Let me ask you this: How many hours does homework consume of your life? How long do you spend at a desk doing work while the younger version of you is enjoying their free time? Homework consumes and drains us, and I think it can be a waste of time. 

Students across America continue to score lower than the basic levels in a variety of subjects. Ranked #31 In PISA testing, we continue to be outperformed by other countries. When it comes to homework, varying reports suggest our students spend 1.5 – 3 hours doing homework daily. Conversely, the Finnish education system is perhaps lesser known to be educationally rich but benevolent towards students. While many high performance countries enforce the idea of working hard and studying harder (this has been shown it works in many East-Asian countries where they score top marks), Finland’s healthy take on learning has proved beneficial. Their students not only start school later, don’t press standardized testing, but have less than 30 minutes a day of homework! That is almost 3 times less than what is pushed here. 

So then why do we need to work so hard? Our students have over 7 hours of school and then push through athletics or extracurricular activities, to then start additional hours of learning. What time do our brains really shut off when they are being stimulated for hours? Studies have shown that more than 70% of high school students get less than 8 hours of sleep (the suggested amount for growing teens) and some students who get less than 6 hours reported using alcohol and other drugs. The extra work and learning disrupts our sleep and impacts our mental and physical growth. 

As we have seen, decreasing the homework load is proven to work in other countries and could work here. The scores and marks resulting from Finland are drastic compared to the U.S and comparatively they barely receive extra work. I understand that teachers are not always able to give all the work in class, but a 45 minute to hour assignment for home is unreasonable. If students have three or four subjects all requesting hours of homework, that barely leaves time for other things like having fun or reading. 

I think homework is a beneficial part of our lives and can be really helpful, but when too much homework is given, it can be draining and eventually detrimental to their well – being. We could easily change the system and reduce homework by hours to leave time for studying, reading for pleasure, or any fun activities that are great for students’ mental health.