Picture this, an 8th grader coming broke-down into class with baggy eyes, having their back slouched, and seeming like they are about to pass out because they were up all night studying for their math and Spanish test after 4 hours of sports they have just completed while looking like a complete zombie, is it possible that homework has been assigned too much nowadays? Source Troy Gehlhoff tells me “Homework should be cut down because it interferes with extracurricular activities.” This shows that this takes away from our sleep because sports and homework take time, and on average, kids have up to 1 hour of homework a night, and this time is taking away from kids sleep. According to Carrie Gillen, “kids from 9th to 12th grade who are in sports and other after-school activities only get about 6-7 hours of sleep a night including with the homework, and they are required for 8.5-9 hours of sleep.” This shows that kids do not get enough sleep because since they have so much homework, it takes away from their sleep time which leads to exhaustion in the mornings. Indeed, homework takes away from a lot of your sleep and it affects you when you wake up to get ready for school because it causes you to be more lousy and lazy in the morning caused by the lack of sleep with only getting about not even ¾ of the required sleep. StatCrunch shows that if you deprive in sleep, you will have about a 40% less grade than if you did when you have a required amount of sleep for a teenager.
Traditional school schedules affect students sleep patterns by forcing them to wake up early when their body wants to sleep, which leads to sleep deprivation (wol.iza.org). Again, sleep deprivation can lead to lots of negative mental and physical health issues. Npr.org says, “Teenagers are getting six to seven hours of sleep a night, and they need eight to ten.” Because most students do not become tired until around eleven or midnight, they are unable to get the right amount of sleep because the school start times are so early (wol.iza.org).
24 hours without sleep makes people's mind go to a state as if they were legally drunk. This is why middle school start times should be later, because sleep deprivation leads to serious consequences for academic achievement, more sleep makes athletes perform better and get injured less, and not getting enough sleep can effect your physical and mental health, perhaps permanently. While the opposing side says that it is preparing kids for the real world, it really is just making them grow up too soon.
Assuming by the time teenagers start high school they will have around three hours of homework each night. Most high schoolers will not start their homework right as they get home, they will take a much-needed break and relax for a few hours, meaning they would not start their homework until 8:00PM. The homework is not very easy, forcing them to spend even longer on their homework and they are awake until midnight trying to figure out how to calculate the mass of Saturn.For instance, during the school week most students would be going to bed at 11:32 PM and wake up at 7:20 allowing them to get 7 hours and 48 minutes opposed to weekends where they would fall asleep at 12:56 and wake up at 10:36 getting 9 hours a 40 minutes of needed sleep (Wahlstrom). The amount of sleep they are getting on the weekdays is not sufficient to promote healthy growth. It is important for everyone to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night to be able to function properly. With a lack of sleep comes a risk of medical
When students do receive enough sleep they have enhanced performance physically, mentally and academically. A study from the NSF (national sleep foundation) found that students who had a school day starting 1 hour later
Sleep is a very important part of our life. The right amount of sleep is important in how productive our day turns out to be. Early school hours are causing children to not get enough sleep and making the children vulnerable to depression, anxiety, weight gain, lack of focus, and being late to school. Adolescents need between 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night. However, they are not able to get that because by the time they fall asleep at night it is past 11pm, and then they have to get up for school around 6am. The solution is to start school at a later time. Good sleep would mean that students will be more focused and productive in school.
87% of high school students get less than the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep (Richter). Over the past few years, the amount of time students spend on homework has gone up , some up to 4 hours on it. While the recommended amount is still at 2. While taking away homework could be a possibility, students can still get benefits out of doing it. What many sleep experts recommend doing, is starting school later. Some of the advantages of later school starting times are that teens get more sleep, perform better academically, and are mentally healthier.
Research shows that sleep is a necessity for everyone, especially teenagers. When starting school a little later, students can get at least 2-3 hours of extra sleep. With a 7 hour day at school, a couple of hours of homework, studying, and after school activities, there is not much time for sleep. With the extra sleep, when students get to school, they would be focused and ready to learn! “A common belief is that adolescents are tired, irritable and uncooperative because they choose to stay up too late or are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy, a study noted. Educators tend to think that adolescents learn best in the morning and if they simply went to sleep earlier, it would improve their concentration” (Schaffhauser 2). For all of these reasons, it is very important for teens should sleep.
Homework in general can be difficult for a student, but when they get multiple assignments from more than one class, it can be overwhelming. Homework alone can take hours on end to finish without adding after school activities like sports or business at home. Studying for exams can be even more stressful and may take even longer than doing homework, making late nights even later. Students have to study in order to get good grades, but cutting their sleep short will not benefit them.
However there was a positive correlation with success and sleep (Suskind). Homework can get in the way of activities that lead to better success. If the homework load is lessened, kids can have more time to sleep, which is very important to a child’s and teenager's development. Many health issues occur when students do not get enough sleep. The Medical Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School published a research article that states a lack of sleep aids in the development of diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.(Sleep and Disease Risk)The article shows that students need sleep, and with the balancing of school, activities, and home it cuts into time for sleep. With the sleep deprivation and a large workload students are very prone to health issues and stress.
The quality of students’ homework is much more important than the quantity of students homework and data collected during recent studies has proven that homework is not making the grade. “. . . American students are entangled in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math according to the most recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)” (Murphy-Paul). Students should not be given an excessive amount of homework because the pressure of having to complete excessive amounts of homework every night is quite daunting for most students. Knowing how much homework is the right amount correlates with age and grade. An 8th grade student should not be given a myriad of homework that would keep her awake past midnight completing assignments. In any case, there should be a limit on the amount of homework all teachers give to students because an excessive amount of homework would eventually cause students to become uninterested in school and learning, which could result in poor test scores and low ranks in international academic rankings. In order for students to carry out daily activities throughout the day restfully, teachers must be able to provide homework that does not exceed the appropriate amount of time needed to complete it, which is based on grade level. If teachers are too clueless of a students health due to excessive amounts of homework, many students will develop cases of sleep
The next reason too much homework is harmful to students is that studies show more homework to cause lower test scores. One to two hours of homework a week does not cause a major change in test scores (Wolchover). There is no evidence of homework having any academic benefit in elementary or middle school, and the academic benefit found in high school is very weak (Kohn). Homework is not shown to help students academically until grades ten through twelve (Wolchover). There is also no proof that homework increases good study habits in students (Kohn).
Sometimes teachers assign tons and tons of homework. That homework is hard to get done, especially if you’re a procrastinator or you just don’t understand what the assignment is saying. An average teenager is supposed to get around eight and one half, to nine hours of sleep, sometimes its recommended nine and one half hours is best! With homework being time consuming either way, whether you like to do it or not, it will most of the time get in the way of sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep you are tired in school and that’s when you start to not pay attention, fall asleep in class, then after that your
Studies have proven that when students get more sleep, their test scores actually go up” says www.educationdegree.com. This informs us that when kids get more sleep, it makes them more focused and concentrated, and it reveals in their grades. www.huffingtonpost.com acknowledges, “but the grades of students who slept seven hours each night during the exam period were nearly 10 percent higher than those of students who got less sleep.” This again proves that students would theoretically get better test scores with more sleep than worse test scores with less sleep. To sum it up, sleep helps children achieve the A that they always
Students often complain about not getting enough sleep; this is usually accurate because many kids stay up until the late hours of the night doing homework.
Stress and anxiety in students is mainly caused by homework (Galloway 3). Excessive Homework can cause a variety of health problems and “Studies that have explored the relation between homework and well-being indicate that number of hours of homework is negatively associated with psychological well-being, physical health symptoms, and sleep.” and these health issues can be very detrimental to students (Galloway 4). According to Galloway a “study of 1,457 students…found that academic demands [were the main reason] students gave for their sleep-deprivation.” and a lack of sleep can be detrimental to learning and engagement in school. A study of Australian high school students showed that doing more homework led to “more mood disturbance (…and fatigue) (Galloway 4). More time spent doing homework, the