As a senior, I have had my fair share of homework.

Every night during my four years of high school, I spent hours doing homework and studying for tests.

I spent time stressing and doing what some would call “busy work.”

After honors and AP classes, I have been told that homework is a “necessity” to learn and I have been graded for accuracy on almost every assignment I have done at my house.

How is that helpful though?

I feel homework is good for practice, but to what extent is necessary?

Although homework is a way of retaining knowledge learned in the few hours prior, in no way is it a learning method.  

When is too much homework really too much?

I am a firm believer that homework should not be a requirement. Instead, it should be offered for those who want to practice.

Homework isn’t used for “practice” anymore and that’s the problem.

Homework has become something students dread and most of the time never do because of the excessive amounts.

In my opinion, no “practice” should be graded for accuracy. Rather, it should be used as a tactic for better understanding a certain subject or concept.

Instead, students are punished for not completing homework for each class when each teacher requires hours per night for completion.

In a 2007 Metlife study, it was discovered that around 45% of students in seventh through twelfth grade do homework for over an hour each night. With that, 6% of students said that they spend over three hours each night completing homework.

Students grades suffer either way, though, whether they choose to get graded for accuracy or not do it at all and that’s why students just don’t worry about doing it.  

It’s not worth the stress or the time when you know you’re going to make a bad grade either way.

That’s why “homework” has become something it never should have.

It started out with good intentions and now it is just used as a teaching tactic or a way to keep students busy. That isn’t the student’s job.

I promise that us students have better things to do like spend time with family and get enough sleep, which according to sleepfoundation.org, is eight to ten hours per night.

Sleep is also considered “vital” to your health just like the water and food your body needs for survival and beneficial health.

I know firsthand that sleep is not anywhere close to the top of my priority list when it should be. Rather, I use the hours I could be sleeping or spending time with my family doing homework that doesn’t even benefit me in the end.

That’s not fair.

Homework to me is a way to get more grades but is also a setup for failure when loaded with excess amounts.

It’s not okay for students to feel the extreme stress they do just because they know if they don’t do their homework and do it well, that a bad grade will be put in the gradebook.

If they are anything like me, school comes close to first and they will do anything to be their best.

Having pointless homework grades affect that isn’t the way it should be.

If homework today was the way it was intended to be long ago, then there wouldn’t be room for complaints because it would be used for the sole purpose of learning and education.

Sadly, it’s exactly the opposite and homework is used as a second section of teaching and that’s physically exhausting.