The Homework Balance

Growing up, school wasn't my favorite place, especially during my elementary school days. I tolerated it, but I didn't really enjoy it. I don’t think I remember a time when I was happy to be going to school—I always looked forward to the holidays. Interestingly, my lack of passion for school didn't affect my grades. During my elementary school, I consistently came in second position. No matter how hard I tried, the class topper was unbeatable. Things did not get better when I got to high school. My first couple years in high school, I was sent to boarding school, and I still didn't like it there. I always looked forward to vacation so I could go home to enjoy time with my parents. However, I liked economics and literature. Well, that was because the economics teacher stooped down to our level to teach, and that made us understand the subject well. I enjoyed literature classes because I loved (I still love) books. The worst subject for me, however, was mathematics.

Aside from boring classes, complex subjects, and difficult teachers, one of the top reasons why I did not like the whole school thingy was homework. Especially mathematics homework. I attended a catholic school and one thing about catholic schools is that they are known for too many rules—necessary and unnecessary ones. One of the rules was that teachers had to give students assignments every week. Roughly, we had assignments almost every day. My memories are flawed and I don’t really remember how many subjects we offered, but I think it should be about 12 or thereabout. In a week, we mostly have assignments on at least 6 subjects. Did we enjoy doing assignments? Would it be okay if kids in school were no longer given assignments or would it ruin the system?

As I mentioned earlier, my least favorite subject was mathematics. To make matters worse, it was part of the rules to give students mathematics and English assignments every day. I had nothing against mathematics during my junior high school. The topics were simple, and to some extent, my mom helped me out. However, my hatred for mathematics began when I got into senior high school. Everything became totally different and complex. My case was different. The hatred for mathematics runs in my family- none of my siblings were good at it. They helped me in my elementary school and Junior high school, but they left me when I got to Senior high school. Every night, I had to spend hours working on assignments.

No one was there to help me, so I had to figure things out on my own. Luckily, the answers were at the back of the textbook. So, I'd solve the questions multiple times before I finally got the answers. After completing my mathematics assignments, I’d still have to deal with English and other assignments. Most days, I'd sleep around 11 pm, and would still have to wake up by 5 am the next morning. When my mom saw that I could not cope with my mathematics assignments any longer, she had to enroll me in a private lesson. To some extent, the private lessons helped me—it was in school and we often solved our assignment questions. Still, we had lots of assignments to deal with. It was even worse during mid-term breaks.

Mid-term breaks as the name suggests should be a period students should use to relax and take a break from everything about school. But you see, my school was different. During mid-term breaks, every teacher made sure they gave us assignments. So we had to do assignments on about 12 subjects, sacrificing our free time. Now, the question is that, would things have been better if there were no assignments at all? Will it be a great idea if everything about school should start and end in school— no homeworks, just class exercises and lectures.

In my opinion, the importance of assignments cannot be overlooked. They help students build essential skills and go through what was taught in class. However, there should be a limit to these assignments. Students should still receive assignments, but they should be given in moderation. Of course, school is their priority, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have free time to themselves. Assignments shouldn't be given every day; maybe three times a week at most.

Images in this post are mine.

Thanks for reading.