11/26/2020
I haven't posted here in a while, but I recently read a post on Quora that I believe was written by a student. With the nature of education changing so drastically for COVID-19, I wonder if this is an opportunity to reexamine how we do what we do, excise ineffective or counterproductive elements of our practice, and recreate the whole system from the ground up. I think we do all know that the system is broken, and perhaps this crisis will reveal the fissures in the edifice in stark relief. Maybe we can use this bad time to make things better.
While I don't necessarily agree with everything in this post, I find the ideas interesting, especially from a student. The original post follows:
https://www.quora.com/Is-homework-healthy-Or-is-it-just-keeping-kids-stuck-inside-instead-of-out-playing-How-much-is-too-much-at-various-ages/answer/Ann-Edelman-3
Is homework healthy? Or is it just keeping kids stuck inside instead of out playing? How much is too much at various ages?
Our school system is a train wreck.
Can we just take a moment and admit that?
On the student side of things, the effects of school are pretty rough. Teenagers aren’t machines… they don’t want to and can’t work all the time.
If your teenager goes to school everyday, like required by law, they’re in school for 7 hours a day. Most teenagers also do after school activities, which last between an hour or two, unless you play a sport.
Your teenager is typically on campus for nine hours a day, five days a week. That means they’re basically on the same schedule as a full time job… on average, spending about 45 hours a week in or on school campus.
Once your teenager comes home, they’ll also have to complete homework. Many schools have kids taking eight classes a semester, in high school. There will be four classes a day.
I don’t know what idiot decided that there should be thirty minutes of homework added for each grade, but most teachers give about thirty minutes of homework per class. If your teenager is unlucky, they could have up to an hour per class, especially for Honor’s and AP.
Meaning that even if you take all C-level classes, your teen will be saddled with about two hours of homework a day. That’s not actually how long the homework takes either…
Homework is always going to take longer than it should. At this point, your teenager has been functioning since around five or six in the morning. They’re tired and most likely don’t remember what they were learning. Many kids also struggle with ADHD, ADD, and a small thing called “forgetfulness”.
Some families also smack dinner in the middle of homework, which can add to being distracted and lose of any speed they might have picked up.
If you’re lucky and not in any Honors, AP, or Duel Enrollment classes, homework might be done in three hours.
Meaning that your teenager is actually up, moving, and working for at least 12 hours a day. That doesn’t include the time they spend getting ready, on the bus, eating dinner, or grabbing a snack.
A teenager seems to be working just as much as a full time adult, if they’re meeting your unrealistic expectations.
By the time everything is out of the way, it’s probably around eight or nine at night. Your teenager has ceased being tired and logged in to Instagram, Discord, or maybe Snapchat to talk with friends. It’s around midnight or maybe even one in the morning before they go to bed.
Then the cycle repeats.
You might be asking, “If teenagers are tired, why don’t they just go to sleep earlier?”… or even, “Why is this so bad?”…. or saying, “It teaches responsibility!”.
Let me explain these three points, specifically.
Why don’t teenagers just go to bed earlier?
I know there’s a lot of older folks who like to talk about how they got up with the sun and it wasn’t that bad. Some older folks that I know don’t believe in science.
Here’s the hard truth- teenagers can’t go to bed early. They’re not wired to even start getting tired until after eleven at night.
It’s not something that you can blame on the blue screen, either. It’s called your “circadian rhythm”. Your circadian rhythm changes through out your life… as a child and elder, you go to sleep early. As a teenager and in your middle ages, you sleep a bit later. Your circadian rhythm is also somewhat unique to you and your body. Forcing yourself off of the sleep schedule your body wants can cause anxiety, depression, and a variety of other issues. And you most likely will still feel exhausted, even if you got 7–8 hours of sleep.
So, if your teenager went to bed early and gets up at 5 AM, they’ll still be tired and have poor mental health.
Why is it so bad?
We’ve already talked about the sleep cycle. In addition to a poorly planned school starting time, your teenager is working up to twelve hours a day! Possibly more.
You might call this school and say it’s a luxury to learn, but a teenager who is tired and has poor mental doesn’t see it the same way. If they’re even able to stay awake.
School isn’t easy and it is, in fact, work. I have a part time job and I can say that having a part job as a restaurant employee or even a retail worker (I’ve done both) is less work and less time consuming that school. For me, I’d say it’s less stressful as well.
Your teenager has an underdeveloped brain. Our brains don’t stop growing until about 25. By having your teenager work over the hours of a normal 8–5 office job, a poor sleep schedule, with other mental issues feeding in… it’s like your mixing a recipe for disaster. When you add the constant stress of getting into a good college, getting a job (on top of everything else), keeping grades up, and attending school everyday whether you’re sick or not… well, I’m not sure what you’re expecting.
It teaches responsibility!
No. It doesn’t. I can one hundred percent promise you that.
My time spent in school was anything but responsible. That was where I learned how to ditch, which hallways were the best to hide in, where the administrators walked by, and which classes it was okay to sleep in.
I learned about proxies that would let you get past the school internet filters, as well. I spent more time on manga than I ever did learning.
And being late to class? No one cares. I’m not kidding… there’s no consequences when kids are late to class. What are the teachers going to do? Send you to a detention that they’ll have to supervise and get yelled at by your parents for assigning it to you? Fail you?
I learned responsibility when I got my first part time job. There were benefits and trade offs, too.
For one, I usually got to have some in my schedule. I was able to pull up my schedule at any time and check to see if anything was wrong.
The downside was that the schedule was strictly enforced. I needed to be at work ten minutes early, so I could clock in on the dot. If you clocked in ten minutes early or ten minutes late, you were in trouble. But overall, it was reasonable.
There was also a clear discipline and reward system. If you were late or did something, you got an “occurrence point”. Six occurrence points in a three month term was equal to termination.
The rewards system was based on the group performance. If everyone had no accidents in their area for so many days, then we would have a party. Because of this, people were more likely to help each other.
And since the system was clearly outlined, there was no blame to be assigned… if it was the manager, then everyone saw that the manager took out ten dollars from the register. If it was the cashier, everyone knew that too. There was nothing to blame when you made a mistake, unless you had a poor trainer (which does happen, from time to time).
Working taught me a lot… it’s taught me integrity, responsibility, and teamwork. School, on the other hand, has taught me more about how to break the rules and get away with it than information I might need to know.
Let’s look at the teaching side.
I know this answer has gotten a bit long, but there are a few things that need to be explained on this side of the story as well.
Teachers have it about equally as rough as students. I won’t say more so, mainly because they do get paid and they do have some control of the situation. But that control is very, very limited.
First, a teacher has to get up earlier than the students. They’re expected to be in their classroom before their students arrive. They also can’t come in looking like they haven’t slept in a week, because they need to be professional.
Younger teachers will typically have a harder time with early mornings (circadian rhythm, remember?), but getting up at 5–6 AM is hard for anyone.
Once the first bell rings, a teacher is expected to be teaching the entire class. Class can range from forty five minutes to an hour a half… a good teacher should have the students doing something and every minute of that accounted for.
After two to three classes, the teacher will finally have a “break”. If the teacher is lucky, they’ll have twenty minutes to eat, grade/lesson plan, and make sure nothing in their family or friend group has gone astray. After that, it’s back to the books.
A teacher technically only has to work 7–8 hours. That’s what people are told, anyway. That’s all they get paid for.
But remember those after school activities? Teachers are supervising them. They might also have meetings. After that, they might go home. Or they might stay.
Whether they go home or stay, they’ll most likely spend the next two to four hours planning their lessons, grading papers, and sending emails to parents, students, other teachers, and school management.
After that, they might eat some dinner, watch TV, and go to bed.
Or they might take five or six hours to finish their work, because they’re trying to raise a child or three and they won’t watch the goddamn magic box and leave them alone. Jesus, mommy/daddy needs a drink.
How do we fix this?
You’ve probably heard it a million times- there’s no easy solution. If you’re surprised that “raising teacher pay” hasn’t been working, you shouldn’t be.
The issue isn’t just about the teachers… it’s about the students too.
First, we need to change around our school schedules. Middle schools and high schools shouldn’t be starting until 9. Elementary schools should be starting earlier, because children are more productive during early hours and less productive during the late ones.
School hours should also be reduced. Let’s face the truth… if students weren’t to take 26 credits and half of them being bogus, we wouldn’t need an 8 hour school day. Stop requiring students to make 4 math classes… I didn’t understand a word of my Algebra Two class, but I’m managing my money just fine. And get rid of homework- majority of kids just google it, write it down, and forget it at home anyway.
Instead of forcing useless information down the student’s throats, cut that time out of school. Allow the teachers to have paid planning time. I promise, if you do this, the teachers will teach better and the students will be more engaged, because they haven’t been sitting at a desk for the past six hours.
Create more social opportunities in-school. Have one lunch for everyone and extend the time spent at lunch. Make lunch an hour and a half… students can eat lunch, relax, go to the library, maybe even drop in for some extra help.
Allow teachers and students time off, without penalty. Look, some days, students just can’t. Same with teachers. When you force them to say they were “sick”, you’re creating dishonesty and distrust, as well as penalizing it when someone says, “I had a bad day and I needed a break”. Allow students and teachers to check off a “mental health day” box instead. Encourage being honest and open… everyone will be happier.
And school counselor are a mess as well. You can’t expect them to handle the mental health, schedules, and administrative work of the students. Instead, take the funding away from the school resource officer (I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen ours do anything but walk around the hallway and look menacing while he sips a coffee) and reallocate it. Maybe pay for a school therapist instead.
Stop standardized testing like the PSSA’s, ACT, SAT, and ASVAB. Seriously, why are high sophomores taking the ASVAB? They’re not going into the military. Test taking is also a horrendous and inaccurate way to see how smart a student is and what areas they excel in. In reality, it’s actually taking time away from the classroom.
We should also change the school’s curriculum. Instead of abstinence, teach about how to have safe s*x. Teach about consent and what to do if you didn’t consent. Teach about the important mental health and talk about subjects like abuse- in parental and romantic relationships. Replace four years of math with learning how to file taxes, how to use a graphing calculator, how to budget, and maybe even dabble in teaching about the stock market. Let Shakespeare go (I love reading, but Shakespeare has become the bane of my existence) and try more modern novels that teens might like reading. Allow teens to pick classes that they would enjoy and do well in, rather than shoving classes that they’re going to sleep through down their throats.
There’s so much we do to fix the school system. None of it’s easy. Politicians don’t bother fixing it either, because we can’t vote- therefore they don’t care.
If you’ve read all the way to the end, I’m sorry. Have a cookie?
And vote, god dammit- or I’ll take your cookie away.
Edit:
Just wanted to clarify a few things!
One, when I said, “Vote, god dammit-“, I didn’t mean upvote. I meant VOTE. As in the election. Thank you to everyone who did!
Two, I’m not saying that math class should be taken out of circulation. I’m saying to stop forcing it down kid’s throats.
A lot of kids are good at STEM! Let them be good at STEM. Allow them to take all the math, science, and tech classes they want. But just because they’re good at this stuff doesn’t mean I am… stop trying to make me take Pre-Calc, reallocate the money and class space to students who want to be in Pre-Calc.
Same goes for English and History fields… some of us are great it! I really enjoy taking these classes. But people who hate writing to the degree where they’d just rather fail? Let them take another math class and let me take another English class. Also, stop cutting English/History/Elective funding to add more math and technology classes when History doesn’t even have the funding for up to date textbooks.
Thank you for coming to my mini TedTalk, I’m not popular enough to be on the real thing.
