It’s honestly disgusting how much homework teachers pile on students every night.

Once again we’re stuck staying up all night doing homework. Worksheet after worksheet, packet after packet. What’s the point? To see how late someone can stay up doing pointless work?

The truth is, there may not be any point to it at all.

Ian Munro from the Otago Daily Times wrote, “Probably half the homework I see seems to have little point to it and, according to the kids, while some teachers check and review it assiduously and build on it, others only sporadically follow-up.”

Homework has been by far the worst aspect of high school. Every night, some random worksheet or assignment is due tomorrow. When you have a part-time job or play a sport, this makes every night into a bottomless pit of work.

Jonathan Chein from Whitby School wrote, “Good homework should be challenging, but not so hard that it’s discouraging. Students feel much more positive about their homework if they can complete it in a reasonable amount of time.”

Since so much homework is assigned, students can’t finish in a reasonable time which discourages them. If students are discouraged about their school work, then their grades start to slip.

Andrew Clark is a senior and has done homework his whole schooling career. He said, “If I need extra practice with a certain class or subject, then I’ll go to a teacher with my issue in my free time. But for those classes that I understand, I don’t understand why I should take time out of my day to do extra work that counts as a grade when I have work and other extracurriculars to be focusing on.”

If school is supposed to teach us about the real world, then it should teach us to make our time count when we are actually inside the school. Homework has created these strange habits where kids won’t pay attention in class because they’ll “do it at home.” I work part-time at a grocery store and it’s not like if I don’t finish stocking the shelves I can just go home and finish it.

By piling on assignment after assignment, teachers are distracting students from what really matters. The Mercury News reporter Evan Brandt interviewed an angry parent, David Goldberg, who said of his teenage daughter, “Forget evenings together as a family … other than the 25 minutes she spares for dinner, she is a ghost in our house. She only has three years before she is out of the house (perhaps forever), and we want that time to be enjoyed together.”

If homework makes kids value their work over their own family, then what are we teaching our kids? If anything, kids should spend the most time possible with their families because once they go off to live their own lives, they might not get the chance to.

Junior year in high school is supposed to be the year you decide what your path is for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, junior year is also the year you are supposed to take your most challenging classes which mean more and more homework.

How are we supposed to figure out what we want to do for the rest of our lives when we are stuck at the computer at one in the morning starting an essay about something that you have no interest in? Turns out, your life’s passion is going to have to wait because that packet is due tomorrow.

There are far more effective teaching methods than homework. Mrs. Burich, a French teacher at Mayfield High School, believes there are better ways to engage students. She said, “I make it my mission to connect real-life current events with my curriculum”

This way students are interested in what they are learning and are now motivated to research and learn more.

If teachers didn’t assign as much homework, all students could have a part-time job without the risk of their grades slipping. As someone who has had a part-time job since freshman year, I can say that holding a job has taught me more about responsibility and work ethics than any packet or worksheet ever will.

What better way to teach a student what it’s like to have a job than actually going out and getting a job? Rana Flowers told Zheng Jiangfeng of the China Daily,   “Children do not suddenly become responsible, participating adults at the age of 18 or 21. Without these [other activities], the children of today will not succeed in the jobs of tomorrow.”

It’s time we realize that piles of homework won’t teach a student anything. Instead, we should focus on real experience and give the students the time they need and want to discover themselves.