Loads of Homework + Teen = Stress
Video Transcript
[ALARM BEEPING]
[FRENETIC MUSIC PLAYING]
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Your backpack weighs, like, 25, 30 pounds or something.
ANDREW MALLETT: Very, yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And it's really heavy. Pop it up here. Because I want to go through it and see what you haul around.
ANDREW MALLETT: This white binder would be my calculus binder.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: What are these?
ANDREW MALLETT: This is my AP Government book. Honors Econ. Car Black is my AP Literature.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Blue notebook.
ANDREW MALLETT: AP Biology.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew's ambition has come with a very high price-- hours upon hours of homework. For each of these classes, do you think you do somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour?
ANDREW MALLETT: Yeah. Yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: --Of homework for each one? So if you're taking three AP classes, two Honors classes, that's almost five hours of homework a day.
ANDREW MALLETT: Yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew and his classmates aren't the only ones feeling homework stress. Nationally, high school students are averaging three and a half hours of homework each night, according to a survey by the University of Phoenix.
How many people would say that they have more than three hours of homework every night? Oh, so a fair number of you, more than three hours of homework. Does that feel like a lot?
Is there anybody who's knocking out all their homework in an hour? That's a ridiculous question. You're all laughing at me.
[KIDS LAUGH]
Now experts are questioning whether the amount of homework is leading to harmful levels of stress in teens. Ellen Chagnon is a guidance counselor at Dover-Sherborn.
ELLEN CHAGNON: They're not getting enough sleep. They're exhausted. They come in not able to go to class.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But you started noticing, as a guidance counselor--
ELLEN CHAGNON: Yes.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: People coming in, talking about stress, stressed.
ELLEN CHAGNON: Yes.
JOHN SMITH: Look at you, huh? SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Headmaster John Smith was so alarmed that a year and a half ago, the school did a series of surveys asking students about sleep attitudes and behavior.
JOHN SMITH: Some of our students were reporting as much as four to five hours in the evening, four or five nights a week. And on top of that, they were trying to play a sport, being involved with a musical, being involved with other clubs.
DENISE POPE: And then we have these robo-students. They say, well, what do I need to do for an A?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Denise Pope is an education researcher at Stanford University who studied high-performing California teens and school-related stress They reported just over three hours of homework each night as a primary stress in their lives.
DENISE POPE: If it's short-lived, it could be almost healthy. Like, you have butterflies in your stomach before you go on stage. But if it's long-term, you're living in a constant state of stress.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Pope's subjects reported that stress was leading to headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, stomach problems, and sleep deprivation. She developed a program called Challenge Success to help students balance school work with fun. Dover-Sherborn is one of 130 schools around the country where parents, teachers, and students have signed on. One of its aims is to reduce homework.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Have you seen a big change since Challenge Success?
ANDREW MALLETT: I think, yeah, I definitely have seen a big change. There's been a lot of people who have been trying to tone down the homework. Because they understand the science that, you know, there doesn't need to be 50 math problems a night. You can do 25.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew worries, though, that less homework might make him less competitive academically.
How important is college? Not just to you, but to all of your classmates here?
ANDREW MALLETT: Extremely important.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's everything?
ANDREW MALLETT: Everything. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's not yet clear what impact Challenge Success will have on academics. But it is making students rethink priorities.
Are you changing the definition of success in your own lives?
STUDENT: Well, in Dover-Sherborn, a lot of success, we think of as, like, being really wealthy and having a nice house. And becoming almost like our parents were really successful, either like a doctor or a lawyer. I have started to think a lot about how success might be more if I have a really good balance in life.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: For Andrew, the reduced pressure has given him a life beyond homework. He now plays hockey, golf, and lacrosse without worrying about the stacks of books waiting at home. For WebMD, I'm Soledad O'Brien.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[FRENETIC MUSIC PLAYING]
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Your backpack weighs, like, 25, 30 pounds or something.
ANDREW MALLETT: Very, yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And it's really heavy. Pop it up here. Because I want to go through it and see what you haul around.
ANDREW MALLETT: This white binder would be my calculus binder.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: What are these?
ANDREW MALLETT: This is my AP Government book. Honors Econ. Car Black is my AP Literature.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Blue notebook.
ANDREW MALLETT: AP Biology.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew's ambition has come with a very high price-- hours upon hours of homework. For each of these classes, do you think you do somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour?
ANDREW MALLETT: Yeah. Yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: --Of homework for each one? So if you're taking three AP classes, two Honors classes, that's almost five hours of homework a day.
ANDREW MALLETT: Yeah.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew and his classmates aren't the only ones feeling homework stress. Nationally, high school students are averaging three and a half hours of homework each night, according to a survey by the University of Phoenix.
How many people would say that they have more than three hours of homework every night? Oh, so a fair number of you, more than three hours of homework. Does that feel like a lot?
Is there anybody who's knocking out all their homework in an hour? That's a ridiculous question. You're all laughing at me.
[KIDS LAUGH]
Now experts are questioning whether the amount of homework is leading to harmful levels of stress in teens. Ellen Chagnon is a guidance counselor at Dover-Sherborn.
ELLEN CHAGNON: They're not getting enough sleep. They're exhausted. They come in not able to go to class.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But you started noticing, as a guidance counselor--
ELLEN CHAGNON: Yes.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: People coming in, talking about stress, stressed.
ELLEN CHAGNON: Yes.
JOHN SMITH: Look at you, huh? SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Headmaster John Smith was so alarmed that a year and a half ago, the school did a series of surveys asking students about sleep attitudes and behavior.
JOHN SMITH: Some of our students were reporting as much as four to five hours in the evening, four or five nights a week. And on top of that, they were trying to play a sport, being involved with a musical, being involved with other clubs.
DENISE POPE: And then we have these robo-students. They say, well, what do I need to do for an A?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Denise Pope is an education researcher at Stanford University who studied high-performing California teens and school-related stress They reported just over three hours of homework each night as a primary stress in their lives.
DENISE POPE: If it's short-lived, it could be almost healthy. Like, you have butterflies in your stomach before you go on stage. But if it's long-term, you're living in a constant state of stress.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Pope's subjects reported that stress was leading to headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, stomach problems, and sleep deprivation. She developed a program called Challenge Success to help students balance school work with fun. Dover-Sherborn is one of 130 schools around the country where parents, teachers, and students have signed on. One of its aims is to reduce homework.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Have you seen a big change since Challenge Success?
ANDREW MALLETT: I think, yeah, I definitely have seen a big change. There's been a lot of people who have been trying to tone down the homework. Because they understand the science that, you know, there doesn't need to be 50 math problems a night. You can do 25.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andrew worries, though, that less homework might make him less competitive academically.
How important is college? Not just to you, but to all of your classmates here?
ANDREW MALLETT: Extremely important.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's everything?
ANDREW MALLETT: Everything. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's not yet clear what impact Challenge Success will have on academics. But it is making students rethink priorities.
Are you changing the definition of success in your own lives?
STUDENT: Well, in Dover-Sherborn, a lot of success, we think of as, like, being really wealthy and having a nice house. And becoming almost like our parents were really successful, either like a doctor or a lawyer. I have started to think a lot about how success might be more if I have a really good balance in life.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: For Andrew, the reduced pressure has given him a life beyond homework. He now plays hockey, golf, and lacrosse without worrying about the stacks of books waiting at home. For WebMD, I'm Soledad O'Brien.
[MUSIC PLAYING]