After a long school day, the only thing I want to do is go home and sit on the couch. But I, and many other students, don’t have that option. After sports, speech practice, or hours of rehearsals for the fall play, students must go home to face hours of homework that they were assigned that day.

The amount of homework I have is not due to one teacher, but the fact that teachers don’t have a way to communicate with each other how much work they are assigning burdens students.

I’m not in any way blaming the teachers, because the amount of communication to do so would be overwhelming. So instead of fighting over who gets to assign more work for one night, all teachers should consider lowering their workload.

The most difficult part about the massive amount of homework is trying to get a substantial amount of sleep. On Mondays I end school at six PM, and on every other day I participate in golf matches or extracurriculars until about the same time. I average four to five hours of homework every night. So combined with the time I take to eat, walk my dogs or go to church, finish college applications and SAT prep, I’ll go to sleep at midnight to 1 in the morning. It’s a great system, especially when you have to wake up at 5:45 for zero period.

Furthermore, I, among most of my peers, have little to no time to do anything but study. According to Everyday Health, good friends and healthy friendships contribute to your well-being and reduce the stress we endure.

We are taught that academia is far more important than our social skills, relationships, and even extracurriculars.

According to The World Economic Forum, students in Finland spend an average of 2.8 hours on homework a week. One might think that this would lower their test scores or make them less smart, but on the contrary, Finland’s PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) ranking is 12, while the U.S. is at 36.

Now, I completely understand that teachers have a curriculum to follow. And, I’m not saying we should completely get rid of homework. But, I strongly believe that lessening the workload should be thoroughly considered.

It’s one thing to assign homework for the purpose of knowledge, and another to assign it for busywork.