Homework. Something that every high school student is painfully familiar with. Slow, tedious, busy work that is assigned as a daily torturing session for all of us innocent little children. A little homework can help to grind what a student has learned into their long-term memory, but the hours worth that we get? No way!
Students are expected to get good grades, have a hobby, have family time, go outside, read lots of books, spend time with their friends, and do all of their homework? There is way too much stress put on students, like it or not. If you’re still wondering why teens are rebelling through alcohol and tobacco, look no further. A huge part of the reason for their rebellion is that parents become overbearing, put more pressure on them than they are capable of handling, not allowing them anywhere near as much free time, and still expecting them to play a sport, be social, and have fun. Who can blame the kid for buckling under the weight?
We didn’t have this mountain of homework 30 years ago, so what has changed? Why is it that this generation needs so much homework, as opposed to previous generations?
Is it perhaps because American standardized test scores are lagging? In standardized testing, there were 23 industrialized countries that received superior scores in math, and 16 in science. Trying to find a solution for this would be understandable. Assigning more homework to help test scores looks good on paper. However, this logic has one serious flaw. Most students that are bringing down standardized test scores are the ones who don’t care. They don’t work in class, the don’t pay attention, so of course they don’t do their homework.
More homework being assigned won’t change anything with them. They’ll ignore it just like all of the normal homework. Students that care about doing well, on the other hand, are forced to scramble to keep up with the avalanche of pointless worksheets that they are assigned every day, even on weekends.
Adults talk about how hard being an adult is. Taxes, insurance, a job, yes, definitely stressful. But have they forgotten what it was like to be stressed over school? Honestly, I can’t see how school and work are much different. Even worse, with school, you don’t have anywhere near as much freedom as you do with an actual job. Most people in school (not counting college students) can’t drive, very few can vote, they have to have their parents approval on where they can or can’t go, most can’t get a job, they can’t drink, and they are entirely under the control of the administration when it comes to what classes they can or cannot take.
According to the National Education Association, students should have ten minutes of homework in the first grade, and then have that number increase by ten minutes per grade level. By this math, freshmen should have 90 minutes, sophomores 100, juniors 110, and seniors 120. This rule should be followed. Most teachers do try to follow it, but this rule may not even be necessary if teachers concentrated more effectively on a lesson. This may call for a change in teaching style, a different approach, or just simply for them to stop wasting class time unnecessarily.
Students cannot fulfill all of their obligations with all of the added pressure from too much completely unnecessary and time wasting homework caused by flawed logic and a minority of students who don’t care.
