HOMEWORK!

As I drove back to the office after lunch on Friday, one of my friends commented on some kids we passed on a playground, fondly remembering the days of recess. Indeed, I can understand the appeal of a simpler time, a time before meetings, deadlines, finances, and all the fun stuff that comes with being an adult. I don’t know that I miss the more clearly divided social caste system of the playground, getting beat up, or futilely trying to recover my hat from an impromptu game of keep-away by the cool kids. And I definitely don’t miss homework. Even at its worst, when office work demands a few late nights, I still get to go home and leave it all behind when I’m finished. I can turn on the television or computer, and just let my brain go limp until the next day. I definitely don’t miss homework, and I told my pal as much.

He pointed out that there’s actually a movement right now to cut down on or eliminate homework from public schools. He agreed with the proposal, postulating that if a teacher wasn’t getting his or her lesson across during the day, they weren’t successful. There was time allotted to teachers, but after school should be personal time. As much as I hated spending 2 or 3 hours struggling to concentrate and get my homework done, especially when the weather was nice enough to play outside, I don’t agree that homework is a sign of failure on the part of the teacher. So many of the basic subjects consist of repetition, that a student really needs to cement the knowledge through various exercises. You can tell someone how to run, to put one foot in front of the other over and over again, but he or she must then actually run in order to get better at it. A teacher provides theory; it’s up to us to practice.

The tough thing about school before college is that most of us don’t have a major. Because we’re getting a general education, we’re going to like some subjects better than others and, like my friend, have this sense that we’re giving our time to teachers and not the other way around. Learning is for our benefit, though we often don’t appreciate that until we’re older. My high school education consisted of six subjects: Social Studies, Math, English, Science, Foreign Language(I took French), and Theology(Catholic high school). Each year was divided into trimesters. We had first trimester exams at the end of December, which covered everything from September on, and second trimester exams before Spring break, which covered everything from January on. At the end of each year we had Comprehensive Exams, which tested us on everything we’d learned that year. The dreaded “Comps” were divided among three days, with two three-hour exams each day. I can’t really sweat meetings or presentations when I think back on what I survived in high school.

Math was my best subject, and I was in a program that was supposedly one year ahead of everyone else, so by Senior year I was taking college level Calculus which I loved(X squared becomes two X! Derivatives!). I’ve since compared notes with other friends, and these programs varied from school to school, so I’m not sure how advanced my math actually was. I do know that I breezed through math homework in about 20 minutes each night and ended up with a 99% average after four years of high school, which granted means almost nothing to my career as an art director. But at the time, it definitely boosted my confidence and gave me a sense of accomplishment. Other subjects didn’t come as easily to me, notably science and social studies. As good as I was with equations, I had trouble remembering specific dates for historical events. And while I did good with the theoretical aspects of Earth Science, Biology or Chemistry, when it came time to do actual experiments and measure results, my math always seemed to be off. By Senior year I was taking Physics, and I think that was my favorite of the four years, but there are still concepts I’ll never grasp. Is light a wave or a particle or both?

College was a different story, and not just because I chose to major in graphic design. Art courses require a lot more skill and patience than people might realize. The thing about college is that, whatever your major, suddenly you’re choosing the classes instead of the school choosing for you. You have certain requirements for credits, but within those requirements you have choices. You pick things that interest you, and suddenly you don’t feel like you’re doing the work for someone else. In high school, even though you’re doing the work for yourself it doesn’t feel that way. My parents thought I was doing something wrong in my college Freshman year when I suddenly had little or no homework. A lot of things I could accomplish on campus in studios or computer labs, or on breaks between classes. Many classes alternated days, and the Monday-Wednesday-Friday courses differed from the Tuesday-Thursday ones. In high school, I had the same six courses five days a week. Six classes with approximately half an hour of homework each guaranteed a minimum of three hours work after school every single day.

I never thought I’d be looking back and defending homework. I don’t think free time is a good thing for people too young to know what to do with it. I never did drugs or got anyone pregnant or any of the other things a parent fears. A busy child stays out of trouble. And even if I don’t actively speak French, dissect frogs, or recall the original names of old countries in my everyday life, a rounded education gave me a little knowledge in various areas, helped me discern which subjects were my strengths and where to focus when it came time to take charge of my own acquisition of knowledge, and taught me to multitask. I wouldn’t have known if I liked English or Art or Math better than History or Chemistry or Theology if I didn’t try all of them. Now, a case could be made for a touch of a college structure with majors in high school, certainly for Juniors and Seniors whose grades reflect a possible maturity level equipped to make such a decision. A child will do better if he or she is studying something he or she wants to study. But eliminate homework completely? I think that would be a mistake. If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t feel compelled to come home after work and write this essay on the subject.

Ironically; I preferred multiple choice and hated essay questions back in my school years. What do kids know?