In a recent survey done by the University of Phoenix College of Education, researchers found that on average, teachers hand out around 10 hours of homework per week, which would end up being around two hours of homework per night. This is a challenge to most students who may be involved in after-school activities, such as sports, clubs and jobs. With all of these things piled up onto a student’s plate, it is not hard to believe that, according to a American Psychological Association “Stress in America” survey, students during the school year experience higher levels of stress than the average adult does.

All of this stress put onto students can lead to serious problems like sleep deprivation. Teens are recommended to get around eight hours of sleep every night, but 85 percent of students don’t even come close to that mark, averaging five or six hours of sleep on weekdays. This loss of sleep falls mainly on the amount of homework given out. “Homework usually takes me an hour or two every night so on the days I work I’m up pretty late,” Trent Matheney (21) said. Expecting students to fit in an average of two hours of homework, while also going to whatever extracurricular activities they are involved in.

This extreme amount of stress put onto students is all without mentioning the parents point of view, who could also feel unnecessary stress from large amounts of homework. With parents coming home exhausted from a long day of work to find their child struggling with his or hers homework and asking for help, some parents struggle just as much as their kids since some haven’t seen that type of curriculum in many years.

In my own personal opinion, although I feel homework could be necessary as time to finish assignments that couldn’t be finished in class or as a little practice to get the subject down, I feel the amount of homework given out could get cut back drastically. This would give students time to enjoy their extracurricular activities, while also having free time to enjoy whatever they want, plus giving them the opportunity to get a healthy amount of sleep every night.