A student sits at her desk, surrounded by mountains of assignments. Three essays, a math report and a science project — all due within days of each other. She sat there staring down at everything, not knowing how she would get it all done.
“It makes me tired a lot, and I get anxious for literally no reason other than the fact that my day could be stressful,” says sophomore Taylor Carpenter.
These constant nights with piles of work and projects, all with overlapping deadlines, is becoming the norm in our current day of learning. It’s time we admit that students are being given way too much schoolwork all at once.
The problem lies in how often the planning between departments and teachers is disconnected. Each teacher pushes their students to excel and to do their best, however, they give them a load of assignments as “the only way to prove it.”
Even so, there’s rarely ever any coordination to prevent those assignments from stacking up in the same week. There is not enough time within the seven day time span for every single assignment they need to get done.
“It’s always so much homework that I have to do every single night,” Carpenter says.
It’s as if no one is considering the big picture of a student schedule. Teachers and administrators are so focused on cramming as much learning as possible into each week that they forget students are human, not machines. The result? Stress, exhaustion and a loss of motivation.
We continue to ignore the impact this has on students’ mental health. With so much work piled up at once, the constant pressure starts to take a toll. It’s hard to concentrate when your brain is trying to juggle three different assignments, all with the same deadline, and possible family or friend issues going on.
Students aren’t able to dive into any task with full focus, due to worrying about other things while doing said task, meaning they’re producing rushed, shallow work. Worse, this never-ending pressure leads to anxiety, burnout and even depression.
I’ve seen it in friends, classmates and even in myself — the overwhelming weight of too many assignments at once leaves us feeling like we’re constantly drowning. It prevents emotional and social growth, as you’re stuck at home doing work, clubs and various other things for school just to be told it’s not enough, and you receive a C letter grade.
You know What’s even more concerning? The overload of assignments is actually hurting the quality of learning. Students cannot absorb information they supposedly need to succeed in life when they’re just racing to get through tasks.
They don’t have time to reflect, think critically or develop a deeper understanding of the material. They only have time to worry how to get it done in time for the due date.
When work is piled on top of one another, the only goal becomes passing, not learning. This isn’t the way we should teach children. Students shouldn’t be forced to speed through everything just to get it in and get the grade.
We are expected to learn to live our future, and we rely on teachers, admin and the state to properly do that. But students are so worried and so focused to get assignments in, to get that A or at the very least get a D to pass.
Let’s not forget about the development students lose. School should be more than just education, more than just grading, more than just testing — it should be a place for students to grow socially and emotionally.
But many students I’ve met and seen, especially high school students who try to excel past their class and do their best to prove their worth, don’t know how to socialize. They have to stay home and work on their assignments, so they can pass the semester.
“I cannot remember the last time I actually did something socially of my own free will,” sophomore Cameron Music says.
We can’t force students to attend rallies, or make them meet a specific attendance rate just so they can socialize. It should be planned out properly to where they get that chance themselves to relax or go out in their own time.
Students who are often told that they need to “excel in order to get the best living after school.” They will find themselves in honors classes they don’t want to attend, AP and dual credit classes they don’t need to be in for the career they want, and joining multiple afterschool clubs to meet their interests just to be faced with more work or crazy expectations.
Pushing themselves to their limits just to prove they are worth it, to prove they are smarter than the rest, to prove they can be a responsible adult, to prove they are worth the time.
We are teenagers, kids most of us. We shouldn’t be put through all this pressure to be the best or have to be stuck in piles of work. Education is important, but we are making it seem like it’s the only thing needed to live properly even though it is not.
We’re training students to be academic robots, not well-rounded individuals as we should be.
Some might argue that having a heavy workload and schedule prepares students for real-life pressures to help them build resilience. However, that’s just an excuse to justify this broken system. Life doesn’t expect us to handle multiple projects, multiple complex assignments or multiple clubs that also require you to keep a high grade.
Pushing students to manage an unrealistic amount of work is not the way to teach them time management or resilience — it simply leads to exhaustion and burnout. Resilience is built when students learn to balance their responsibilities, not when they’re overwhelmed by them.
Another argument some could say is that the system requires students to meet certain knowledge in a specific amount of time.
Why? Why have we made a system for students, within high school especially, to learn crazy amounts of information within a month that won’t even be used in their life.
“If we have goals to meet for different standards we need to cover, it can impact how quickly we need to move through standards,” Chemistry Teacher Sydney Leonard says.
Teachers are expected to go through assignments and units faster or slower depending on the curriculum and other things. The concern is why are we needing to rush through these things? Why do we find it necessary to teach things people are not going to use in their day to day life?
You can argue how we are going to need everything we learn in school, but we won’t. Unless someone chooses to learn complex chemistry equations, or how to break down a circle or triangle, then you won’t be using it.
My parents, and many adults I know cannot help their children with their homework, because guess what? They didn’t remember everything they learned in highschool or middle school because they did not need it in their life.
That isn’t a bad thing, however it’s proof of the fact we are teaching the wrong things. The teaching system and the school system needs a change. The curriculum needs an update.
Children shouldn’t be under pressure to do things they aren’t interested in. Their worth and value should not be based on their grades or testing. Teachers shouldn’t need to be pushing out assignments left and right just to meet quick unit deadlines.
Children’s mental health should not be put on the line, just to prove they can do more work then someone else. Give them time to be kids, give them time to actually learn.
“If they gave us just a little bit less work, we can spend our teenage years as they’re supposed to be,” says sophomore Anna Szczepanik.
Schools need to find a better way to balance workloads, ones that prioritize importance in life. Thoughtful and meaningful learning rather than just overwhelming students with endless work.
It’s time to acknowledge we need to treat students like people, not machines. Give them the time and space they need to truly learn and grow as a person.