Give Us a (Homework) Break

With the rigorous schedule that students face during the school year, vacations are a much needed break.  Students look forward to this time so that they can catch up on lost sleep, travel or just spend time doing activities that they enjoy.

However, homework policies make it increasingly hard to take a rest from school because of assignments and projects that are due after the break. Assignments over vacations can range from a simple homework worksheet to a project that requires hours and hours. What is the point of having breaks if you can't enjoy them?

When a school vacation rolls around, it feels as if teachers are giving out more homework to make up for all of the missed school. However, in my opinion, giving out homework over a break doesn't serve any purpose for most students.

Dublin High sophomore Deana Fedaie said, "I don't think it's a good choice to give homework over breaks because most of us procrastinate because it gets in the way of our plans or we do the homework really early in the break and we don't remember what we learned."

To address this problem, many teachers make the due date for projects the Friday after a break has finished. For procrastinators, this is the perfect solution. For those who don't want to be stressed out when they return to school, this means hours of time taken away from their vacation. But no homework over the break means nothing is due after the break.

Summer vacation is a completely different story. During summer break, some work is beneficial to prepare students for the next year. Students also have much more time to plan relaxation and enrichment.

 Students don't have to stress about getting homework and projects done while they are traveling. Over the summer, there is more than enough time to finish homework without being overwhelmed.

Although most teachers have good intentions and want to reinforce their lessons over the break, homework and projects over school vacations only succeed in creating more stress for the students.

With all of the publicity around the movie  making no homework or projects due after breaks is a simple step teachers can take to respond to feedback from students, parents and the community.