework daily, and only 6% claim to spend no time on homework. According to those students, having that much work to do at home eats into their own time, work and after school activities, resulting in stress and bad mental health.
Central junior Madeline Miller said homework is too much to handle on top of work, band and other after-school activities, not to mention her personal time that has gotten smaller and smaller the older she gets. In every year before this academic year, she has been a full honors student, but this year would have been too difficult to handle with everything else she has going on.
Miller wishes homework were optional, and not worth a grade. She says if that were the case her grades would change for the better, because she could get practice when she needs and care of herself when she does not.
“I have so many after school things, like clubs, band, work and everything else I just feel like I just don’t have enough time for homework and it’s just super stressful,” Miller said.
Central sophomore Cara Galvan agrees, saying honors is too much homework for her. Galvan has five honors classes and after school activities every day. She said homework does little to help, unless it is a study guide before a quiz.
Galvan said homework in school is fine and even helpful, but outside of school she has things she enjoys doing and would rather use her time on those activities than schoolwork she already understands.
“I think everyone needs to spend time outside of school and have an actual life outside of school because life doesn’t revolve around school,” Galvan said
According to the poll, most students think math gives the most homework and requires the most effort. Central math teacher Jennifer Emanuel gives an explanation to all the work she assigns in class. Data from student’s grades show that the more homework a student does, the better grades they get on tests and class in general.
She strongly believes the students who put in work do better on tests, school and in life. Emmanuel said math and language classes require repetition to stick in student’s minds, and she gives students the chance to get that repetition.
“We need to put more emphasis on the subjects we struggle with. If we struggle with math, as many do, then we need to focus on it, put more work into it,” Emmanuel said.