To All The Students That Struggle With Too Much Homework:

I know that sometimes it gets hard to keep up on work, but it’ll be okay, except for the fact that when you finally get finished with one class’s workload, you have to deal with a whole other class’s work. And then another. And then another.

There have been numerous times you’ve probably taken notes on something just to forget it the next week; taking notes out of desperation just because it’s a grade. Yes, it would’ve been nice to actually take your time and let the information sink in, but you can’t do that because you had to write an essay that’s due tomorrow.

For some it comes easy. Some have lots of time to complete all of their work, but for most of us who are in a club or a sport it just gets harder. We are all expected to be in a sport or a club year round, and also complete all of our work on time. The New York Times states, “The students reported averaging 3.1 hours of homework nightly, and they added comments like: “There’s never a break. Never.”” This quote perfectly sums up most of us students’ lives. That feeling of never having a break leads to burnout and even more work.

Honestly, I would forget about being social and making friends because remember you have to do that worksheet that you don’t understand at all. This will lead to less growth as a person. Stanford News also mentioned that “students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills” according to the researchers.” Students are not gaining critical life skills due to increased homework stress. How can our teachers and parents expect us to finish all of this work, get good grades, do well in sports but also not be lonely, and cooped up in our room constantly. Of course, school comes first but, when you have no social life because of it, is it really just homework?

So let’s try and find a compromise. For starters, instead of loading us students with busy work, let us do those assignments in class. I’ve had classes where we get 10 minutes at the end of every hour to work on homework, and even that ten minutes helps. Another thing that I believe could help would be giving us longer due dates. Making assignments due 2-3 days after they are assigned rather than one would give a grace period to whoever may need it. So hopefully this letter finds you well, and to anyone else reading take these things into consideration because this could be you.

Sincerely,

Hunter Burk