Between sixth and twelfth grades I averaged about 4-5 hours of homework per school night.
What kinds of subjects were you studying, in what kind of school? What kind of university education were you aiming for with those studies in grades 6 through 12?
It was a normal American public school in the south. I was in a group of advanced students in my junior high school (we took classes like algebra and Spanish two years before our peers), and I took a few AP classes in high school, so I suppose I wasn't the average high school student.
The explanation of why there was so much homework: In K-5 I had only one teacher each year who taught all the subjects (math, English, history, etc.), and I received just 1 or 2 hours of homework a night. When I entered sixth grade, I suddenly had a different teacher for each subject, each of whom sent me home with an hour or so of homework for each subject.
Keep in mind that I'm trying to average the number of hours I spent per school night. I might have had one night a week where I had very little homework, but once I was in high school, I would spend two or three nights a week up till 1 or 2 in the morning finishing an English essay or work for some other subject.
I think I can honestly say that I wasn't aiming for any university education in sixth grade ;-) I never had any ambition to go to a prestigious university; I only applied to one state school my senior year which I wound up attending.
What kinds of subjects were you studying, in what kind of school? What kind of university education were you aiming for with those studies in grades 6 through 12?