It is yet another evening for an 11th grader down at dorms.
This morning, I left at 6:45 a.m. since I had to attend a meeting regarding one of my internships. Then, during lunch, I met with another person to sort out a project plan.
After school, I went for my journalism PASSAGE. Once that was done with, I had dinner and walked down to dorms, reaching exactly when the 7 p.m. check-in bell rang.
I had a quick chat with my roommate about our room-check score (and how one of us forgot to turn off the bed lamp) and went on to finish my work.
Let’s take a look at my checklist:
- Chemistry: Finished 3 worksheets —- check
- Brag sheet for Junior Seminar class: Mostly done —- check for now
- Microeconomics: Reviewed a chapter about Oligopoly —- check
- Pre-calculus: Solved 20 questions on Logarithms —- check
- AP English essay: Done with the outline —- check
- AP Statistics: Solved all questions in the hope of getting at least 90.63% right —check
Seems pretty good…
I look at the clock and it is 9:43 p.m. I’ve got one assignment left — my opinion piece for my AP English class.
There is a slight chance that I might finish this before lights out, so I hope for the best.
So, about this opinion piece, I was thinking to write about how important homework is. But I just realized something — homework itself is the real problem here.
But what can I do?
After much thought, I came up with an idea. What if there was no assigned after-school homework?
Sounds pretty strange, to be honest.
But think about it. If there was no homework, people like me would have time to balance things out. All of us stressed-out juniors would.
Yes, some things, like reviewing for tests and catching up on missed work can’t be omitted. Even holiday homework can stay since we do need some work to keep our brains on track, after all. We are here to gain knowledge — only if assigned homework could be abolished, maybe we would be able to balance our time better.
The quality of education received wouldn’t necessarily be downgraded. In fact, teachers and students would have to use class time more wisely in order to make sure that the required content was being covered. Right now, a lot of classes tend to have more homework than the amount of material that is covered in class, and this sometimes demotivates students from even paying attention to the teacher.
And I’m not the only person that thinks so:
According to the Mirror Online, not having homework would also mean more time for teachers to plan lessons, as they wouldn’t have to spend time setting and marking homework.
Another good reason for banning homework is put forward in an article published in Time magazine, which states that students should be treated like adults when it comes to time spent studying. Just like there is the concept of overtime for adults who work, there should be a limit to the amount of time a student engages in studies. As the author puts it, “there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that ‘after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.’”
There should be a designated time for all activities. If all students do is study, even when they are done with the school day, there is absolutely no time left for their personal well being. They will struggle to take out time for themselves as well as for the people they love.
I know that Woodstock is not trying to make life hard for us; in fact, it does have a few policies that try to get the stress off our shoulders. One of those is the “no more than two tests/major assignments in a day” policy, which lets students have a chance to concentrate on what they are doing and do it well. Along with that, there are several no-homework weekends which allow us to breathe and get everything to run smoothly in life.
Still, there is a chance for improvement. If most days could turn into days like these, as in no homework days, maybe students would get more time for other things as well. Maybe they could focus more on after-school activities like music or sports. Maybe they could have more time for their personal well-being and for socializing with other people.
The point is that homework holds us back from doing a lot of other things which could potentially shape us into good human beings. If teachers could plan out classes in such a way that we wouldn’t have to spend time later doing more actual work, maybe life could be a little easier.
Is this too much to ask for?
Anyways, it is 4:24 a.m. already. Now that I’m done with my last homework assignment, maybe I’ll get two hours of sleep before I’ve got to wake up and go to school.
Edited by Veer Arya
thewoodstocker.com 