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Dear Dylan,

I write this letter with a heavy heart because, as you prepare to finish 8th grade, I already know where things are headed: Once you finish this final year of middle school, you’re going to lose your independence. I know everyone has told you the opposite, and that high school will be your “gateway to independence,” but they are wrong. Your freedom will be held in check by all the homework you’ll have to do.

I was in your shoes not long ago, and I know how you’ll operate this year. Eighth grade is all about social development. You’re making new friends and going through puberty, and schoolwork is the least of your worries. You’ll probably just go through the motions of completing your assignments, like I did. But things will change next year. From watching you do your homework today, I would say you complete about 30 minutes of homework a night. As you begin high school, that will increase exponentially. Each of your teachers will give you hours of homework every week, and then they’ll just tell you to flip through the pages to show them you completed it. They’ll never look closely at it to see if you actually understood it, and they’ll never reference that material again.

If your teachers are just going through the motions, then, you’ll ask yourself, why shouldn’t you just copy your friend’s work or look up the answers online? Since you’re in 8th grade, I assume that at some point you’ve already broken the “pledge of academic integrity,” where you vow that you won’t share your work with your peers. But copying isn’t learning. You need to find other ways to challenge your brain. Education is not confined to the classroom. Learning happens everywhere, and once you’re done with the worksheet, you can move on to more important things. Rather than obsessing over these assignments, trying to get them done perfectly, spend your time on your real interests, like your recent passion for cooking. Cooking is a great way to educate yourself (and, you know, chemistry and math play vital roles in what you make).

It’s not worth being serious about pointless assignments.

You also need to understand when to take a break. Learning cannot occur when your mind is riddled with stress. Instead of filling out worksheets, you could be out building a bike jump, swimming in the lake, or wasting time with friends. As the great Neil Young once said, “There’s a lot to learn from wasting time.” It will give you the freedom to grow into the person you are destined to be. In a 2020 Washington Post article, Denise Pope described what she learned from a survey of more than 50,000 high school students: On average, they complete 2.7 hours of homework a night. That means you won’t be able to play on the trampoline anymore, ride your bike, or explore any other facet of life. It’s understandable that so many students who were surveyed said that homework was the thing that caused them the most stress. And stress can limit your ability to learn and think creatively.

You may be thinking, “So, basically, I am screwed?” or “I might as well just never do any homework.” I would caution you against those beliefs. Despite all my complaints about homework, I want you to understand that it can be valuable. Courses can cover more material if you do some of the reading at home. And I suppose that homework helps prepare you for life in college and the workforce, when you’ll have to juggle lots of different tasks.

Still, you control how seriously you take your education, and it’s not worth being serious about pointless assignments, sacrificing your creativity and development just to regurgitate formulas and dates from a textbook. Once in a while, your homework assignment will turn out to be roses; most of the time, it’ll be nothing but thorns. Rather than letting the busywork deter you from becoming educated and independent, be curious. Ask questions. Do your own research into whatever piques your interest. If you are boiling water for cooking and you feel the warmth being released from the pot, find out what makes that phenomenon possible. Learning through enjoyment is the best type of learning, so constantly be challenging your brain to learn more about the things you enjoy — even if it takes time away from your homework.

Good luck D,

Colin

 

Reference

Pope, D. (2020, September 1). Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home? Washington Post.


This article appears in the March 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 6, pp. 66.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Colin McGrath

COLIN MCGRATH is a junior at Redwood High School in Larkspur, CA.