By: Jefferson Palma

Here in this day and age it’s normal to give work for students to complete after school which is called homework. Homework is a very controversial thing because people argue that it isn’t necessary while others say that it is.

Finland, for example, is rated in the top ten for being one of the best education systems internationally even though they do not give homework, and have shorter school hours than American schools do.

Typically, in Finland, they require 5 hours a day of school while in the US it’s 7 and a half hours.

According to the Princeton Review, in their Student Life in America survey, more than half of the students reported feeling stressed, 25 percent of students felt that homework is their biggest stress, and 33 percent of their studying time they’ve felt struck, stressed, or anxious.

Homework is without a doubt a huge reason why students feel stress. I personally believe this can affect students’ mental health and it’s too much for students when they already have 7 and a half hours of school to learn and to work.

I personally am a high school student in St. Paul, Minnesota and I believe that in addition to homework, they are making it hard for us because they also do not give us enough breaks in between classes (that includes lunch as well).

Breaks are essential for the brain and it can be bombarded with too much information if they don’t give us a healthy amount of time to rest.

I personally have three core classes all in a row, and my only break is the passing time which is 5 minutes. This means that I need to drop everything I learned from science and switch to my brain to learn in history class in a few minutes.

And I find that I have too much workload in a short amount of time.

Another thing I would like to point out is that they don’t give us enough time for lunch. For the people who’re late, they need to wait more than half of the time in line to get their lunch (and I know this from experience) and I believe it isn’t enough time to eat and talk with your friends.

In the end, I would say, high school students are working too hard because we don’t have enough breaks and we also have to worry about homework.