Did you ever think that the pressure from too much homework can cause health problems such as anxiety, and uneasy sleeping? Or that homework fuels the cheating epidemic? Well it does. Homework was originally meant to be a review of what was learned earlier that day in class. But, now at days students are coming home with more and more unnecessary busy work. Some of the down sides of too much homework is that it destroys family life and social structure, because it keeps the child in their room for hours working. Also, the stress of too much after school work can really take a toll on student’s mental health. Nevertheless, homework can be useful. It teaches necessary life lessons such as responsibility and time management. For these reasons, I strongly believe that if students are given an appropriate amount of useful work to take home, homework can be very beneficial.
Now at days, students are given an unbounded supply of after school work.. Alice, a sixteen year old student from Washington D.C. says that she often has about 4 hours of homework each night(Jesella). Added to the approximately 7 hours of school, she spends 12 hours a day working. In comparison, the average adult works approximately 8 hours a day. How are we students supposed to enjoy our youth if we spend more time working than our parents? Also, agonizing amounts of homework can take a gigantic toll on a student’s health. The weight of a high schooler's bookbag can fuel their back pains for years. Furthermore, the mental stress can leave a student sleepless and grouchy. (No wonder why most of us teenagers are so cranky most of the time!) The stress of homework can even be the reason of why students start cheating. According to a 2005 study of 1800 students conducted by Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, more than 60 percent of students admitted to have committed some sort of plagiarism(McAdams). The mental stress caused by an overly unnecessary amount of