by Alexa Duplisea

2:02 P.M. and I already feel stressed but the day is only half over. I have lacrosse practice from 2:30-5:00 P.M. every week day and then come home to hours of homework and chores. I still try to get to bed early. At midnight, my homework is finally done, and I go to bed just to be woken up by my menacing alarm clock at 6:00 A.M. Then I start all over again, knowing that my day is going to be the same as it was the day before.

After coming home from a long tiring day of school and exhausting sports practice, no kid wants to have to sit down and spend an extra 3 hours doing homework.

The students taking the AP and honors classes get the most homework in the school; three, four, maybe even five hours a night of homework. Then teachers expect us to get lots of sleep, so we don’t fall asleep in their class. That is not happening.

In a recent survey of 103 students, seniors taking mostly AP classes reported having more than four hours of homework a night, and they get about 5-6 hours of sleep. Seniors taking honors classes reported getting about 1-3 hours of homework and 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Seniors also have to deal with jobs after school, so time for homework can be minimal.

In eighth grade students are not getting as much homework because honors and AP classes are not an option yet. They reported getting 1-3 hours a night though and 6-7 hours of sleep.

Teens need about 9 ¼ hours of sleep each night, but most usually don’t get anywhere near that much. When teachers load on the homework students get stressed out about getting it all done in time, and then they end up spending all night on their homework and not getting sleep to keep them awake for the next day.

My friend had an experience with this not too long ago. She had a big essay due in her Honors English class the following day. When she got home, she realized that she had tons of homework in her other classes, too. “I started to freak out and I was worrying I wouldn’t get it all done in time.”

Since she had soccer practice after school she did not get home until 5:00P.M., and she still had to finish her chores, shower and eat dinner. By the time she got all that done she said it was already 8:30P.M., and she hadn’t started her homework yet.

“I ended up doing my homework until 10:30P.M., and then I had to finish writing my essay. I was already so tired from practice I didn’t know if I could stay awake to finish my essay.”

After staying up until 1:00A.M. my friend finished her essay, but she told me that staying awake in school the next day was hard and concentrating was impossible. She couldn’t even go to practice because she felt sick from not getting enough sleep.

I take a lot of honors classes, and coming home after my sports practices I hate having to do my homework. Sometimes I am just so tired that I don’t have the energy to get it done. I do a sport every season, so I am up all night doing homework.

Teachers love when kids involve themselves in afterschool activities and clubs, and colleges look for that too; but it is hard to find the joy in them if teachers are putting us up to our eyeballs in homework.