Monday, March 21, 2011

Why do teachers assign work over spring break when it never gets done?

Many a spring break I have sat at my kitchen table and asked myself this question. Is it the cruelty of the teachers and their desire to ruin the few days that we students have to forget about everything we have worked on in school? Or are they hopeful that they will not be forgotten; that their influence in a student's life will not go unrecognized though the students are not in the academic setting? Perhaps they view work over break as a favor in that it allows the students to work in the comfort of their own homes and in the company they choose rather than in the occasionally oppressive classroom with a predetermined selection of students. As a final contemplation, I thought that perhaps the teachers are using their positive judgment and trusting the responsibility of the students to get their work done in the free time that they have been given. These may all be possibilities, but I think it seems most fair to look at the latter situation in favor of the teachers.

As much as I don't like to admit it, homework is often an essential way of ensuring the progression of the class. The students are required to apply what they learned within the classroom to their everyday lives outside of the classroom setting so that they can continue learning at a fairly steady pace. With this in mind, it makes sense (to some degree) to give students work over break. Putting the typical procrastination of the students aside, the idea behind the assignment is that there will be continued learning throughout the break session so that students will return to class prepared and ready to continue with the lesson rather than have to spend the first few days back having to backtrack and revisit the progress that was made prior to break. Whether or not this plan gets carried out is purely up to the students.

Now that I have expressed a reasonable explanation in support of the teachers, I must also examine the other side of the argument. Clearly, students are much more fond of the idea of no work whatsoever. We figure that no work leads to happiness all around: the students can fully enjoy their time off without having to worry about work piling up and teachers can appreciate the true essence of a "break" without having to think about the overwhelming stack of work they will have to grade upon their return to school.

From a student's perspective, even I cannot fully explain the teachers who assign a mountainous pile of work that must be crammed in alongside extra sleep, social lives, relaxation, fun activities, and whatever other homework that has been assigned by every other teacher. For example, an intensive project is not a logical assignment to give students who are not looking to engage in activities that requires any amount of brain power. An assignment that asks the students to start preparing for a project that will be picked up once school resumes would be a much more friendly task. Of course I suppose that the less important the assignment is, the more likely that it is not going to get done...

Its a fine line when it comes to deciding how much work is reasonable to assign kids over spring break. There is not really a clear solution, no win-win situation as you can see from my somewhat contradictory arguments. Personally I think that spring break would be best used as a time to catch up on work, to revise work, and  to recollect your thoughts which have likely been spread far too thin. Try as they might, teachers cannot avoid the fact that students are almost guaranteed to procrastinate and save the majority of their work until Sunday...afternoon...after dinner. Its no secret that students wait until the last minute so maybe the better way of deciding how much homework to assign is to consider how much can get done in, say, 5 hours. Or maybe I'll just have to stop complaining.

1 comment:

  1. I appreciate that you attempt to explain both sides. I think you make a fair argument that "[a]n assignment that asks the students to start preparing for a project that will be picked up once school resumes would be a much more friendly task" than one requiring the entire project to be completed, start to finish. This also allows for the bulk of the project to be completed while students have access to their professor for questions or help, which is certainly the ideal learning situation. Of course, from the professor's perspective, it's often frustrating to have to factor student procrastination into the assigning of projects. Is this something that should be done? Some professors have even begun canceling classes the Friday before spring break because many students don't even show up--even though they are expected to. Thus, there seems to be a shift in priorities that has begun to affect how all of this plays out. I can understand, though, the need for a break and the anxiousness to get it started when it finally arrives :). It's just a question of whether the expectations should nonetheless still be in place.

    ReplyDelete