I Swear!!! The Dog Ate My Homework! -cc

Remember that one class in high school that you couldn’t stand and without fail would always forget or purposely not do the homework? For me it was Algebra. I don’t know what it was, the Susan Powter look-alike teacher, or just the idea of sitting around trying to figure out why x= AB cause honestly we all know you will never need to know that stuff, despite what your parents said.

I just couldn’t get into it. So it was punishment upon punishment to have to drag the Algebra book home with me under the context of “homework” as if the class work was not torture enough.

And often times I would skip it altogether and have to feign illness or go to great lengths creating a remarkable story for why I didn’t complete the assignment. Usually neither worked. But regardless of my spite for the class, the work, and my teachers hair, I always went to school knowing that I was going to lose credit for the assignment and I would have to own up to it. I would face the consequences of my actions on test day when I would stare blankly on the paper in front of me and wonder why I just couldn’t have done the damn homework assignments.

So here I am today at 24 years old and am facing a whole new slew of challenges through education. I still hate Algebra, in fact I hate anything involving math, but I have a whole new respect for the light workload that I had in high school.

In college, the teachers could care less if you don’t do the work, its your money going down the toilet. And now I even find myself to be a bit of a homework nerd. I learned from my shoddy work ethic in high school that if you don’t do the work, you won’t pass the class and with classes running about $1500 bucks a pop, that’s not a decision I’m willing to make.

Recently I stumbled upon a article about Marya Yates School in Matteson Illinois. Apparently some genius teacher thought it would be a good idea to get rid of homework altogether. Her excuse: Children simply don’t have the time and will get better grades if they drop off all those zeros for missed work.

You think I’m kidding right? Wrong, I wish I was!

Look it up, I swear to you. There is honestly a junior high that has eliminated homework so kids can have more free time.

The real evil at work here?

You got it! The current administration that believes that standardized testing scores are more important than say… teaching children about art and music, and how to be creative.

No no, we have enough of those creative types. What we need is a solid work force that will be happy working for minimum wage right?

So what I’m wondering is, what happens to these kids when they go to high school, or even college. How will they cope with the work load?

I spoke to Dan Cahill, an employee and former writer for Chicago Sun-Times, teacher at Columbia College, and a parent about the situation at Marya Yates School.

“I think that that is absolutely asinine and ridiculous. Education at that level should be directing students towards self re-enforcement by providing them with the tools they need to be successful students on their own.”

And I couldn’t agree more. Even now as I sit and slave away on whatever assignment I have thrown my way, I am tempted to give up halfway through, but my experiments with procrastination and punishment have taught me to do the latter. But then again, maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I mean anyone can be hopeful at the idea of thousands of non-creative, video game expert, and overweight children being pushed out into the real world right? Aahhh....our future.....sounds good huh?