By Connor Geary ’21

In recent news, the problem of homework has gained special attention in our community. Students suffer sleep deprivation and unnecessary stress that is caused by incredible amounts of homework and studying for tests and quizzes. Even though procrastination can be a significant influence in sleep deprivation, large amounts of homework given each night are not as beneficial to students as one may think. However, Saint Ignatius students are often too timid to express this concern of home-work and have awaited this one special day that will forever be remembered.

On January 29, 2020, Rev. Shelton, S.J. gave an impassioned speech that got the attention of over 1,400 students in the Fr. Sullivan Gymnasium. “And that is why I am taking a pledge for no homework,” Fr. Shelton remarks. After hearing this, the question that was immediately provoked by over 1,400 students present was “Is. Fr. Shelton serious?”

In 2015, a smaller New York University study conducted on a study about the effects of too much homework. It focused more broadly on how students at elite private high schools cope with the combined pressures of school work, college applications, extracurricular activities, and parents’ expectations.

That study, which appeared in Frontiers in Psychology, noted serious health effects for high schoolers, such as chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, and alcohol and drug use. The research involved a series of interviews with students, teachers, and administrators, as well as a survey of a total of 128 juniors from two private high schools.

About half of the students said they received at least three hours of homework per night. They also faced pressure to take college-level classes and excel in activities outside of school.

Many students felt they were being asked to work as hard as adults, and noted that their workload seemed inappropriate for their development level. They reported having little time for relaxing or creative activities. More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress. The researchers expressed concern that students at high-pressure high schools can get burned out before they even get to college. “School, homework, extracurricular activities, sleep, repeat — that’s what it can be for some of these students,” said Noelle Leonard, PhD, a senior research scientist at the New York University College of Nursing, and lead study author, in a press release.

Too much homework can result in lack of sleep, headaches, exhaustion, and weight loss. However, the real problem is can schools completely eliminate homework? Despite popular belief, eliminating, or severely reducing homework is possible.

If homework is eliminated, students can return home each day and focus on their family, sports, health, and well-being. Students need and deserve these breaks because once they return to school after a deep sleep of 8+ hours, they will feel refreshed causing their attention to be significantly improved. However, this is not the reality in today’s world, because a significant amount of students suffer sleep deprivation after staying up past midnight due to homework.

Students are very involved outside of school. With extracurriculars, sports, jobs, and family matters, it is often challenging to balance the needs outside of school with the needs inside of school – home-work. Also, with Honors and AP classes, students become
easily stressed with their workloads. According to the Princeton Review, who conducted a Student Life in America survey, over 50% of students reported feeling stressed. In order to resolve this issue, schools need to reconsider homework levels.

However, with Fr. Shelton’s, speech, students view home-work as just “something that needs to get done without actually learning and going indepth with the material due to how much homework each student receives on a daily basis.” Homework does not have to be completely eliminated, however, it needs to be significantly reduced so students can actually learn the material without being stressed. Due to the large amount of homework given, students have learned to cope with school and just try to get the A without learning the material.

In accordance with some interpretations of the speech given by Fr. Shelton’s speech, schools needs to reconsider how much homework each student is given and determine how much learning they want students to experience.

By Bobby Gerome ‘21

Children are taught when young that the magic age for becoming an adult is 18. Eighteen is the legal adult age because people gain multiple freedoms and rights. However, people at the ages of 18 through 20 do not have as many freedoms and rights as people who are over 21, such as alcohol consumption, tobacco, and in some places, gambling. One of these rights that used to be given to 18-year-olds was taken away from them in late 2019 when the FDA raised the legal tobacco age to 21. This has led me to ask, “What makes someone a legal adult?”

One of the first things that is typically brought up when describing what makes someone a legal adult is the right to vote. For the entire history of our country’s existence, the legal voting age was 21. This all changed in 1971 when President Richard Nixon certified the 26th Amendment, giving U.S. citizens the right to vote at 18 years of age. Another issue that Nixon had on his plate in 1971 was the Vietnam War, which was the last time in current American history that young men were drafted to the military. Registering for the draft is another aspect that makes someone a legal adult. The law is that all men that reside in the United States who are 18 through 25 years of age must register for the draft.

Eighteen is also the age where young adults are legally allowed to enlist in the military without parental consent. An 18-year-old can also buy and sell both real estate and stock, inherit property, enter into binding contracts, and get sued. In addition to suing/ getting sued, an 18-year-old is also eligible for jur y duty and is responsible for his/her own taxes turned in on time. Finally, most states allow 18-year-olds to get married, and some states allow people 18 and older to gamble. When people turn 18, in almost every aspect, they become adults.

Eighteen-year-olds have the opportunity to do many things that they were unable to do before. However, there are a few things that other adults can do that 18-year-olds cannot do. To start, people cannot buy or drink alcohol until they turn 21. However, this has not always been the law. After the twenty first amendment got rid of prohibition in 1933, each individual state made their own laws for the age to legally consume alcohol. For most states, including Ohio, the law was that anyone over the age of 21 could drink any type of alcohol, but people that were 18 through 20 could also consume a certain type of alcohol. These beverages had to have 3.2 percent of alcohol in them or less, and were commonly known as three-two beer. After the 26th Amendment gave 18-year-olds the right to vote, many states lowered their legal drinking age to 18, 19, or 20; but in 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. This act was effective in making states raise the legal drinking age to 21, because the government would take away a significant amount of federal transportation funds from the states if they did not raise the legal drinking age to 21.

To this day, the legal drinking age in all fifty states is 21. Another right that people 21 and older get is the right to smoke tobacco. Until a few months ago, the legal age for using tobacco products was 18 in Ohio. This changed in late 2019, when Congress made it illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to give, sell, or otherwise distribute any tobacco products or alternative nicotine products such as vapes and e-cigarettes. Finally, only people 21 and older can gamble in 29 of the 50 states, including Ohio.

Over the last few months, the topic of what age makes someone a legal adult has been brought to attention in the media and on the internet a few times. In my opinion, there should be one specific age that someone receives all of the rights listed in this article, and legally becomes an adult. Someone who can vote, get married, buy a house, invest in stocks, and die for their country, sometimes after being made to go to war instead of enlisting, should be able to drink, smoke, and gamble. If this were to happen, then there would be three options for what the age for becoming an adult would be. One is that the legal age for drinking, smoking and gambling would have to be lowered to 18. Another is that the legal age for being in court for jury duty, being sued, suing, buying a house, getting married, voting, entering the military by enlisting or being drafted, and many other things would have to be raised to 21. The third and final option would be making a compromise and changing the legal age for someone to receive all of the rights listed in this article to 19 or 20. I am completely neutral when it comes to which of these three options I support. As stated earlier, I do not advocate for people doing harmful things to themselves like drinking and smoking at a young, premature age. I also do not recommend people doing some of the things listed in this article while they are still in high school/college. I just think that a young adult should receive all of the rights that any other adult has at one age.