Homework is meant for students to continue their school learning outside class but for many, studying for long hours each night, pressure from parents, frequent exams, tests and assignments only leads to a weight of stress on their shoulders.
Too much homework can lead to stress, negative behaviour and health problems, depression and a lot worse. Research shows that in South Korea, the amount of teen suicides rise each year dramatically as exams in school starts. According to the National Statistical office, 1,000 students from ages 10-19 committed suicide from 2000 to 2003 due to stress in school studies. This shows the high stress levels in Korea that are leading to teenagers committing suicide as a last resort. In addition, Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union and the Korea Youth Counselling Institute have surveyed Korean teens on if students had considered the idea of suicide. 48% of all the students had suicide ideation.
Just as in South Korea, in UWC students are feeling stressed in school studies. A high school student says she often feels stressed and tired from the amount of studying. “Tests in high school have become very overpowering and stressful. It gets especially tough because of the upcoming IGCSE’s,” she says. Studies have shown that more than two hours of school homework everyday is counterproductive and she agrees, “When I am stressed, I tend to sleep very late and am up till 1 to 2 am studying, which leads me to being very tired at school and unable to study or understand what the teacher is saying,” she says. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that teens should be getting at least 9 and a half hours of sleep each night, however 58% teens sleep less than 7 hours each night due to studying.
Stress from school studies leads to the question, what is causing this pressure in middle school students? Is it self pressure to get better grades, peer pressure to be as clever as your friends, pressure to not disappoint your teachers? These could all be reasons why students face pressure to do well in studies, but most students say that the pressure to do well comes from their parents.
Another middle school student explains the harsh consequences of not doing good enough on exams at school. “I am always very stressed when doing tests because I know that if I don’t do well, there will be consequences. One time, my parents were so disappointed with my grade that my mum didn’t allow me to meet up with friends or use my phone for 2 months as well as doing intensive maths studying every day,” she says.
How do we stop stress in studies? Since most of the pressure on school studies in middle school comes from parents being harsh on their children, parents should be more forgiving and help their child improve positively, not through stress. Should parents lecture their child? Limit their activities? Punish the child? According to the University of Michigan researchers, parents should create a home environment that stimulates learning. When there is a good environment at home and good parent and child interactions, children perform better. Punishing and lecturing children and teens results to the child feeling more pressure and stress to do better and can lead to the breaking of family relationships, health issues and negative behaviour. To prevent stress, parents should motivate and support their children not create more stress. Choose between the path to stress or the path to success.
Sources:
"Statistics Korea." Statistics Korea. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015. <http://kostat.go.kr/portal/english/index.action>.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea>.
"Is Too Much Homework Bad for Kids' Health?" Healthlines RSS News. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015. <http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114>.
"Teens and Sleep." Sleep for Teenagers. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015. <https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep>.
"Bad Report Card: Are Parents Too Tough? | University of Michigan News."Bad Report Card: Are Parents Too Tough? | University of Michigan News. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015. <http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/23062-bad-report-card-are-parents-too-tough>.
Nice article, with a lot to make my brain think about. I loved how you did not just talk about the problem, but what was causing the problem as well. As a student myself, I think we have reached an era of perfection, where we are not happy with "good" grades. Something about the current technology and the new world has made us become perfectionists in everything that we do. I am not exactly sure at the moment where exactly this perfectionism comes from, however, I would love to hear your guys' thoughts.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article. I like the fact that you actually define homework differently than everybody else. A really good anecdote, leaving the first paragraph on a cliff hanger. I like that you gave facts that brings deeper thinking, without really telling why and that leads to the reader to answer the question themselves. I also liked the fact that you didn't just lead the perspective of the high school students, but also younger students and how they are dealing with stress, because they will be stressed in school sooner or later.
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ReplyDeleteAmber I really like how you choose to focus on an issue that is very relevant for many teens these days. The fact that stress from school is causing teenagers in Korea to commit suicide is very scary and in my opinion is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed, it is great that you have decided to use your writing to make people aware of this issue.
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