Note: I was thinking of making this satire, but this blog is me only half-kidding because it’s mostly true...
If you’re in high school right now, you’ve definitely been in a situation where you’re hanging out with a group of friends and someone brings up an assignment that you think isn’t due for a while. After a bit of chit-chat and asking when that assignment is actually due someone responsible casually responds, ‘tomorrow’. It is at that very moment you realize that you screwed up.
Big Time.
Your heart sinks. You might scream, sweat, or even tear up. Whether it was a big assignment or a small, annoying one, for the rest of the time you’re with your friends you’ll be thinking about how you have to do that homework assignment. You might even resent the friend for telling you about it because hey, you almost forgot to do it…
In my opinion, the reason why these situations arise is that teachers don't yet understand that any homework assignment they give will be attempted to be completed the night before it’s due. Every time. No matter how big the essay or project is, there are always students who will do it right before it’s due. For example, students who write their blogs at 11:57pm on Friday night… Couldn't be me. With that being said, it’s of course not the teacher's fault, but at the same time, if a teacher assigns homework that is supposed to take 2 weeks to do, but the student has an assignment from 2 weeks ago due tomorrow, he has to prioritize and put off the new project. This cycle of pushing back larger assignments to finish more urgent or shorter ones is common and vital to a student’s short term success.
I think the solution to this though is simple, teachers should just assume that there are students who have 2 hours maximum for any assignment. There shouldn’t be assignments that are time-sensitive within large periods of time, for example, a project that needs to have part 1 completed (but not turned in) at X date. And there should just be less homework, in general, to cut down on the stress and planning of students. In addition, students should work hard to make a list of their homework assignments and put reminders on their phones to make sure they can stay on top of their workload. For example, here’s my workload for this weekend:
An entire English essay, a huge Judaics project, lots of Physics, and probably 10 other assignments that I’ll hear about on Sunday night due Monday. Drop your lists in the comments - let’s remind each other of our work so we don't forget.
This is me every single assignment, it's come to a point where the people around me are my agenda.
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