Impressions on Workload

We are almost two months into this new semester. New teachers, new classes, and worst of all, new homework. At the beginning of August, many students walked into their classes with the same thought in mind: how severe will the workload be this year? Well, after spending over 50 days adjusting to this new stage in our life, here is what some students think about our homework.

After conducting a survey evaluating the Roosevelt workload, it was found that 52% of responders spend 2–3 hours on average doing homework each day. According to an article posted by the Stanford Graduate School of Education, “any student who is doing more than 3.5 hours of homework a night is at risk for higher stress levels and poor mental and physical health.” 27% of responders surpassing the limit with a daily 3.5 hours of work and out of the 82 students who answered this survey, only 42 manage to complete all of their assignments on time. This means that the other 40 have to be assigned to Block 6, unless they manage to finish their work in the morning or during breaks.

29% of the students believe that the amount of homework they are assigned is manageable, while 58.4% think that they are receiving too large of a workload. The remaining 12.6% generally thought that it depended on the day or type of assignment if their work was reasonable; one student commented that “it is manageable but it is at the breaking point”. This large of a difference is a clear sign that Condors are being overburdened with assignments. An issue like this should be alarming for our administration, given that “too much homework [results] in stress, physical health problems and a general lack of balance” (The Princeton Review).

Several opinions were given on this issue and suggestions to mend it. Some of these were:

• “More tests [and] less projects would prepare us better for the DP.”
• “The personal project takes too much time.”
• “Teachers should consider the amount of homework they send since we have [five] periods in a day and we get homework in other classes as well.”
• “Very unbalanced–some days I have a lot and other days I don’t.”

As anyone can see, students are concerned about their workload, and many have constructive suggestions to relieve the excessive pressure that we are all currently under.

Lia Mulanovich, Staff Writer for Condor’s Nest.