Homework, the crumpled piece of paper that’s at the bottom of your bag. The forgotten sheet on the table at home. Incomplete, unturned in. Most kids in school don’t complete homework because it isn’t graded. Schools give out many sheets and packets to students every day, which are usually thrown away when they get home. 

Students already have so much on their plates: stress, sports, grades, why add more by giving them homework? Students don’t want to go to school for seven hours a day,  then go to a two-hour-long practice. Students come home just to sit at a desk for another two hours completing homework that all of their teachers assign them. Teachers should create an atmosphere where students feel safe to come to them with a problem.  They won’t if you make them fall behind and struggle even more. 

Students often need to spend time during lunch and in class to complete the homework sheets that teachers give out. Students are unable to do it at home, having to skip lunch to complete it, when a teacher should carve out time in class to teach it and go over it. Some use the excuse about extra practice, but when we complete it, it never helps. The homework is rarely relevant to the topic we get taught in school or what will be on a test, so why would students take more time to learn about it?

While other schools have carved out study periods, we get homework or mastery checks.  But the teachers never ask if we understand or need extra help. Teachers will often ask why we feel tired or unhappy about going to their class, but it’s always the class that hands out the most homework. If teachers stopped handing out homework and increased in-class study and teaching time, the amount of stress that would be lifted off the students’ shoulders would be a ton.