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Health Hazards of Homework

March 18, 2014 | Julie Greicius Pediatrics .

A new study by the Stanford Graduate School of Education and colleagues found that students in high-performing schools who did excessive hours of homework “experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives.”

Those health problems ranged from stress, headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems, to psycho-social effects like dropping activities, not seeing friends or family, and not pursuing hobbies they enjoy.

In the Stanford Report story about the research, Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of the  study published in the  Journal of Experimental Education , says, “Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good.”

The study was based on survey data from a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in California communities in which median household income exceeded $90,000. Of the students surveyed, homework volume averaged about 3.1 hours each night.

“It is time to re-evaluate how the school environment is preparing our high school student for today’s workplace,” says Neville Golden, MD , chief of adolescent medicine at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and a professor at the School of Medicine. “This landmark study shows that excessive homework is counterproductive, leading to sleep deprivation, school stress and other health problems. Parents can best support their children in these demanding academic environments by advocating for them through direct communication with teachers and school administrators about homework load.”

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Why multitasking does more harm than good

If you’ve ever opened another tab and made the grocery order during a Zoom meeting, folded laundry while helping your kids with their homework, or listened to a podcast while working out, you’ve been guilty of multitasking. Why guilty? Isn’t this just being super efficient? Not really. A growing body of research has found that it’s far less efficient to try to do two (or more!) things at once than to focus on just one task at a time. Multitasking can interfere with working memory , cause students to do worse in school, and could possibly even create potentially long-term memory problems .

Your Brain While Multitasking

When we take on a task, several brain networks dealing with attention and cognitive control are involved. These are the frontoparietal control network, the dorsal attention network, and the ventral attention network. Attempts to multitask can create interference among these networks, and this can lead to slower processing as well as mistakes, explains Kevin Paul Madore, a neuroscientist at Stanford University. “One way we can examine the effects of multitasking on behavior and the demands it places on relevant brain networks is by analyzing ‘task switch costs,'" he says.

A switch cost is a loss of accuracy or speed that comes when you shift between tasks. Though some of the costs of multitasking are subtle, they are by no means trivial. Too much multitasking can interfere with both working memory and long-term memory. Research by Madore and colleagues found that heavier media multitasking is associated with attention lapses and forgetfulness. However, it’s still not clear what’s causing what. “ Some research has indicated that chronic everyday media multitasking is related to errors in our ability to hold and use information in mind (working memory) and our ability to retrieve information (long-term memory),” says Madore, but he adds that more research is needed to determine the direction of causality.

Still, whether you’re less efficient because you’re multitasking or you’re multitasking because you’re less efficient (why is that to-do list so long?), multitasking doesn’t really solve anything.

Multitasking Light

It might seem that some types of multitasking are easier to pull off than others. Sure, texting while driving is a no-go , but surely folding the laundry while helping the kids with their homework is easy enough. But no, that doesn’t work either. You’re not risking life and limb — yours or anyone else’s — when you combine laundry and school work, but you’re still not going to be able to do your best at either task when trying to do both at once. “When you have competing sources of attention, your task performance is often going to be reduced,” says Madore. “You’re probably slower at folding laundry or maybe you drop some things on the floor when you’re helping a child with homework versus folding laundry alone.”

 Dropping a few socks is not a big deal, and certainly worth the cost of having some time with your kids (though being with your kids while not giving them your full attention might have its own costs). On the other hand, some of the consequences of trying to do two things at once, even if those things seem simple, can be horrific — having a car accident, for example. Even eating a sandwich or fiddling with the CD player while driving can increase your risk of an accident.

There’s at least one situation, though, where multitasking can be your friend. Some studies have shown that taking a walk while trying to sort out a thorny problem improves creativity and can help you come up with better solutions. So perhaps when we’re trying to figure out how to get through that seemingly endless to-do list, we should forget about trying to do two or three of those things at once and go out for a walk. That might just lead to a creative solution to the time crunch problem.

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Gse scholar offers tips for parents and teachers when considering homework for students.

The quality of a homework assignment is important to student achievement, says Stanford Graduate School of Education senior lecturer Denise Pope.

But the devil is in the details, according to Pope , who recently published a  book  that included research on the subject.

"The quality of the homework assignment and whether or not students find it meaningful can have a significant impact on student achievement, homework completion, motivation and physical health," Pope said in a recent interview.

She suggests that teachers think about the purpose of each assignment and she offers professional development and tools on how to create assignments that are relevant and engaging for the student – or "doable," as she puts it – without the help of others. 

For example, Pope urges teachers to ensure homework directions are clear and then set aside time in class for students to start the work. 

"This way, the teacher can answer questions early on – before the child gets home and realizes he doesn't understand the assignment," she said.

She also recommends that teachers aim for "authentic assignments" that can't necessarily be done efficiently in the classroom. This might include reading a chapter from a book to prepare for the class discussion the next day, or interviewing a community member for a school project, or collecting real data, such as water samples from a local source for a science lab. 

Finally, while it may be difficult and time-consuming, Pope suggests teachers "differentiate homework" assignments when possible. 

"A kid who can zip through 30 math problems in 10 minutes isn't necessarily benefitting from that assignment, but neither is the kid who takes 30 minutes to figure out the first two problems, and is so frustrated and exhausted that he never completes the rest of the set," she said.

Too much homework?

How much homework is too much? The answer to this question depends, Pope said, on which students and measurements are used. 

For instance, some studies show that time spent on homework for elementary school students has increased slightly since the 1980s and decreased for older students, she said. 

Other studies, she noted, show the opposite – that high school students are doing more homework than ever before and that elementary homework has declined. Also, recent studies show that some elementary students are doing three times the amount recommended by the National Education Association.

Pope, the co-founder of  Challenge Success , said that research from that group found that high school students from high-achieving schools average more than three hours of homework each night, and middle school students average about 2.5 hours.

"How much is too much? Again, this depends. We have found that homework can be a source of stress for students and for parents," she said.

While students doing more hours of homework in the Challenge Success research seemed to be more engaged in school, they also suffered from physical health problems, sleep deprivation and a lack of balance in their lives, she said.

"When homework is a source of stress or causes battles at home, it can actually impede student motivation and learning," Pope said. 

Measuring the impact of homework can be difficult.

"When researchers use grades to indicate the impact of homework, they may not account for the fact that homework completion often counts as part of the student's overall grade in the course," Pope said.

And, when research uses standardized tests to measure homework's impact, she continued, it is difficult to gauge how much of the overall improvement or decline in test scores is due to student learning in the classroom context as opposed to student learning from homework.  

Finally, homework, because it is done at home, does not allow teachers to determine who is really doing the work. "Is it the student alone," Pope asked, "or are others, such as parents, tutors or friends, weighing in or doing the work for the child?"

Parents, communities and homework

When homework becomes a battle at home, both the child and the parent suffer, Pope said. She advises parents of younger students to let the teacher know if their children are spending more than the expected time to complete an assignment.

Parents of older students should help their kids learn to communicate directly with the teacher about homework issues.

"Parents also have to provide enough time in the day for the student to get homework done," Pope said. 

This involves monitoring how many extracurricular activities a child has so as to find a healthy balance among homework, sleep, socializing and other duties.

Parents do not need to be homework "police" or nighttime teacher, she suggested. 

"When well-meaning parents correct homework assignments, or edit papers, or swoop in to rescue a child at the last minute on a project, they may be denying the child the opportunity to develop important academic skills as well as social and emotional skills such as self-regulation and resilience," Pope said.

And, they may be preventing the teacher from gauging the student's understanding of the subject matter, she added.

Similarly, parents who assign "extra" homework via workbooks or enrichment classes may be interfering with the course curriculum. 

But if parents are worried that their child doesn't have enough schoolwork to do after school, they should encourage reading for pleasure – especially since that has been clearly shown to correlate with academic achievement, according to Pope.

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., homework wars: high school workloads, student stress, and how parents can help.

Studies of typical homework loads vary : In one, a Stanford researcher found that more than two hours of homework a night may be counterproductive. The research , conducted among students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities, found that too much homework resulted in stress, physical health problems and a general lack of balance.

Additionally, the  2014 Brown Center Report on American Education , found that with the exception of nine-year-olds, the amount of homework schools assign has remained relatively unchanged since 1984, meaning even those in charge of the curricula don't see a need for adding more to that workload.

But student experiences don’t always match these results. On our own Student Life in America survey, over 50% of students reported feeling stressed, 25% reported that homework was their biggest source of stress, and on average teens are spending one-third of their study time feeling stressed, anxious, or stuck.

The disparity can be explained in one of the conclusions regarding the Brown Report:

Of the three age groups, 17-year-olds have the most bifurcated distribution of the homework burden. They have the largest percentage of kids with no homework (especially when the homework shirkers are added in) and the largest percentage with more than two hours.

So what does that mean for parents who still endure the homework wars at home?

Read More: Teaching Your Kids How To Deal with School Stress

It means that sometimes kids who are on a rigorous college-prep track, probably are receiving more homework, but the statistics are melding it with the kids who are receiving no homework. And on our survey, 64% of students reported that their parents couldn’t help them with their work. This is where the real homework wars lie—not just the amount, but the ability to successfully complete assignments and feel success.

Parents want to figure out how to help their children manage their homework stress and learn the material.

Our Top 4 Tips for Ending Homework Wars

1. have a routine..

Every parenting advice article you will ever read emphasizes the importance of a routine. There’s a reason for that: it works. A routine helps put order into an often disorderly world. It removes the thinking and arguing and “when should I start?” because that decision has already been made. While routines must be flexible to accommodate soccer practice on Tuesday and volunteer work on Thursday, knowing in general when and where you, or your child, will do homework literally removes half the battle.

2. Have a battle plan.

Overwhelmed students look at a mountain of homework and think “insurmountable.” But parents can look at it with an outsider’s perspective and help them plan. Put in an extra hour Monday when you don’t have soccer. Prepare for the AP Chem test on Friday a little at a time each evening so Thursday doesn’t loom as a scary study night (consistency and repetition will also help lock the information in your brain). Start reading the book for your English report so that it’s underway. Go ahead and write a few sentences, so you don’t have a blank page staring at you. Knowing what the week will look like helps you keep calm and carry on.

3. Don’t be afraid to call in reserves.

You can’t outsource the “battle” but you can outsource the help ! We find that kids just do better having someone other than their parents help them —and sometimes even parents with the best of intentions aren’t equipped to wrestle with complicated physics problem. At The Princeton Review, we specialize in making homework time less stressful. Our tutors are available 24/7 to work one-to-one in an online classroom with a chat feature, interactive whiteboard, and the file sharing tool, where students can share their most challenging assignments.

4. Celebrate victories—and know when to surrender.

Students and parents can review completed assignments together at the end of the night -- acknowledging even small wins helps build a sense of accomplishment. If you’ve been through a particularly tough battle, you’ll also want to reach reach a cease-fire before hitting your bunk. A war ends when one person disengages. At some point, after parents have provided a listening ear, planning, and support, they have to let natural consequences take their course. And taking a step back--and removing any pressure a parent may be inadvertently creating--can be just what’s needed.

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The Drama Teacher

Your Go-To Resource for Drama Education

Too Much Homework Counterproductive, Study Finds

A senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University has published a study that finds too much nightly homework for high school students is counterproductive.

The survey of over 4,000 students from ten high-performing high schools from upper middle class Californian communities also cited prior studies indicating the benefits of homework plateau at the two-hour mark, with the optimum daily homework time being between ninety minutes and two-and-a-half hours.

Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good

The study, Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged High-Performing High Schools , was published last year in the Journal of Experimental Education. It found students from these upper middle class families regularly did an average of 3.1 hours of homework per night and were chosen for the study because

In upper middle class, advantaged communities, the practice of homework is deeply embedded, as parents who hold political clout and influence view homework as a way to sustain their child’s academic edge and status in the social and economic hierarchy

Findings from the study listed a range of negative effects when significant hours of nightly homework was regularly undertaken, including

• greater stress
• reductions in health
• less time for friends, family and extra-curricular pursuits
• sleep deprivation
• weight loss
• lack of engagement in class
• too much solitary time

Researchers noted homework assigned on a routine basis was not beneficial. Stanford University senior lecturer Denise Pope stated

Any homework assigned should have a purpose and a benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development

While the findings of this study may surprise some educators, there is no shock here. While most teachers understand the nature of Mathematics or English homework, many do not understand what homework in a Drama class can entail. With anything from line-learning and character creation, to essay writing, costume construction and monologue rehearsals, Drama homework is sometimes analytical, often creative, and occasionally both. In a way, we may be fortunate our subject does not lend itself to the need for regular, nightly homework (partly because it is normally not a subject students have class for, every single day). Therefore, Drama homework should always have a specific purpose and only be given when absolutely necessary. I, for one, intend to reduce the amount of homework with my Year 12 Drama class this year in the belief that if my students use class time more effectively than they have done so in the past, they will reap better benefits and be more engaged in their learning.

I totally agree with all of this. After watching a colleague teach the yr 12’s for the past 7 years, I always felt the homework load given was enormous. After taking over the theatre studies class last year, I gave significantly less homework, the students were on top of all elements of the course (and best results in ten years!!) Love these articles Justin- real food for thought.

Thanks Edwina. Such an interesting observation you posted here. My goal for 2014 is to get my senior students, in particular, to use class time as efficiently as possible and as a result, set less homework. Surely that’s motivation for any teenager! I’m hoping to run Year 12 Drama ensembles this semester without a single after-school rehearsal. My focus is on quality, not quantity. I’d rather assess a tightly edited and polished 18-minute ensemble performance developed entirely during scheduled classes, than assess a loose 30-minute ensemble performance that needed five after-school rehearsals just to get the task completed.

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Is Excessive Homework the Cause of Many Teen Issues?

Sydney Trebus , Business Manager | September 15, 2019

Does excessive homework really make a student perform worse? Is homework a big influencer on the emotional and physical health of students? Can we change the bad reputation homework has obtained over the years or is it too late?

Today, schooling is ever-changing, currently focusing on a “necessary” end goal of attending college. Standards are rising, teachers are better trained, and students are left with rigorous courses riddled with hours and hours of homework. People are now wondering how important homework really is. Is that just the overload talking or does homework actually have a negative impact on students? 

Popular opinion would suggest yes, claiming that homework is a useless and stress-inducing part of school at any age. Many Boulder High students communicate a similar complaint. 

Seniors Carson Williams and Carson Bennett voiced their opinions. Bennet says that “Homework results in later bedtimes which means we get less sleep and therefore, have less energy the next day.” Williams agreed and added,“Homework is good if you need it to study, but if it is just busywork then it is useless.” 

Another student, Bishal Ellison, commented that in some classes “homework doesn’t impact [his] success, there is no point … In one of [his] classes, homework is just for extra credit.”

While student opinions are extremely significant, teachers are the ones in control of this so-called “stress inducing and useless activity.” 

Mr. Weatherly, an AP World Geography teacher here at Boulder High, commented that homework has an enormous impact on the success of students within the class; he claimed that there is simply not enough time in class to review everything. He does, however, agree with popular opinion, saying, “Teachers give homework thinking about their own class, not the five or six others students have.” 

So which is it? How important is homework? Homework has been seen both beneficial and detrimental in association with time. Homework over a certain time limit can cause stress, depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, and more. 

Homework distracts from extracurriculars and sports as well, something colleges often look for. Homework is ultimately leading students to resent school as a whole.

According to a study done by Stanford University, 56 percent of students considered homework a primary source of stress, 43 percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while less than one percent of the students said homework was not a stressor. They were able to conclude that too much homework can result in a lack of sleep, headaches, exhaustion, and weight loss. 

Experts denote that the homework assigned to students today promotes less active learning and instead leads to boredom and a lack of problem-solving skills. Active learning, done through students learning from each other through discussion and collaboration, enhances a student’s ability to analyze and apply content to aid them in a real-world setting. 

This negative attitude towards homework can, unfortunately, arise at a young age, especially in today’s schooling systems. 

Students in all grades are required to extend the hard rigor of school past the average eight hours they need to spend inside the building. According to an Education Week article by Marva Hinton, kindergarteners are often required to do a minimum of 30 minutes of homework a night; these young students are expected to read for 15 minutes as well as work on a packet for another 15-30 minutes. 

Kindergarten is forcing children to learn concepts they may not be ready for, discouraging them at a young age. As a principle rule, the National PTA recommends 10 to 20 minutes of homework per night for children in first grade and an additional 10 minutes for every grade after that. 

After this time marker, homework begins to be detrimental to the success of a student. Additionally, according to the Journal of Educational Psychology , students who did more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per night actually did worse on tests than those with less than 90 minutes of homework.

The hours of homework students receive takes time that could be spent on extracurriculars, with family and friends, or on sports or activities. Children and young adults focus a large part of their time and energy on school, removing time to replenish and work on other skills in life, including socializing. 

Physical activity can actually be very beneficial to the success rates of students, improving self-esteem, well-being, motivation, memory, focus, and higher thinking. 

According to the   US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC ) , exercise has an impact on cognitive skills such as concentration and attention, and it enhances classroom attitudes and behaviors. 

The more time taken away from the emotional and physical health of a student, the more resentful they will be towards school. In kindergarten, over 85 percent of students are enthusiastic about learning and attending school, whereas 40 percent of high school students are chronically disengaged from school and any learning that takes place. 

What’s even more baffling is that as students enter high school, they are expected to be enthusiastic about school, obtain perfect grades and test scores, and do extracurricular activities and sports in order to get into a good college. 

Logan Powell, the Dean of Admissions at Brown University asks when accepting students, “Have they learned time management skills, leadership, teamwork, discipline? How have they grown as a person and what qualities will they bring to our campus?” 

These are unrealistic standards for students who most likely already have negative attitudes towards school and homework and aren’t given the opportunity to work on the skills colleges look for by exploring their community through clubs, volunteering, and working.

Experts see how detrimental homework can really be for a plethora of reasons; Donaldson Pressman reported that homework is not only not beneficial to a students grades or GPA, but it is also  detrimental to their attitude towards school, their grades, their self-confidence, their social skills, and their quality of life.” 

Homework, however, helps student achievement, reinforces good habits, involves parents in their students’ learning, and helps students remember material learned in class. 

This is all based on the circumstances however, if schools keep making homework more prominent in the learning system, students will lose their passion for learning. Unfortunately, many of us already have. So when teachers consider giving homework to their students, they should ask themselves how they believe it will improve their students’ learning and abilities.

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Chris • Feb 23, 2023 at 6:24 am

I hate homework in 5th grade

Jason • May 24, 2023 at 8:25 am

good luck in 7th grade then cuz that’s where finals start to get difficult. I’m barely keeping up right now and have to stay up late to keep up with the work.

John • May 9, 2022 at 11:40 am

Good article very informative.

Garrett • May 19, 2022 at 7:01 pm

yes i agree

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Is Homework Necessary? Education Inequity and Its Impact on Students

The Problem with Homework: It Highlights Inequalities

How much homework is too much homework, when does homework actually help, negative effects of homework for students, how teachers can help.

Schools are getting rid of homework from Essex, Mass., to Los Angeles, Calif. Although the no-homework trend may sound alarming, especially to parents dreaming of their child’s acceptance to Harvard, Stanford or Yale, there is mounting evidence that eliminating homework in grade school may actually have great benefits , especially with regard to educational equity.

In fact, while the push to eliminate homework may come as a surprise to many adults, the debate is not new . Parents and educators have been talking about this subject for the last century, so that the educational pendulum continues to swing back and forth between the need for homework and the need to eliminate homework.

One of the most pressing talking points around homework is how it disproportionately affects students from less affluent families. The American Psychological Association (APA) explained:

“Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs.”

[RELATED] How to Advance Your Career: A Guide for Educators >> 

While students growing up in more affluent areas are likely playing sports, participating in other recreational activities after school, or receiving additional tutoring, children in disadvantaged areas are more likely headed to work after school, taking care of siblings while their parents work or dealing with an unstable home life. Adding homework into the mix is one more thing to deal with — and if the student is struggling, the task of completing homework can be too much to consider at the end of an already long school day.

While all students may groan at the mention of homework, it may be more than just a nuisance for poor and disadvantaged children, instead becoming another burden to carry and contend with.

Beyond the logistical issues, homework can negatively impact physical health and stress — and once again this may be a more significant problem among economically disadvantaged youth who typically already have a higher stress level than peers from more financially stable families .

Yet, today, it is not just the disadvantaged who suffer from the stressors that homework inflicts. A 2014 CNN article, “Is Homework Making Your Child Sick?” , covered the issue of extreme pressure placed on children of the affluent. The article looked at the results of a study surveying more than 4,300 students from 10 high-performing public and private high schools in upper-middle-class California communities.

“Their findings were troubling: Research showed that excessive homework is associated with high stress levels, physical health problems and lack of balance in children’s lives; 56% of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives,” according to the CNN story. “That children growing up in poverty are at-risk for a number of ailments is both intuitive and well-supported by research. More difficult to believe is the growing consensus that children on the other end of the spectrum, children raised in affluence, may also be at risk.”

When it comes to health and stress it is clear that excessive homework, for children at both ends of the spectrum, can be damaging. Which begs the question, how much homework is too much?

The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association recommend that students spend 10 minutes per grade level per night on homework . That means that first graders should spend 10 minutes on homework, second graders 20 minutes and so on. But a study published by The American Journal of Family Therapy found that students are getting much more than that.

While 10 minutes per day doesn’t sound like much, that quickly adds up to an hour per night by sixth grade. The National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students get an average of 6.8 hours of homework per week, a figure that is much too high according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is also to be noted that this figure does not take into consideration the needs of underprivileged student populations.

In a study conducted by the OECD it was found that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance .” That means that by asking our children to put in an hour or more per day of dedicated homework time, we are not only not helping them, but — according to the aforementioned studies — we are hurting them, both physically and emotionally.

What’s more is that homework is, as the name implies, to be completed at home, after a full day of learning that is typically six to seven hours long with breaks and lunch included. However, a study by the APA on how people develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work for about only four hours per day. Similarly, companies like Tower Paddle Boards are experimenting with a five-hour workday, under the assumption that people are not able to be truly productive for much longer than that. CEO Stephan Aarstol told CNBC that he believes most Americans only get about two to three hours of work done in an eight-hour day.

In the scope of world history, homework is a fairly new construct in the U.S. Students of all ages have been receiving work to complete at home for centuries, but it was educational reformer Horace Mann who first brought the concept to America from Prussia. 

Since then, homework’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in the court of public opinion. In the 1930s, it was considered child labor (as, ironically, it compromised children’s ability to do chores at home). Then, in the 1950s, implementing mandatory homework was hailed as a way to ensure America’s youth were always one step ahead of Soviet children during the Cold War. Homework was formally mandated as a tool for boosting educational quality in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Education, and has remained in common practice ever since.  

School work assigned and completed outside of school hours is not without its benefits. Numerous studies have shown that regular homework has a hand in improving student performance and connecting students to their learning. When reviewing these studies, take them with a grain of salt; there are strong arguments for both sides, and only you will know which solution is best for your students or school. 

Homework improves student achievement.

• Source: The High School Journal, “ When is Homework Worth the Time?: Evaluating the Association between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math ,” 2012. 
• Source: IZA.org, “ Does High School Homework Increase Academic Achievement? ,” 2014. **Note: Study sample comprised only high school boys. 

Homework helps reinforce classroom learning.

• Source: “ Debunk This: People Remember 10 Percent of What They Read ,” 2015.

Homework helps students develop good study habits and life skills.

• Sources: The Repository @ St. Cloud State, “ Types of Homework and Their Effect on Student Achievement ,” 2017; Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.
• Source: Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.

Homework allows parents to be involved with their children’s learning.

• Parents can see what their children are learning and working on in school every day. 
• Parents can participate in their children’s learning by guiding them through homework assignments and reinforcing positive study and research habits.
• Homework observation and participation can help parents understand their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses, and even identify possible learning difficulties.
• Source: Phys.org, “ Sociologist Upends Notions about Parental Help with Homework ,” 2018.

While some amount of homework may help students connect to their learning and enhance their in-class performance, too much homework can have damaging effects. 

Students with too much homework have elevated stress levels. 

• Source: USA Today, “ Is It Time to Get Rid of Homework? Mental Health Experts Weigh In ,” 2021.
• Source: Stanford University, “ Stanford Research Shows Pitfalls of Homework ,” 2014.

Students with too much homework may be tempted to cheat. 

• Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, “ High-Tech Cheating Abounds, and Professors Bear Some Blame ,” 2010.
• Source: The American Journal of Family Therapy, “ Homework and Family Stress: With Consideration of Parents’ Self Confidence, Educational Level, and Cultural Background ,” 2015.

Homework highlights digital inequity. 

• Sources: NEAToday.org, “ The Homework Gap: The ‘Cruelest Part of the Digital Divide’ ,” 2016; CNET.com, “ The Digital Divide Has Left Millions of School Kids Behind ,” 2021.
• Source: Investopedia, “ Digital Divide ,” 2022; International Journal of Education and Social Science, “ Getting the Homework Done: Social Class and Parents’ Relationship to Homework ,” 2015.
• Source: World Economic Forum, “ COVID-19 exposed the digital divide. Here’s how we can close it ,” 2021.

Homework does not help younger students.

• Source: Review of Educational Research, “ Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Researcher, 1987-2003 ,” 2006.

To help students find the right balance and succeed, teachers and educators must start the homework conversation, both internally at their school and with parents. But in order to successfully advocate on behalf of students, teachers must be well educated on the subject, fully understanding the research and the outcomes that can be achieved by eliminating or reducing the homework burden. There is a plethora of research and writing on the subject for those interested in self-study.

For teachers looking for a more in-depth approach or for educators with a keen interest in educational equity, formal education may be the best route. If this latter option sounds appealing, there are now many reputable schools offering online master of education degree programs to help educators balance the demands of work and family life while furthering their education in the quest to help others.

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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Communicating Through Conflict: How to Get Along with Anyone

In this episode, Amy Gallo shares how disagreements, if reframed, can lead to more productive outcomes.

May 29, 2024

Many of us would rank getting along with colleagues as an important aspect of work, but, as Amy Gallo explains, relationships devoid of disagreement can actually be less productive.

“While our natural human instinct is to avoid conflict, I believe that conflicts are not only an inevitable part of interacting with other humans, but they’re a necessary part.”

Gallo is a workplace expert, host of HBR’s Women at Work podcast, and the author of Getting Along: How to Work With Anyone . Across her work, Gallo demonstrates that the key to transforming conflicts into something productive is to understand their root causes and learn how to reframe them.

“Even at the base of those unhealthy conflicts or those unproductive conflicts is something that needs to be resolved,” she says.

In her conversation with host and strategic communications lecturer Matt Abrahams, Gallo provides useful frameworks and new concepts on how we can approach conflicts at work.

Listen & Subscribe

Think Fast, Talk Smart is a podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Each episode provides concrete, easy-to-implement tools and techniques to help you hone and enhance your communication skills.

Full Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.

Matt Abrahams: Many of us seek to keep conflict out of our work, but counterintuitively conflict can actually help us be better at work. My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast . Today I look forward to speaking with Amy Gallo. Amy is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about gender, interpersonal dynamics, difficult conversations, feedback, and effective communication. She’s the author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone, even Difficult People , and the HBR Guide to Dealing With Conflict , and she co-hosts HBR’s popular Women at Work podcast. Amy, thanks for being here.

Amy Gallo: Thanks for having me. I feel like we’re going to have a lot to talk about.

Matt Abrahams: Oh, I agree, and I’m so excited to get started. Are you ready?

Amy Gallo: I’m Ready.

[01:00] Matt Abrahams: Many of us see conflict as bad as something that we should avoid. Can you give us your thoughts on conflict and its importance in relationships, teams and organizations?

Amy Gallo: Yeah, it’s funny you’d think that I would be brought in to situations, organizations, teams where people are having too much conflict, but it’s actually quite the reverse. I’m often brought in because there’s not enough disagreement happening, there’s not enough feedback, not enough tension or friction, and I am a big believer that while our natural human instinct is to avoid conflict, because of course we are hardwired for likability and we see conflict as a potential rupture in our relationship or possibly damaging to our reputation, I actually believe that conflicts are not only inevitable part of interacting with other humans, but they’re a necessary part. There’s lots of research that shows that conflict leads to better work outcomes, stronger relationships, and of course that depends on navigating the conflict in a professional, productive, relational way with compassion and caring. But when done well, conflict has a whole host of good outcomes, both for our relationships, most certainly for teams, and as well for organizations. And I think we actually should be spending more time not trying to eliminate conflict, but trying to create the right kinds of conflict.

Matt Abrahams: Wow, I love that you’re brought in to talk about how to actually facilitate effective conflict. What are some of the things we can do to bring around what you call the right type of conflict? How do we do that?

[02:39] Amy Gallo: Well, one, I think we have to normalize conflict, right? So I’m sure you’ve been in this situation where you’re in a team meeting and someone disagrees with someone, someone says, or maybe is a slightly dismissive or just something starts to happen and the whole room just gets tense, right? And everyone feels like, oh gosh, well, how are we going to deal with this? And some people may immediately try to smooth it over. It might devolve quickly. The reality is we don’t make conflict normal. We don’t say we’re going to disagree. We’re not going to see eye to eye all the time. We should be debating ideas. And that’s the first step I think for teams and organizations. We want leaders who say, conflict’s going to happen. That’s good. We want the tensions. We want people to disagree about the best way to roll out this project or the right way to design a feature for our customers.

We want that disagreement and we want it to be about the ideas, not about the people. And I think that’s the key part is that when conflicts happen, we immediately think, oh, Matt and Amy aren’t getting along. Oh, there’s going to be a fight. What’s going to happen here? And we immediately think it’s you versus me as opposed to, oh wow, Matt really cares about speed. Matt is always the one who really puts the pedal to the metal, wants us to get there fast, whereas Amy is pressing on the brakes saying No highest quality product possible. Those are good tensions to have. We’re glad Matt and Amy are debating this because we’ll figure out the right way to proceed if we keep it on that level of ideas. The other thing I think is really key is I go back always to Amy Edmondson or at Harvard Business Schools work around psychological safety. You really need to have psychological safety on your team in order to have these disagreements, right? We talk about admitting mistakes, speaking up without fear of retribution or fear of negative consequences. If people are going to feel comfortable enough to say, you know what, Matt, I’m not sure I see that the same way. Let’s talk it through. That is a potential risk to our relationship, so it’s going to cause a disruption, but we have to normalize those disruptions and give people permission to raise them.

[04:45] Matt Abrahams: So there’s a lot that we can do to set up in our relationships, be they in our personal life or in our work life, to actually facilitate conflict that is actually productive. So establishing psychological safety makes a lot of sense. Amy was a guest on the podcast, and I encourage everybody to listen in to the specifics of how we can do that. We have to feel comfortable disagreeing, and then it sounds like those in power, the leaders of a group can acknowledge that conflict is good and recognize it when it’s happening. I like that example you gave where you say, Hey, these two people are in conflict and we need that conflict to help us stay of the course. And then clearly it’s really important that we focus on the problem or the issue and not the people, because once it becomes personal, the emotions can certainly change. So I really appreciate you helping us understand how we can set up an environment for positive conflict. Now, I’d like to have you help us when that conflict we’re having is not so positive. Can you share a framework or two for helping us navigate conflict that might not be the kind of conflict we really want to have?

Amy Gallo: Yeah, and the idea is not to eliminate conflict even if we feel like it’s unhealthy, but it’s to try to transform it into something more productive. Because usually even at the base of those unhealthy conflicts or those unproductive conflicts is something that needs to be resolved. So one framework I’ll share, and this is from my first book, the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, is really thinking about before you even have a difficult conversation, say you have a conflict where you and the other person have been disrespecting each other, maybe there was a snarky email that got sent with lots of people CC’d on it, and you need to actually have a conversation before you do that. I recommend taking four steps, and these also, by the way, can be used as a coaching tool. So perhaps you’re a leader and someone comes to you and says, I’m having a conflict with so-and-So you can use these four steps to help that person think through the conflict as well.

[06:42]: The first step is to think about the other person. So when we are under stress or when we have a threat, conflict is often seen as a threat, as a threat to our identity, to our resources, to the sense of harmony we have. When that happens, we become naturally narcissistic and we become focused on what do I want to say? What do I want to do? We don’t think about the other person, not out of generosity, but the very first step is to think strategically what’s going on with that other person? What’s motivating them? What do they care about? What would be a rational reason that they’re behaving this way? And that’s going to give you some cues as to how to navigate this not so healthy conflict. Put yourself in their shoes just for a few minutes. Then you want to think about what are we actually disagreeing about?

[07:27]: Because sometimes we take these shortcuts, like the snarky email goes out and we’re like, oh, Matt and I have never gotten along. We have this total personality clash attributed to the person, or we make it bigger than it really is, and you have to really think what is at issue here, right? Are we disagreeing about the goal of this project? Are we disagreeing about status? Who actually gets to make the call? What do we actually disagree about? Really try to understand. Then the third step is to think about your goal. What is it that I actually want to achieve? You might be tempted to have a short-term goal. I just want to prove I’m right and he’s wrong, not helpful. What’s your long-term goal? What is it you? Is it that you need to get this project done on time? Is it that you want to preserve your relationship with the other person because you need to work closely together for the next six months?

[08:14]: Whatever it is, focus on that and with that information, what you know about the other person, what you’re disagreeing about, what your goal is, you then make a decision about how to proceed. It has to be really thoughtful. I think we often act rashly because we’re sort of activated from the conflict, but you have to really be thoughtful. Does it make sense to sit down and talk this through? Who else might need to be in the room? Should I have a phone call if we’re remote, should I do a zoom meeting? Whatever it is, think through what’s the best way to set up this conversation for success. So that four step framework is something I always use whenever I’m trying to coach someone who’s really uncomfortable in thinking, I don’t want to have this conversation, or I just want to tell them they’re wrong and have them fix it. So those four steps can help you be much more thoughtful about preparing and being ready for the conversation.

[09:06] Matt Abrahams: One of the things I appreciate so much about your work is the frameworks that you provide, and I think frameworks are wonderful to help. Give us a moment to step back and reflect on what it is in terms of the best approach to managing these situations. I love that we first start by being other focused. It is so easy to get focused on our needs and what we want in that moment, and then to really look at what’s the source? What’s causing this conflict? What is it I want to achieve for me and perhaps for the other person or the organization. And then to really create a plan for how to proceed and then to think about when I actually do have the conversation, what’s the best way to do it in terms of timing, in terms of who else needs to be present and in terms of which is the best channel through which to have that communication really, really matters. I know for myself, when I’m in conflictual situations, I just want it to be over. I want to make sure that I get my way and I just want to move on. Having a framework like yours can really help slow me down and make me other focused, which I think will really help in resolving these conflicts.

Amy Gallo: Can I just make a comment? Having it my way is so normal, it’s so relatable. I mean, I’m thinking about a conflict I had yesterday and I was like, how can I set this up and truthfully, how can I manipulate this situation so it just goes my way? And then I was like, wait a second, I’m going to put this person completely on the defensive. This is all going to devolve, and then I’m going to have to have five more conversations instead of one in which I’m actually collaborative instead of manipulative. And so I think we really, that’s an important part is I often get asked, well, how can I make them do this? I was like, you cannot make them do anything, but what you can do is lay the groundwork for a collaborative discussion in which hopefully you both will get what you want or at least part of what you want. It’s rare to have a zero sum situation where you can’t sort of find something where you both can win a little.

[11:09] Matt Abrahams: People can’t see that I’m smiling broadly because it does my heart well to know that an expert in conflict management still falls into some of the traps that I do. Something there that you said that I think is really critical that I want to call out is that the goal of these conversations is invitation rather than getting the person to be defensive, that you want to invite the person to work with you to solve the problem. It’s a collaborative effort rather than a manipulative effort where you’re just trying to work around the other person. And one of the biggest payoffs beyond collaboration is it ultimately saves you time because as you implied, if you just try to manipulate the situation, you then have to spend so much time cleaning up that mess. So there’s an incentive just in terms of efficiency, I think, in all of this.

Amy Gallo: Absolutely.

[11:56] Matt Abrahams: Now, we’ve talked a lot about conflict and people that are difficult. I’d like to switch gears and look at the other side of the coin. In your book getting along, you share the benefits of having friends at work and actually seeking out those friendships. Can you shed some light on the benefits of having colleagues and friends at work, and what are some of your principles for how we can get along with anyone that we work with?

[12:22] Amy Gallo: I love this question because I think we could spend all day talking through the patterns of behavior that drive us up a wall, but the reality is when you look at all of the stats, most people have a majority of positive relationships at work, or at least neutral. The problem is those negative relationships take up an outsized portion of our energy and emotion, and so we’re really thinking a lot about the difficult people when in reality we should be spending most of our time focusing on the more positive relationships because there’s lots and lots of research that shows that those positive relationships have such a huge benefit, not only emotionally on us, right? Of course, it feels good to have a best friend on work, but also creatively in terms of efficiency. One of my favorite pieces of research I found in working on the book was a group of researchers at Rutgers University found that people who reported having a best friend at work had higher performance ratings.

[13:20] I think we often think about relationships as a bonus, right? Like, oh, I like the people I work with. Oh, how lucky you are. But the reality is it affects how we actually do our jobs. It’s not the icing on the cake. It is the cake. Now, that doesn’t mean that everyone at work has to be your best friends. You don’t have to go out for drinks. You don’t have to invite each other over for cookouts on the weekend. It just means you have to care about one another and be invested in one another’s success. That sort of warmth and benevolence between people really can make a big difference in how we experience work, but also in how we carry out and do the work.

[13:58] Matt Abrahams: But I’m hearing you say as your friends help you lighten your load. That’s right. That’s amazing. I know I made a mistake early in my managerial career where my whole goal was to be liked. I just wanted people to like me to be my friends, and I over-indexed on that so much so that people would take advantage of me. I’d love for you to share some advice about how to actually foster friendships at work without going to the extreme as I did and actually end up not making friends and actually making life a little bit worse for those who are reporting to me.

[14:29] Amy Gallo: So many people have been in your shoes, myself included, of if I’m liked, that is the gold. Every manager just wants to be everyone’s favorite manager. Why wouldn’t you want that? But if you think back to the managers you had, they weren’t necessarily my favorite managers. Sometimes it was actually the person who I didn’t have the warmest relationship with, but I respect it and I learned a lot and they pushed me. So I think really mentally thinking, focus on respect over likability. The other key piece is boundaries, and I think the issue there is you’re managing people, you’re becoming friends, and then you either feel taken advantage of, people start to perceive favoritism, all of those things that can happen, and that’s where you really need boundaries. In fact, I actually reported at one point in my career to someone who was a very good friend from college, and when we began our working relationship, we were very clear.

[15:22] We’re like, we got to keep this separate for the perception of others. We don’t want us to be perceived as playing favorites or giving one another advantages, but also because we don’t want it to impact our friendship. If she called me, I would say I’d pick up and say, friend call or work call, and I think it was really clear, and when there were potential conflicts of interest, which there were sometimes we were very clear about, okay, how are we going to navigate this? And I think that has to be true even if your friend is your peer, right, have a conversation. It doesn’t have to be sort of this in depth define the relationship conversation, but it could be helpful to say, sometimes I’m going to have information that you’re not going to be privy to. Sometimes I’m going to have to make a decision that I know is not going to be something you’re going to be super happy with, but how do we want to handle that? When that comes up, how do we want to make sure our friendship stays intact and not impact the work relationships? So I think boundaries are really important.

[16:16] Matt Abrahams: That is so helpful, and the notion of boundary setting is critical to those relationships, and you might set different boundaries with different colleagues, but having an overt, explicit conversation about the boundaries I think is critical, and certainly your advice to focus on being respected versus being liked is what I ultimately came to that conclusion, but it certainly had some, there were negative consequences before I learned that lesson, and in fact, the advice I give all new managers is focus on building trust, focus on building respect and liking often comes from that.

Amy Gallo: That’s right.

Matt Abrahams: Amy, this has been fantastic. I’ve enjoyed listening to all of your advice and guidance and it is so applicable in my daily life and I’m sure in the lives of the listeners we have. Before we end, I’d like to ask you three questions. One, I’m going to create just for you, and the other two are consistent across all of our guests. Are you up for answering?

Amy Gallo: Absolutely

[17:12] Matt Abrahams: Great. I’d like for you to think back to a challenging or conflictual situation you’ve had and what are you most proud of in terms of how you handled it?

[17:23] Amy Gallo: I have a 17-year-old daughter, and we talk about conflict a lot. What I’m realizing and what I’m most proud of in negotiating conflicts with her is being able to in the moment say, here are the various things that I’m struggling with. I want to be a good mom. I want to appear as a good mom. I want to care for you, and I also need my needs met, and to be able to talk through the conflicts of interest that have, it’s not always easy. Sometimes I’m just at level 10 and losing my mind, but when I can sort of take it down a few levels and actually be present enough to say, Hey, this is what’s going on, she’s so much more responsive because instead of being that know it all mom who’s just telling her what to do instead, I’m a real person who’s struggling saying, I don’t know what the best answer is, and this is why I’m doing what I’m doing.

[18:16] Matt Abrahams: I think that is wonderful that you can do that, and I strive to do that. It can help in any interaction, not just with our kids to say, here are the things I’m struggling with in this moment, sounding real, and maybe even getting some advice and guidance to be more collaborative. Question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why?

Amy Gallo: I have maybe a slightly strange answer, but there’s a comedian named TIG Nataro. She’s an interesting communicator. She speaks very slowly. She’s very dry, sense of humor. The other thing I like about the way she communicates, it’s delightful. She doesn’t always say what you expect, the element of surprise, not in a bad way because you can also really feel the authenticity and the intention behind what she says, and so the way that she sort of surprises you by reacting in a certain way or just sort of laying a joke that’s very relatable, very human. I always appreciate what TIG has to say.

Matt Abrahams: So it sounds like the conversational and surprising nature of the communication is what really attracts you to it. I think those are two criteria that can draw all of us into communication. We often can be very scripted and purposeful in everything we say, and sometimes having a little bit of surprise can be helpful. Final question for you, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

Amy Gallo: First, I would say empathy. I think ultimately communication is about balancing your needs and someone else’s needs. I would say assertiveness, actually knowing what you want to say and saying it confidently, and then curiosity. I really always try to lead with what do I not know that I want to know, and how do I communicate in a way that will help me get that

[20:01] Matt Abrahams: Empathy, curiosity, and assertiveness. Great communication recipe. Start with what the others need, understand their perspective. Be curious about how you can connect and collaborate and then be clear and assertive in what you want. Amy, thank you so much for your time and for your guidance. I certainly have benefited personally in dealing with challenging situations. I appreciate your time and your information. Thank you so much.

Amy Gallo: Thank you, Matt. This has been really fun.

[20:34] Matt Abrahams: Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast from Stanford Graduate School of Business. This episode was produced by Jenny Luna, Michael Reilly, and me Matt Abrahams. For more information and episodes, visit gsb.stanford.edu or subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, find us on social media at StanfordGSB.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

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April 15, 2024 Embracing Failure: How to Make Mistakes That Work In this podcast episode, Amy C. Edmonson outlines how leaders can foster an environment where failure is viewed as a success.

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What isn't good about Stanford?

<p>This is similar to the " What’s not so great about Harvard?" thread, so I figured I’d start one for Stanford. Post away…</p>

<p>Sometimes it rains.</p>

<p>If you aren’t careful, you can get sunburned.</p>

<p>The dorm rooms are just simple cubes. By comparison, go to Harvard and you have (at least among the “River Houses”) two person rooms off a corridor where, once inside, you have your own internal room corridor, a private path (yes, just for two!), each person has his/her own room, and (just for you two!) a large common room with a fireplace.</p>

<p>Really, compared to that standard, Stanford is just your garden-variety dorm room with two kids and a bed and a desk. Their dorms there could have been built on any state college campus anywhere. It is a real downer.</p>

<p>The quality of rooms varies by dorm. I agree that most of the freshman housing is poor, but many of the others are not. In all but my freshmen year at Stanford, I had my own room, separate from my roommate. I don’t recall seeing any fireplaces, but there are few days you’d want one on in a climate where it gets into the 60s most winter days. </p>

<p>I am a big fan of Stanford. It was my first choice, and I truly believe it was the best college in the world for me. That said, there are some negatives. Some that come to mind are:</p>

<ol> <li><p>It’s difficult to get accepted to the school. This year it had the lowest acceptance rate of all academic colleges (the only one lower was a school of music). Some disagree with their acceptance criteria, such as diversity policies.</p></li> <li><p>The sticker price is very expensive. However, most students get some form of financial aid. They are very generous with aid, offering no tuition to most families making under 100k/yr and no tuition, room & board or books to most families making under 60k/yr.</p></li> <li><p>Most persons I knew at Stanford highly recommended the school to all their siblings and friends that were accepted, but a few did not. When they did not, they always gave the same reason – the difficulty in the work and maintaining the high grades they were used to . One used the phrase “struggling to keep our heads above water.” Most of the students at the school are used to getting all A’s. Some have never gotten a B in their life. However, some classes are curved such that the average grade is a B. I had one chem class that may have been set up to weed out pre-med students with average test grades sometimes in the 30s and curved to a low B. This resulted in students studying ridiculous amounts for this class and some panicking. Soon after the first big tests in freshmen year, they had counsellors come to my dorm to support students who had trouble coping with getting their first Bs and Cs. I know many students whose lower undergrad grades kept them from getting into the grad school or med school they had hoped for. However, Stanford is probably no worse in this respect than other HYPM schools. If you want to get almost all As, there are ways to do so.</p></li> <li><p>Some don’t like the Palo Alto atmosphere. It’s a small town that’s highly focused on tech companies, especially tech startups (because of the Stanford influence). This results in an extremely high cost of living. Basic homes can cost 7 figures. It can make living off campus expensive. Palo Alto also is not known for having a lot of college party-type activities, like bars and clubs. Instead one might need to go to SF or SJ.</p></li> <li><p>It’s a big campus where most students bike to classes. Bike theft is not uncommon. If students don’t bike, they’ll probably have to walk relatively long distances. Some don’t like this. And persons who are out of shape will be in the small minority. Parking is limited and can be expensive.</p></li> <li><p>While very well known on the west coast, I don’t think the Stanford name carries the same prestige as HYP on the east coast. I’m from upstate NY. When I said I was going to Stanford, some people thought I was talking about Stamford, Connecticut. I doubt that would have happened if I said Harvard. </p></li> <li><p>As mentioned earlier, some of the dorms are unimpressive. And many are not a fan of housing being assigned by the draw. The draw basically involves drawing a random number. Each dorm has a different cutoff. The lower the number, the more likely you are to get into one of your desired dorms.</p></li> <li><p>Some don’t like the quarter system. In one quarter you are often covering the material that other schools do in a semester.</p></li> <li><p>While most class sizes are small, they have some freshmen foundation classes with 100+ students. I didn’t mind these larger classes because they would be broken off into smaller groups with a TAs afterwards for individual attention and questions. I’d much rather get the opportunity to hear an inspirational lecture from a well known expert in the field who wrote the textbook than have it being split up into a bunch of smaller classes, with most run by less experienced persons.</p></li> <li><p>Some students complain that there isn’t enough of a party atmosphere.</p></li> </ol>

<p>Data10 has some great points that I (and most students) would agree with. To that excellent overview, I’d like to add that there is subtle pressure among the student body to be happy all the time, and to “do it all” while still making it look effortless. This is known as the Stanford duck syndrome - the students all look like calm, happy ducks on the surface but are paddling frantically below to stay afloat - and is infamous on campus. Sometimes you can be floundering and feel like you’re all alone, because it seems like everyone around you has it all together. If this intrigues you, you’ll hear a lot about it during NSO and throughout the rest of your career, so much so you might get sick of it, but it’s 100% true. The Stanford name can be a lot to live up to, both during your college career and afterward, as is the expectation to appear calm, cool, and collected while trying to be a superhero. Is it difficult? Sometimes, yes. But is it something you’ll find at Stanford and other schools of this caliber simply by nature of their student bodies? Most likely.</p>

<p>This is going to sound like a weird question, but I’ll ask anyways: how much homework/studying to you get and what’s your GPA. You don’t have to answer- I’m just curious.</p>

<p>Most classes are graded on a curve, at least during freshman year. So one person’s GPA means almost nothing.</p>

<p>The quarter system is not ideal for getting internships with set start and end dates which never correspond to Stanford’s calendar, or for finding cheap sublets in other cities for the same reason–other colleges get out in May, not June, and start in August, note late September. That said, the Stanford calendar works well for athletes since they are still in school the whole time they are competing. At other colleges, the athletes have to stay on after everyone else has gone home for the summer. For example, in my daughter’s sport, the national championship meet will be held in two weeks. Other schools will have been out 3 or 4 weeks already–not Stanford.</p>

<p>A lot of undergrads at S would not agree with this but from from an objective viewpoint it’s pretty clear that, like most research universities, undergrads are a necessary evil here. Now, it’s not as bad at S as it is at Cal, where undergrads are really given short shrift and limited access to many of the opportunities and support grad students enjoy. It’s more subtle at Stanford but it’s still there. They do a very good job at Stanford of making it seem that all opportunities are available to undergrads but that’s just not the case, e.g. take a look at the labs in ChemE or Bio and notice that there are a few token undergrads involved but most of the positions are grads or post doc. Certainly it varies from department to department and maybe typical of a bigger school but I think S can do better. There are other smaller schools, and some like Princeton, that really emphasize the attention they give to the undergrad population, but with more grad students than undergrad it’s something you should be aware of if you plan to attend Stanford.</p>

<p>SunDiego, have you had any trouble getting into labs yourself? I’m asking because I have personally found the research opportunities here very abundant, and so have all of my friends, including those in bio and other sciences. There are even more opportunities available in labs during the summer, so if that is an option for you maybe you can look into those. Obviously, research labs are going to be heavily populated with grad students, post-docs, etc. since this is a leading R1 university, but in my experience most professors are very welcoming to undergrads.</p>

<p>It’s not the oldest, richest, and most reputable university in the world: HARVARD!</p>

<p>Harvard is also not the oldest university in the world. It’s not even in the top 50. For example, Oxford is ~600 years older than Harvard (exact number varies depending on how you you count periods of inactivity). Harvard is also far from the most reputable university in technology-related fields, such as engineering and CS.</p>

<p>It’s not as strong in the creative or fine arts, and Palo Alto is a wealthy suburban town that does not offer much for college students.</p>

<p>Contrary to myth, the arts are thriving just fine here–beautiful Cantor Arts Center, state of the art Bing Concert Hall featuring world class musicians, gorgeous Memorial Church for Stanford Chorale and tons of other performances, amazing dance troupes featuring dance styles from all over the world, lots of student-produced plays, extensive offerings in courses in music and fine arts, etc. etc. And, Stanford is in the the process of pouring millions of dollars into expanding the offerings and resources further.</p>

<p>Palo Alto is a wealthy town all right. Not sure that’s a negative, and there are actually lots of decent places to eat right off campus that aren’t that expensive. Stanford itself offers so much for its students that the town doesn’t really need to. I do go to SF a couple of weekends per quarter for a hit of urban cool–always awesome. But it’s also always great to get back to campus.</p>

<p>It looks like that it is impossible to get in now.</p>

<p>I was a Harvard undergraduate and am now a Stanford graduate student. Both schools have pros and cons. Here is what I don’t like about Stanford …</p>

<p>1) Palo Alto is a terrible place to be a student. While it’s a very nice place to live, it is not a college town at all. The cost of living is exorbitant, nightlife is a joke, and very few businesses cater to students. </p>

<p>2) The campus is a bubble. Students rarely leave and I think as a result people graduate from Stanford having very little idea of how the real world works. Being in Boston, Harvard did a much better job of this, since it was so common to mingle with students from other universities and with the population of the city.</p>

<p>3) Despite being such a great school, Stanford does not have an intellectual vibe. In general, discussions are about starting companies and earning money, not about philosophy, literature, and ancient history.</p>

<p>^^Sorry to disagree with you…but you having done your undergraduate work at H brings a certain BIAS to this discussion. Almost “every” individual who studied at schools SHYPCCCM as a “college” student think they had a more “intellectual experience” than someone from another institution…I should know. Many from my undergraduate college tell me how “inferior” the students at their respective graduate schools are whether it be medical school, law school, business school, or PhD programs…in respect to the “college” students there…that’s just how human nature/mind works…</p>

<p>…for perspective, I attended graduate school at another TOP rival school (see above)…and I, like many, thought I was attending “plumbing school” (no disrespect to professional plumbers) with very little intellectual discussions…but, when you are basically surrounded by graduate students who know exactly what they want to do with their lives…they become more practical and utilitarian…that’s just how it works…as you get closer to getting out into the “real world”…and you also get limited exposure to the undergrads…so one can’t really have a fair assessment/nor can you fairly judge them either (since you yourself are got going through what they are at THIS school)…</p>

<p>…trust me, if you had attended Stanford as an undergrad, you would be saying the same thing about Harvard undergrads…</p>

<p>…even I, as a parent, with 2 children at SHYP schools have come to appreciate that each individual school provides the right “intellectual vibe” for each child that chose it. There is no right or wrong answer here…I should know what I’m talking about since everyone thinks my alma mater has the MOST intellectual VIBE.</p>

<p>"It’s not the oldest, richest, and most reputable university in the world: HARVARD! "</p>

<p>RCMAN13 </p>

<ol> <li> I would think Boston would be the same costwise if you were a graduate student there that you did not experience. Someone I know since their childhood started residency at MGH last year and mentioned paying $3000 a month for a 600 sq ft studio.</li> </ol>

<p>2 and 3 seem to conflict. Either they are in a bubble or they are gungho about starting companies and making money. I know about 20 or so rising sophomores at the moment and ALL of them are doing something in the real world during summer. Just because they don’t leave campus during the school year does not mean they are not doing anything in summers to see the real world.</p>

<p>In terms of what the student body is like, is there a lot of diversity at Stanford?</p>

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Staying up late could be bad for your mental health, Stanford study finds

G oing to bed late, regardless of whether you’re a night owl or an early bird by nature, is linked to worse mental health, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers.

Scientists had believed that aligning your sleep behavior to your sleep time preference — “evening people” going to sleep later, and “morning people” going to sleep earlier — was beneficial for mental health. This is known as aligning to your chronotype.

But the latest study suggests, to researchers’ surprise, that going to bed late is potentially harmful for the mental health of all individuals, regardless of their natural sleep time preferences, as it’s linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety.

“We found that alignment with your chronotype is not crucial here, and that really it’s being up late that is not good for your mental health,” said the study’s senior author Jamie Zeitzer, a Stanford professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “The big unknown is why.”

Both morning people and evening people who went to sleep late had higher rates of depression and anxiety, according to the study , which was published this month in Psychiatry Research.

Night owls who went to sleep late were the most negatively impacted: They were 20%-40% more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder than night owls who went to sleep on an early or intermediate schedule.

Early birds who went to sleep late also suffered in terms of their mental health, but not as much as the night owls.

Early birds who went to bed early, and awoke with the sun, fared the best.

The findings were determined independent of sleep duration and consistency of sleep timing.

For healthy aging, the study recommends that people go to bed before 1 a.m., regardless of whether they identify as night owls or early birds.

“It’s important to get to sleep before 1 a.m.,” Zeitzer said. “That’s the one-sentence takeaway.”

The analysis included about 74,000 middle-aged and older adults in the United Kingdom. Researchers tracked their sleep using a wearable activity tracker for seven days, and noted from their health records any diagnoses of mental or behavioral disorders. About a quarter of the participants self-identified as evening people; 9% considered themselves morning people; 65% were somewhere in the middle.

The study did not attach a specific bedtime to be considered “early” or “late,” but rather grouped the participants in three categories, relative to each other’s sleep time — 25% were early sleepers, 25% were late sleepers, and 50% were intermediate or middle sleepers. The 1 a.m. cutoff was based on the distribution of participants’ sleep times.

The study did not attempt to answer why mental health appears linked to sleep timing. But researchers think it could be related to actions and behaviors that people tend to take or experience in the very early morning hours, such as alcohol and drug use, overeating and suicidal thoughts. People also tend to be more isolated late at night, with fewer people around who are also awake, and thus fewer social guardrails.

Zeitzer is now taking the study a step further and examining whether certain behaviors that people engage in late at night are associated with positive or negative mental health outcomes.

“If you’re up late binge-watching Netflix, does that have the same outcome as if you were up late because you’re hanging out with friends?” he said. “If you’re staying up late, does it matter what you’re doing? That’s the next step.”

Reach Catherine Ho: [email protected]

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For many of us, orthodontic work – getting fitted with braces, wearing retainers – was just a late-childhood rite of passage. The same went for the pulling of wisdom teeth in early adulthood. Other common conditions, including jaw pain and obstructed sleep apnea – when slack throat muscles interrupt breathing during rest – also just seem like par for the course.

A new study says that parents and caregivers can take steps to promote proper mouth, jawbone and facial musculature development in children to help stave off future health burdens and chronic conditions. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The broader scientific community has largely deemed the underlying abnormality behind these problems as hereditary and untreatable, and opted to deal with symptoms through medical devices and after-the-fact interventions.

But in a new study, Stanford researchers and colleagues argue that all these issues and more are actually relatively new problems afflicting modern humans and can be traced to a shrinking of our jaws. Moreover, they maintain that this “jaws epidemic” is not primarily genetic in origin, as previously thought, but rather a lifestyle disease. That means the epidemic is largely the result of human practices and akin to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

The study – published in the journal BioScience – marshals the growing evidence from studies conducted around the world surrounding the jaws epidemic, as well as how to address it proactively. Parents and caregivers can take steps to promote proper mouth, jawbone and facial musculature development in children, the study advises, to help stave off future health burdens and chronic conditions.

“The jaws epidemic is very serious, but the good news is, we can actually do something about it,” said Paul Ehrlich , the Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus, at Stanford and one of the study’s authors.

The new study builds upon a book Ehrlich co-wrote with orthodontist and lead study author Sandra Kahn entitled Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic , published by Stanford University Press in 2018. Two other Stanford researchers, Robert Sapolsky and Marcus Feldman , have contributed their expertise to the new study. Seng-Mun “Simon” Wong, a general dentist in private practice in Australia, was also a co-author.

Rooted in lifestyle, not genetics

Anthropologists have long noted the significant differences between the jaws and teeth in modern skulls compared to pre-agricultural, hunter-gatherer humans from thousands of years ago. The differences are stark even compared to humans who lived as recently as a century-and-a-half ago during pre-industrial times. These bygone humans showed little teeth crowding, impaction of their wisdom teeth (a leading reason for their surgical removal nowadays) or malocclusion – the abnormal positioning of the upper and lower teeth when the mouth is closed.

Assuming that genetics are chiefly responsible for the sudden modern rise of these dental maladies does not make sense, said Ehrlich. “There’s not been enough time for evolution over the span of only several generations to have made our jaws shrink,” said Ehrlich. Nor is there any evidence of selection pressures that would have favored smaller jawed-people producing more offspring – and thus perpetuating the trait – than regular-jawed people.

“The evidence of a genetic contribution to the jaws epidemic is not strong,” said Feldman, who is a population geneticist and the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor and professor of biology.

Instead, profound physiological changes can occur in human populations over short intervals, Feldman pointed out, purely as a result of environmental factors, such as dietary choices and cultural norms. For instance, since World War II, a switchover from heavy rice consumption to more dairy and protein in childhood has been linked to Japanese men gaining around 5 inches in average adult height.

This goes to show that in many cases, lifestyle choices can have just as powerful if not more of an influence on human traits than underlying genetics. “A genetic contribution to a trait, if there is one, does not necessarily sentence you to a life with that trait,” said Feldman. “In almost all cases, you cannot intervene medically to alter a genetic contribution; it’s not actionable. But what is actionable are the things talked about in this study, as well as Paul and Sandra’s book.”

Contributing factors

Available evidence points to the jaws epidemic arising as humanity underwent sweeping behavioral changes with the advent of agriculture, sedentism (settling in one place for extended periods) and industrialization. One obvious factor is the softening of diets, especially with the relatively recent invention of processed foods. Also, less chewing is needed nowadays to extract adequate nutrition – our ancestors certainly did not enjoy the sustentative luxury of slurping down protein shakes.

A less obvious, though more significant reason behind the jaws epidemic, Ehrlich and colleagues contend, has been the rise of what they describe as bad oral posture. Our bones grow, develop and change shape under the influences of gentle but persistent pressures, multiple studies have shown. The proper development of the jaw and its associated soft tissues is guided by oral posture – the positioning of the jaws and the tongue during times when children are not eating or speaking. This positioning is especially important overnight during long sleep stretches, when swallowing maintains the correct, gentle pressures. With both children and adults now sleeping on forgiving mattresses and pillows, instead of the firm ground as their ancestors did, mouths are likelier to fall open, disrupting positioning and swallowing.

To promote the proper development of the jaw, the answer is not to start sleeping on rocks. Rather, basic practices such as having children chew sugar-free gum, as well as giving babies less mushy foods as they transition to solid foods, can help, the researchers say. Kahn and Wong also practice what they call forwardontics, which includes exercises such as proper breathing and swallowing patterns to guide jaw growth in children as young as 2 versus waiting until children are older and require more severe interventions. To raise awareness of the jaws epidemic and how to better address it, Ehrlich and his co-authors have been giving lectures to conventions of orthodontists and seen some positive momentum. “There’s no question that some clinical practices are moving in this direction,” said Ehrlich, “but we have a lot more work to do.”

Better living, starting from the jaw

Benefits are not just limited to straighter teeth, roomier jaws and stronger oral muscles. Cutting down on sleep deprivation from sleep apnea is another gain, which has myriad knock-on benefits. Sleep deprivation increases stress, which is associated with greater risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease in adult populations, and with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

“The maladaptive ‘jaws’ profile can disrupt our stress response and ultimately bring about greater stress and chronic activation of the body’s stress response,” said Sapolsky, the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor and a professor of biology, of neurology and neurological sciences and of neurosurgery, whose research focuses on stress.

Ehrlich hopes that increased attention and research geared toward the jaws epidemic can turn the tide.

“We’re going to continue learning the causes of the jaws epidemic and continue getting the word out on how this is a highly treatable condition early on in life,” said Ehrlich. “Parents and caregivers, in collaboration with dentists and orthodontists, can all help children to avoid some serious health problems later on in their lives.”

Ehrlich, Sapolsky and Feldman are faculty in the School of Humanities and Sciences . Sapolsky and Feldman are also members of Stanford Bio-X and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute . Feldman is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment .

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Media Contacts

Ker Than, Stanford News Service: (650) 723-9820, [email protected]