Does homework cause depression?

The contentious subject of homework continues to bug many especially when it comes to assessing its benefits and demerits. Even though this has been debated ever since its inception, we still don’t have proper regulation standards to help govern how they should be assigned to students.

Educators are left to bear the burden of determining the correct amount of homework that they assign to a given cohort. To do so, they have to consider numerous factors that greatly contribute to its effectiveness.

When this is done wrong, it leads to very dire consequences that give society no other option but to just live with it. Some include things like negative factors resulting from the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle and increased levels of cheating amongst its population.

However, homework has been proven to be particularly fruitful most of the time when done right. This means that teachers, students, and parents are all invested in its success. Whom am I kidding? As days progress, more and more parents become even busier than before. Some rarely have time to keep track of their children’s academic progression.

But whose fault is it? Well, capitalists perceive it as an opportunity cost. Tell me, if you were to choose between working three jobs a day to put food on the table or sacrifice one of the jobs to help your kid with homework, what would you do?

Its things like this that make most parents look at homework as a teacher-student responsibility instead of a collective effort for them too. Yet, we still ask if homework is beneficial?

Despite its obvious advantage of enhancing knowledge through the reinforcement of concepts that were learned during school hours, the other side of homework can get pretty ugly. I understand that you might have wondered before if homework causes depression, right?

Well, with research evidence it would only be fair to state that sadly it does. Homework is an opportunity cost for developmental growth among kids especially when the recommended quantity is exceeded.

Today, certain frameworks are now being adopted to help quantify and regulate the amount of homework that a student gets per night. An example is the Sierra Homework Policy, which prohibits giving students more than ten minutes of homework per class.

If it is anything to go by, then this policy recommends up to 10-minute homework for first graders and up to 2 hours of homework for senior high schoolers.

If these were to be ignored, it further warns that students would be at risk of foregoing their developmental needs and would not culture other crucial life skills. Another research survey affirmed that more than two-thirds of high schoolers and college students are forced to use drugs such as marijuana and alcohol to cope with homework related stress.

To help measure this, the lot also indicated that they experienced at least one symptom related to stress. The study focused mainly on symptoms such as exhaustion, headaches, loss of weight, stomach issues, and lack of sleep.

I believe that homework was intended for the right purpose, which is to help students catch up and retain knowledge learned in school. After spending close to 8 hours of their day in class, do you think an additional 2 hours of homework is necessary?