First and foremost, excessive amounts of homework can be detrimental to students’ mental and physical health. It can lead to increased stress and anxiety, as well as sleep deprivation and other health problems. When students are overwhelmed by too much homework, they may become burnt out and lose motivation to learn. I believe that teachers should give out less homework because many kids have work or responsibilities outside of school and don’t deserve to be overworked. By reducing homework, students have proven to get more sleep which leads to better physical and mental health. So instead of benefiting students’ learning, it can actually be detrimental to it. Homework doesn’t necessarily always equate to higher achievement.  

Muntaha Ibrahim, a student at South, thinks there’s too much going on in most students’ lives to stress about homework. “Teens are stressed and overwhelmed.” They are more likely to have problems focusing on topics for extended periods of time. Many students have family problems at home and some are babysitting their younger siblings when they don’t have time for homework. It can be difficult to make homework a priority when you have other responsibilities. Some students have jobs to financially help their parents. Students of color especially often have expectations from their families that they contribute to the household. When you consider inequities in students’ home lives, giving out the same homework to students becomes much more complicated. 

In addition, homework doesn’t motivate people, it just causes extra work and stress. In fact, it might make a student less interested in the subject because they feel overwhelmed. When students do end up doing homework, it is often only to get a good grade, not to actually learn the content. Aisha Ahmed said, “Too much homework can cause students to lose interest in the class because students doing a lot of homework, they’re not able to do their other work properly and wind up losing focus in class.” Despite this, there are also disadvantages to not giving students homework. In some cases, homework gives students the time that they don’t get in class to work and be independent on their own time. Giving homework is teaching in its own way, so students can learn on their time. As a teacher though, it’s effectively their job to do most of the teaching so students’ lives aren’t centered around school and homework.

A potential solution to this situation is that teachers give out homework only if students don’t finish all of their work in class. This way students can complete their unfinished classwork, but it is not so much that it is overwhelming or  too much stress. This may improve students’ mental health. This also benefits teachers because students are more likely to finish their work without feeling overwhelmed.