8:30 am – New message from —- : “i woke up at 5 so i could study for the mr. ____’s test”

The other week a teacher of mine assigned our class more homework than usual over the Labor Day weekend. Somebody in our class said, “Mrs. —-, you shouldn’t give us any homework – it’s Labor Day.” And the teacher said something like: “Well, you have three days to do it; you’ve got plenty of time.” That comment really got me thinking.

10:00 am – Google Classroom reminder (Mr. —-): Current Event due tomorrow. Shoot, that’s due tomorrow? But he didn’t even tell us beforehand…

Isn’t the purpose and reason behind the weekend to rest? Even the concept of Labor Day is based on the idea of taking a total break from work. So why give more assignments on the weekends if we already get five days of them per week?

Alert: Work on your math homework. Test on Friday

Reminder: Meet with Mr. —- after school

I counted up the average daily amount of hours I spend on homework and it added up to about five hours. (That’s a lot of time to spend on homework, considering I spend seven hours daily on class work anyways.) I get home at 3:15 pm if there aren’t any traffic jams or activities I’m working on after school. So I have about six hours and forty-five minutes left in my day before I go to sleep, and five of those are eaten up by my school work. But maybe I want some time to relax in between each session of school work– maybe soothe my mind, so I don’t overwork it going straight from deriving polar functions to reading about a couple of decades of American history in one sitting– that rest time might very well make up thirty minutes of my allotted six hours and forty-five minutes. So now I’m down to–

11:52 am – New message from —- : “this math homework hurts my brain. i’m seriously going to be up late working on this with everything else i need to do”

– I’m up to five and a half hours out of six hours forty-five minutes. What about the bathroom breaks I need? What about eating dinner with my family? Those two things combined take up about forty-five more minutes. I’m up to six hours and fifteen minutes out of six hours forty-five minutes. What about the chores I need to do? My family depends on me to clean up around the house because they work so much. That’s another thirty minutes, thus fulfilling my allotted time. I would be able to go to bed and get a moderately good rest at this point.

Reminder: Soccer practice from 3-5:30 pm

Google Classroom reminder: Mr. —- added an assignment. Oh @#%!, soccer practice. I totally forgot about that.

What about sports and other extracurricular activities? Those things take up a major amount of time. Any West athlete knows that it’s extremely hard to squeeze in homework after your practices and games. What if you’re in a school club? Meetings after school take up even more time. So now I’m encroaching on my sleep schedule.

7:14 pm: New message from —- : “well we could probably beat those other teams if we just focused on strategy instead of only exercise.”

7:16 pm: New message from —- : “yeah. i’m actually dying from all those squats, i just want to take a nap”

So now I just lost two hours from my sleep schedule, which means I’m getting about six hours of sleep. That’s about three hours under the recommended amount of sleep you should get (the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, suggests at least eight and a half hours of sleep nightly). About 80% of students aren’t getting enough sleep according to the AAP. The effects of sleep deprivation pop up constantly during school and at home: lack of concentration, mood swings, sometimes even depression and anxiety. Those last two make it even harder to sleep.

Twitter Notification (@—-) : “my favorite thing about the school year so far is all the breakdowns i’ve had from being so stressed about homework [crying emoji]”

Keep in mind, this is the worst case scenario that I’m talking about. However, the worst case isn’t far from what students are really experiencing. I don’t think it’s about improper time management on the student’s part; I think the problem lies in too much homework. That’s the conclusion I’ve made, and I think a majority of the student body would agree.

12:41 am – New message from —- : “i’m still not even done with my physics”

12:45 am – New message from —- : “UUGGGHHHHH”