To the Editor:

Kids all over my middle school are always complaining about the amount of homework our teachers assign. They say that school is “taking over their life.” I think I agree.

Every day after school, I go home and do homework. I never have time just to relax. Sometimes, I even have to miss softball practices because, if I don’t, I won’t have time for homework later. Yes, that is just how much homework we get.

Along with many other children, I feel homework is very stressful to me. If you don’t have an assignment done, even just once, your average goes down, sometimes even a whole point.

Since many kids are getting stressed over homework, they are losing sleep. One in four middle-school parents say that their child loses sleep due to excessive amounts of homework. Teenagers should get around nine to nine-and-a-half hours of sleep every night, but the average amount that we actually get  is Seven-and-a-quarter hours.

It looks to me like homework could very well be a huge contributor to the lack of sleep. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke, which obviously isn’t healthy for middle-schoolers. Also, many students fall asleep in class, which causes them to miss out on directions and get in trouble.

On the other side of the argument, I can kind of see how teachers and occasionally parents, think that homework helps kids learn. They believe that the more practice their children get on the subject, the better they become at it.

In some cases, this is true, but what they don’t realize is that we students have multiple teachers who all have this theory so they all give out a lot of homework. A lot of homework in every class adds up. Fast.

Also, we only have on average two days to get the work done and handed in before it’s marked late. A lot of homework plus a little time equals very messy and sometimes unfinished work. Yes, it does seem kind of unfair, doesn’t it?

Overall, a little bit of homework does help, but not the truckload that we’re getting now. That would solve a few problems for many middle-schoolers.

Riley Callahan

Farnsworth Middle School