Wednesday, March 3, 2010

This week, I was surprised. We actually had homework for A.P. Lang. This is so different than usual. Besides reading and blogging, I’m pretty sure this is the first trivial busy work assignment given out to us. Now, at least this one was pretty straight forward and simple. Most teachers like to assign pages and pages of the same repetitive task to beat the point into our brains. Back to my point thought, this class has always been high on my list because the relative lack of these simplistic views on outside work. I’m hoping though, that this is the limit on our home work. I can deal with writing short paragraphs dissecting a small portion of work.
Why do teachers feel the need to assign so much work though? I wonder if any one has a good answer for this. They say it’s for practice but I don’t believe that for a second. I feel it should be an optional route in school. I mean, we go to school for a little over half of our day. Why would we waste any more of our few hours doing the same things we did in that class earlier? Think about the students who have sports too. They spend at least two more hours practicing and playing their games. If you add a job on top of that, there is virtually no time to even eat. No wonder the suicide rate has increased.
With no time to relax and take a break from the high stress competition induced by the drive to gain acceptance into a decent college, kids go crazy. All of these problems caused by homework could easily be solved. It should be stopped. There would be nothing wrong with it being optional. It would even help sort out the serious students from the slackers.
If these assignments could even be lessened, I definitely sure it would help relieve the stress pretty much everyone is feeling at these times. Simple little discussion questions are easy to start and even finish in class or between classes. These small assignments would also ensure more students completing them. If a teacher gives out a packet, very few will actually do the whole thing, and the others will all probably copy each other to get the answers or just make up answers of their own.
The only good homework does is provide a little cushion for the over-all grade. It can keep everything balanced. That is the only reason I occasionally complete the required work. I am more likely to do it when it’s short though. If all teachers conformed to a system of guidelines keeping homework to a very low minimum, the world would be a happier place. Not to mention, the trees would also be saved, that’s for any of those out there bent on saving our environment one branch at a time. Ok, well my rant on homework is done. Now I’ll go finish reading and writing on As I Lay Dying, which is a terrible book by the way.

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