It’s difficult to balance school and extracurriculars. Photo Credit: Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com.

Do you think high school students should have homework? If your answer is yes, then why?

As reported in The Washington Post in 2020, a teenager spends an average of  2.7 hours a day doing homework during the school week. Added to the hours in a regular school day, that means that young people spend about 10 hours a day listening to lectures and completing assignments. Consider that most students, especially in high school, have jobs straight after school and work until 9 or 10 p.m. Other students are in the band, play sports, or have other extracurriculars demanding of their time. How can they keep up?

I asked junior Jada Waller, who plays basketball, for her opinion on homework. She said that students should not have homework because they are already in school for 8 hours a day, and if schoolwork can not be done in that amount of time then the work should be spread over two days instead of one.

Another student I interviewed was junior Richard Bowyer. Bowyer is also against homework. He said that being in school 8 hours a day and then having to go to work or sports practice is too much for teenagers to stay caught up with. “Teenagers enjoy their sports and like to be good at them. [They] need time for sports and school.” 

Margaret Dodd teaches the Health Occupations nursing class here at Greenbrier East. Dodd said she feels that work should be done in class, but if a student is falling behind or struggling in that class, or has been absent a lot, then work should have to be completed at home.

How do you feel about homework? Leave a comment below about your opinion and experiences!