Homework Time!

Friday, November 6th, 2009
by The Vigornia

by Chandra Edwards

“Quantity is immaterial- it should be until the student is on firm ground with the material. That’s hard to do when you have a class of 20 students however- if the class was made up of a few students the teacher could set up separate assignments for each student.” Barbara Gould said. Most students would have to agree to disagree. For example, a student at Worcester Academy named Danielle Fournier who is a junior, said, “ I can see where Ms. Gould is coming from but in some aspects I would have to disagree because teachers give so much homework!” Homework is a huge part of the school system especially here at Worcester Academy. Worcester Academy takes homework seriously, if you happen to not turn in a homework assignment or it may be late, your class grade is affected greatly. To a student that is the worst of it. Furthermore, when a student works incredibly hard to keep an A average, but when it comes to homework time, this student has to deal with students activities, outside sports and Worcester Academy athletics and does not have the great time management skills to get it done. Now, this busy student works incredibly hard for the all round class yet gets may be a B-/B+ because of homework? That is just unfair. Evan Hendra who is a senior at Worcester Academy says, “I have a difficult time trying to finish homework after I get home from school at 6:30. I get home at 6:30 because of cross-country. By the time I finish, it is immediately time for me to go to bed and yet I still manage to get like, five hours of sleep.” Five hours of sleep per night?! That is not nearly enough to last through the school day when there are quizzes, tests, and lectures and after schools activities too. Some teachers might not recognize that students have lives or extra curricular activities outside of school. That just adds to the chaos, this is where students need to learn time management. This is very hard for many students. What students do not understand is the purpose of homework. Barbara Gould says,“Potentially it’s a way to help solidify a concept or skill. It also provides an opportunity to think about the application of a skill or concept to real-world situations. Ex: what types of materials are in the foods you ate for lunch-carbs, lipids, protein etc. Evan Hendra would have to disagree, “Most of the stuff, I’ve learned does not help me in real-world situations.” It’s a combination of learning the skill, though it may be “useless” and learning concepts for the purpose of real-world situations. Learning a skill such as, calculus is “useless” for now. But to few students, you may need that concept later in life. For most students though, they will never need that concept or may never use it again. So, if homework is to get a firm understanding of the topic, and the teacher uses class time appropriately, why give students hours and hours of homework to learn a concept they may never use? Why might teachers be inflexible with homework? Students may never understand this. Mr. Baker answers this question; “Teachers might be inflexible because the homework might be the basis of discussion for the next class and because the teachers believe there is value in doing the homework. If there are course expectations students must meet them. The completion of homework demonstrates a student’s commitment to the class. It helps the teachers assess the students‘ understanding.” The concept of homework is pretty controversial; students have busy lives especially in this day of age. It is hard to keep up. Time management skills should be taught first then we can bring on the homework!

Popularity: 10% [?]