Student Voices: Do High Schoolers Really Have That Much Homework?

By Daniel Wang

Do us high schoolers have as much homework as some say they do?

Everyday at Carlmont High School, I will hear at least one student complain about how much homework they had last night and how little they slept. Also, my friends constantly say how they worked on school work until midnight.
And this should come as no surprise to most people, right? After all, high school can be such a stressful time for so many, with advanced and accelerated classes giving out a heavy workload, studying for the SAT and ACT, and the addition of extracurricular activities.

However, even with all the advanced classes, it feels as if I don’t have any difficulty finishing my homework with an hour and a half. This gives me more than enough time to do my extracurriculars and receive my much-needed eight hours of sleep.

As a sophomore at Carlmont High, my schedule includes five out of my six classes being advanced, honors, or accelerated classes.  Also, I play year-round soccer.

My commitments aren’t much different from other students. Many other high schoolers have courses just as or even more rigorous than mine and also have many extracurriculars they attend to after school.

So what accounts for the difference my peers and I have on homework time?
One possibility is that certain students procrastinate on homework assignments. Some assignments are due a week after they’re assigned, so naturally certain people are bound to put off the assignment until the night is due, which could be problematic if the homework takes a while to finish.

I’m not much different, as I’ll also put an assignment off for until a few nights or the night before it’s due. Yet, it seems as if I am still always able to finish the homework very quickly.

As a side note, I don’t work faster than a lot of other students, at least to what I know.

During tests, at least half the class will turn in their test before me, and they’ll all get scores similar to mine. When we’re doing homework in class, a lot of students get more homework done than me when we’re all working independently and silently.

Another possibility is that some teachers give much more homework than others. For every subject, there are usually two or three teachers teaching that particular subject. Once in awhile, I’ll see one of my friends vent their frustrations over homework on Facebook, yet it never seems I have the teacher my friends complain about.

So have I gotten lucky and have always been matched up with teachers that give students less homework? Highly doubtful.

Lastly, a possibility is how engaged different students are when they are doing their homework. When I’m doing my homework, going on my laptop and clicking on Facebook or Youtube are huge distractions of mine. Once I go on any social website, I become much less productive, and it becomes very difficult to close the webpage.

Some students may try to multitask, such as watching a Youtube video and doing their homework simultaneously. This, obviously, leads to less homework being done.

Therefore, I tend to place my laptop in a place that’s not easily accessible. As a result, I tend to finish my homework a lot quicker.

So, maybe students don’t have as much homework as they say they do. When someone says they worked for seven hours, you might have to factor in the possibility that they were distracted whilst working. Maybe they staved off a large assignment until the due date.

But all in all, finishing your homework quickly just requires some responsibility and focus.

This will allow you to do other things you need to do and acquire your much-needed eight hours of sleep.

Do you think your high school student has too much homework, or is it just taking them longer to do it than it should?