Student excuses for late assignments are becoming more creative, designed to elicit sympathy and guilt, but faculty excuses are equally deplorable.
Nobody believes the old stand-by excuse that “my dog ate my homework” anymore. It’s doubtful anyone ever took that excuse seriously. Student excuses are, however, becoming more creative and some may be true. Increasingly, student excuses are designed to elicit sympathy and may even play to the instructor’s guilt: “I had to miss class to attend a job interview and without that job, I can’t pay my tuition.” But as one professor lamented, “Is it our job to verify student excuses?”
Ridgewood NJ, Schools have possession of children for most of the day and occupy most of their remaining waking hours with homework, inculcating many false and useless ideas and attitudes, but children can still find time to set off into the world of knowledge and ideas on their own.
One of the biggest problems with homework is how tedious it can get. You have attended school for hours, come home, and you have a mountain of work to get done. Between chores, school, extra-curricular activities, and friends, homework often gets left behind. While it should be on priority for you, students often forego doing their homework. This habit, though common, can lead to severe long-term consequences.
A question of homework: tenafly parents protest the load, joining nationwide trend
DECEMBER 8, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY DEENA YELLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
TENAFLY — Pressured by parents, school district officials are considering lowering the stress of homework with such measures as homework-free nights and vacations, and giving students more information about the demands they will face in choosing courses.
The district also will organize workshops for parents on reducing children’s stress.
The measures are being taken after a group of high school parents confronted the school board, arguing that homework is wreaking havoc on their children’s lives.
Tenafly is just the latest of many districts nationwide trying new approaches amid the high-stakes competition for college that has fueled an intense schedule of testing and nightly homework in local districts.
The parents’ group, Rational Homework Review, says the heavy workload prevents their children from maintaining a healthy lifestyle and getting adequate sleep. They also argue that some assignments lack educational value.
Other school districts statewide, including Ridgewood and Glen Rock, have reexamined homework policies or changed them in recent years to help balance students’ lives. Nationally, an anti-homework backlash has been spurred in part by studies on sleep deprivation among teens, a plethora of books about the homework craze and a documentary called “Race to Nowhere” about students in a pressured educational environment.
