We have entered the long awaited time of year when both public and private grade schools as well as universities have the popular "spring break" and I have to think about how some teachers approach these sought after periods of time.
The Problem With Homework
Hours and Hours
When you get to a certain age, your teachers will start to expect more of you especially when regarding effort put into homework. This makes sense to a degree because as you advance through school, your work also becomes more advanced. However, some teachers seem to have an unrealistic expectation with how much homework their students can handle. There are some teachers that will assign homework and state that it should take around an hour to complete. This wouldn't be a huge issue, if it wasn't for the rest of the teachers that say the exact same thing. In my high school years, I would finish my school day around 2:15 and go down to the music wing until 3 or go to a club function. I would then head home to unwind and do some of my homework, before having dinner and then heading back to school for either musical/play rehearsal or marching band practice. If I'm assigned 4 hours of homework every day, how can I possibly be expected to have a social life, or eat dinner, or participate in my extra curricular activities, or even sleep?
Weekends
For some reason, there are a number of teachers that will take the weekend as a sign that they are able to and should give out a larger amount of homework. This idea is not favorable by students, and it's not just based on bias. For anyone that works a minimum wage 9-5pm job on weekdays, they have the expectation that they will not be doing work tasks on the weekends. They clock in at 9am every week day, and leave at 5pm. The weekends are their time to get away from work and live their own life with their friends and their family. The same is true for students, but we do not always respect that idea. "This project will take a little longer but you have the weekend to get it done" is a phrase that will always receive some form of groan or negative response. No one wants to spend their whole weekend doing homework, they want to be out in the sun or hanging out with their friends. It's bad enough that they have hours of homework to do during the week anyway, why should teachers also take their weekends away?
Extended Breaks
Whether a full week or just a long weekend, students (and teachers) take any away time that they can get. It is frustrating though when many teachers hand out extensive assignments or readings to be completed upon returning to regular classes. Too many times I remember being assigned a book to read, or a paper to write, or several assignments to be completed over break. The idea behind a break, whether it is just a random Friday or a whole week in April, is the same as the weekend. Give the students a break from school and homework, and let them explore their social interactions and other interests. The amount of times that I had to tell my teachers that I wouldn't be able to complete an assignment over break because I was going down south to an area with no internet or cellular data is much higher than it should be.
The Sunday Scaries
If you are a student, teacher, or parent, you probably know what I mean when I refer to the "Sunday Scaries" as it happens to the best of us. This idea refers to when you have put off a deadline or assignment until the last possible minute, and realize that you are on your last day to get it done. Most often this happens on a Sunday night, as we try to actually enjoy our weekends and then realize that Monday morning is approaching rapidly and we have a lot to get done. No one likes this feeling, and it often leads to rushed assignments and hasty work. Students are so ready for the weekend come Friday afternoon, that they tend to forget about what they need to accomplish for Monday morning. Assignments can be either forgotten, unfinished, or rushed to completion.
Teachers, Give Yourself a Break: Avoid the Sunday Scaries
As a current graduate student in an education program, I can say firsthand that we teachers also cherish our time away from the classroom, and take advantage of the weekends to balance our social lives and explore other interests. Our Sunday Scaries creep up on us when we realize that we haven't done our lesson planning for the week and we don't know what we have to be doing the very next morning. Teachers are not given enough prep time in the week to get all of their prep and planning time and will often spend their free time at home or even at school after hours doing this preparation.
As someone who just finished student teaching, I offer the following advice to all current or prospective teachers. The longer the assignment that you give your students, the more that you have to grade. The takeaway from this should not be to eliminate homework, that is a different discussion that I might explore in the future. However, the amount of homework that is assigned and expected of students is much higher than it should be.
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