For most students, spending the whole night doing homework is not a rare occurrence. Having to spend numerous hours doing homework the night before causes me to nod off in class, which leads to yet another night of doing homework that I don’t even understand because I was too tired to focus. It is a constant cycle of monotonous labor that students face on a daily basis.
Homework not only applies to students, but the lives of teachers are also affected. A high school teacher works for about eight hours and then goes home to grade over 100 papers, which is roughly five hours of grading. In fact, most full-time teachers spend more time grading than other full-time professionals spend working at home—and of course, we all know teachers don’t get paid enough to spend 13 hours a day working.
Fortunately, the Clark County School District (CCSD) has revised a 35 year old policy on homework. One of those changes states that only students who require the practice should be assigned homework, saving time for those who do not need to repeat a task they’re already familiar with.
Because of this, students who already know how to calculate the velocity of a speeding bullet or the square root of three billion should not have to do the same practice exercises. But for the students that are struggling with a certain skill, their homework will be altered to accommodate for their academic shortcomings.
By changing tradition, a new way of teaching can be utilized to ensure that newer generations have a better learning experience.
Although there are a handful of teachers that don’t dish out homework 24/7 the new homework policy will still benefit those teachers. Changing the way class is structured to adapt to struggling students will alleviate the students who are constantly feeling overwhelmed and for those who are in need of further assistance will received personalized assignments.
Also, some teachers focus on a certain objective during the school day—but the homework assigned is not about what was covered. In a scenario where a teacher over-planned their lesson about the WWII genocide and didn’t get to the side effects of Cuba’s government, but assigns an essay on said topic, the student would be confused and overwhelmed. Now teachers should not feel pressured about being forced to assign homework just because it was a well-known tradition.
By issuing this new policy on homework, the times of being literally sick and tired of homework will hopefully come to an end. The hours students have after school will now be put to better use now that there is a solution.
