By Luke Lukose

Students at Hopkinton High School are having mixed emotions throughout the school about homework.

Right now around a thousand kids at Hopkinton High School have to do some type of homework assignment every day.  According to the latimes.com, an average American teenager does 3.5 hours of homework per weeknight and 17 hours of homework per week.

Many sources reports that homework does really take free time from students. According to huffingtonpost.com, an overload of work to do every night can affect a teenager’s social skills and proper brain development, and even the lead to obesity.

Some Hopkinton High School students said that homework really has no effect in helping understand topics better in class and it is more of a waste of time.

“The obsession with collecting homework takes away what the student learn by turning a six hour school day into this 12 hour odyssey of homework and school-day activities”, senior  Greg Reimon said.  It focuses on assignments that may or may not benefit the students. We should turn in the direction to where kids should learn their own ways of learning by recognizing problems they need to work on.”

Many students agree with Reimon’s take. Senior Yongjoon Kim had similar thoughts.

Kim says, “Too much homework can overwhelm students to a point where they don’t even have time to spend for themselves or their families.”

Although many students have negative views on homework at Hopkinton High school, there are some students who believe that homework not only has negative effects but also have some positive effects as well.

Hopkinton High School student Michael Domingo says,  “Homework gives practice and it gives many benefits in class. But at the same time teachers give homework that is not necessary to what they are teaching in class. So I think it can go either way.”

Homework also does provide some benefits to students. According to centerforpubliceducation.org, homework can increase a student’s responsibility and time management. It also helps them learn about perseverance and self-esteem. Some teachers at Hopkinton High school said that homework can really help students stay organized and have give them an effective way of planning for the future.

“ By doing homework, students learn many solid basic lessons that can help them as they get older and approach the real world.” History teacher Michael Finn said,

Vice principal, Joshua Hanna also gave his thoughts about homework at his school.

“The balance point I think we’re trying to strike as a school is making sure we’re assigning the right amount of homework around the right big targeted areas where we believe that a mastery of subjects need to be found Hanna said. Were doing that so that were not over burdening our students who work after school or do other after school activities. There will be times where there is a lot of work on some nights and hopefully there will be times where that is not the case.”