Monday, October 24, 2011

At Elite Schools, Easing Up a Bit on Homework

           We all know the burden of  homework and the toll that it takes on our stress levels. I am not a fan of homework and get very stressed out about it almost everyday. Lisa Waller, director of the high school at Dalton, is a very smart women. She understands the stress that homework puts on the elite students and focus' on the importance of sleep. It a very common thing to hear someone talking in the hallway about how they stayed up until two am finishing a paper. I am a fan of sleeping, if I could I would never wake up, but that is just not realist. I am so happy that someone is realizing how important sleep is to an average, stressed out high school student. "Denise Pope...looked at 496 students at one private and one public school and found that those with more than 3.5 hours of homework a night had an increased risk of physical and mental health issues, like sleep deprivation, ulcers and headaches", this is not a situation worth continuing. It gets worse, "In a separate study of 26 schools, Ms. Pope said, 67 percent of more than 10,000 students reported that they were “often” or “always” stressed out.", and this number will not decrease unless action takes place. Now I am not complaining about HHS workload a whole lot, especially compared to some of the elite New York private schools mentioned, but teachers never seem to understand that many other teachers give homework as well and soon it all piles up into a stack so high that a student is buried by their homework.
       Jenny Anderson, from the New York Times, seems to be a very understanding women. She sides with the students, believing that too much stress on a young student can cause some serious damage. Her target audience is students because they will agree with her beliefes. It was a nice article, with simple sentences, interesting statistics and a clear point of view. All school's should follow this trend of less homework in hopes for more sleep.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24homework.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me

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