These days, lots of kids are given summer homework. In June, my co-author and I published an op-ed in The New York Times, No More Teachers, Lots of Books. It’s reprinted below with permission from The New York Times. Here are some of my favorite responses:
Summer Bummer
How one boy misspent his summer vacation
and an example of a high school in Easton, MA, where the principal lessened AP summer English homework after a student provided him with research on homework overload (Less Summer Homework for Some High School Students).
No More Teachers, Lots of Books
By SARA BENNETT and NANCY KALISH
Op-Ed Contributor
Published: June 19, 2006
SCHOOL is letting out for the summer, the final bell signaling the precious, unadulterated joy that comes with months of freedom stretching out ahead. But for many students that feeling will never come. Instead, summer these days often means more textbook reading, papers, exams and projects. It’s called “vacation homework,” an oxymoron that overburdens our children and sends many back to school burnt out and sick of learning.
Last summer, for example, students at one charter school in the Bronx were assigned 10 book reports, a thick math packet, a report on China including a written essay and a handmade doll in authentic costume and a daily log of their activities and the weather. Their parents say they are hoping this summer will be different, but who knows what drudgery will be assigned now that they’ve finished second grade?
An anomaly? Hardly.
Fifth and sixth graders in a Golden, Colo., public middle school are required to keep a journal on a different math topic each week this summer, read three books and complete a written and artistic report on two of them.
And what about high schoolers — just a little light reading to ease teenage angst? One ninth grader we know was assigned a packet of materials on the Holocaust. Another must read a 656-page book on genocide, on top of three chapters of a science textbook followed by a 15-page take-home exam, prepare a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation and complete an English assignment involving three books and essays.
All parents want their children to be happy, healthy and competitive in a highly competitive world. But is year-round homework — or the nightly homework marathons during the school year, for that matter — the way to achieve it?
As adults know, a break from work is a necessary antidote for stress. We need what psychologists call “consolidation,” the time away from a problem when newly learned material is absorbed. Often we return from a break to discover that the pieces have fallen into place. Too many of our children today are denied that consolidation time. And when parents are told that their children’s skills will slip without summer homework, we have to wonder: if those skills are so fragile, what kind of education are they really getting?
In fact, there’s serious doubt about whether homework has any benefit at all. Most studies have found little or no correlation between homework and achievement (meaning grades and test scores) in elementary school or middle school. According to Harris Cooper of Duke University, the nation’s leading researcher on the subject, there is a clear correlation among high school students, but he warns that “overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades.”
Yet very few teachers have ever taken a course on homework or know what the research shows, and many told us homework assignments are an “afterthought.”
Another claimed benefit of homework — instilling responsibility and self-discipline — is undermined when homework is so overwhelming that parents routinely have to help their children every step of the way.
In fact, most experts believe reading is the most important educational activity. Yet a poll released last week by Scholastic and Yankelovich found that the amount of time youngsters spend reading for fun declines sharply after age 8. The No. 1 reason given by parents: too much homework.
So, what’s a parent to do? While it might be too late to challenge this summer’s assignments, it’s not too early to gather like-minded parents and get a head start on changing next year’s policy. If your children just can’t bear taking that Holocaust folder on vacation, give them permission not to read it and promise you’ll take it up with teachers or school administrators in the fall. Encourage your children to read, play games, write stories and even experience a little boredom. It might just bring out their innate creativity.
In 2000, parents in Arlington, Va., banded together and took complaints about summer homework to the school board, spurring an overhaul of the district’s policy. More parents around the country should stop complaining to each other and let school officials know that they won’t stand by as large parts of our sons and daughters’ childhoods are stolen for no good reason. Our children will grow up happier and healthier — and perhaps even have time to read a good book.
Stop Homework 
I think that summer homework is very important as a teacher, I believe that homework during the summer will help the students remember better the material covered in the school year.
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Well, homework on the summer holidays is prohibited because kids want to enjoy their holiday. There will be no homework in summer school.
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It is definitely not a bad idea to have a few books on the reading list, or a couple of chapters from a math or science textbook. This ensures that everything a child has learned during the year is not lost during the summer. However, I am against overloading a child with 15 book reports, projects, and even take-home exams.
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It is definitely not a bad idea to have a few books on the reading list, or a couple of chapters from a math or science textbook. This ensures that everything a child has learned during the year is not lost during the summer. However, I am against overloading a child with 15 book reports, projects, and especially, exams!
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Has any one had a High School APsummer assignment DUE-handed in to the school -before the school year even began? If so please let me know.
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Dear Parents
I am greatly sorrowed by families who let the school districts decide what is best for our children and our family life in our homes.Our children need to learn wisdom and values from their parents and they learn by the examples we set for them.And when the parents let the board of educations tell our families what we must insist their students do after school hours and what we must insist their students do during our families summer vacation And if we do not do as we are told to do by the school they will call us names like bad parents who do not care about our childs education. If the school systems only knew foolish they look to us parents. I sometimes feel threatend for a (second) by the bullying and then I remember Oh I guess the ones that were bullys in school themselves as children stuck around to try to bully the parents.This is heartbreaking to me because we do not have students in our home we have our child. Yet there are parents who insist that their children do the summer assignments.Because someone with a degree in teaching has given your child an assignment to do in your home because they believe they know what is best for there students. .And I am sure teachers do know what’s best for students in school to learn and they know how to teach them . But we have children in our homes not students and we are responsible to love them and teach them the proper values of setting obtainables goals in our lives and homes .Just as the schools set rules for students and parents and insist we follow there policies at there school and We parents also need to set rules and boundries for our home and not let any school system step over our home boundries where are children come first and our values of what is best for our children apply. My son’s school assigns pleasure reading program for summer and requirers a complete written report to be completed in the summer and returned when school starts. But I have never in 8 years now ever require him do the assignment and we consider the grade only a letter in the alphabet.My son is aware learning knowledge is very important to succeed in life .But knowledge without the use of wisdom and family values are useless. And our schools are only concerned with book knowledge that there students should learn not our child whom we are responsible to teach them family values.Or they will end up alone with only money and knowledge in there life.Thanks for listening
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I feel summer homework is a violation of our children’s rights to family life, social activities and independent learning. I feel it is the schools infringing on home life and robbing a generation of their childhood. It robs them of valuable learning they could get from daily life and activities. Most children don’t know how to play board games or card games, and other valuable activities we had so much fun doing,
which develop excellent logic, mathematical and life skill abilities.
Those are the activities that made me pursue a math degree! They have no time to pursue multiple interests in music, art, dance, and sports as just one activity is all there is room for in their hectic school work schedules. We have robbed a generation of their childhood to make them academically smarter? Why? Social skills, problem solving, psychological intelligence and the ability to be competitive in a world market requires a lot more than AP classes can offer. My freshmen honors daughter is already dreading summer because of the homework. This is why our schools are losing students to homeschool programs where families can have a life with their children. If She chooses to have advanced classes she is required to do a lot of summer homework. If she chooses reg classses she has to be bored all school year and learn nothing. This is wrong. We, her parents are all educators and have had no time to supplement her knowledge, allow her to take summer gifted classes, or let her explore her talents in the arts because of the infringement of homework on all of her free time. We are seriously thinking of having her do at least half of her classes independent study or home school just so she can pursue her interests and have some family time. When can these children have a childhood? Why do parents let the schools do this? J in Ca
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I don’t know why parents let the schools do this. Parents…. It’s time for us to all stand up and say something.
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I’m a middle school teacher, and this summer I’d like to assign math summer homework. Of course it won’t be graded, but I certainly will encourage it. I’ve been a teacher for 20 years now, and I have 3 children of my own, ages 11, 13, and 15. My kids are always involved in at least one sport, year-round, from football to basketball to softball. I want to give you this background so there aren’t any doubts about my wishes to provide what’s best for my children, how important I feel about their education and their social and physical well beings.
That said, I have junior high students (grades 6-8) who still cannot add and subtract simple math. They need a calculator to multiply by 2 and 100. Just yesterday, in after school tutoring, one girl added 145 + 45 = 180. I spent one-on-one time with a 6th grade boy [this was well past 4:00 pm when my tutoring time was supposed to end], he could not tell me what “half” of 50 was. I did everything I could do as an “experienced” math teacher to help him understand the concept of HALF. Turned out he could give me half of most SMALL even numbers, like 4 and 20. He couldn’t, for the life of him, give me 1/2 of 3. After providing him with equal strips of papers and he was able to tear one in half, I thought he’d gotten it. Then I asked him, “What is half of five?” He said, “One.”
The answers he gave me for 1/2 of 50 ranged from 10 to 40. He knew 1/2 of something is 50%, but it took another 15 minutes, with constant help, to figure out that 1/4 of something is 25%.
I have algebra students who couldn’t figure out how to find a perimeter of a square given its area.
No summer homework? Parents demand, “Stop homework!” Parents say that childhood has been robbed by homework. One parent claims teachers and the board of education are bullies.
This parent and teacher says YES to homework. But like everything else, summer or no summer, homework in moderation. What are my three teen kids doing right now, at 7:00 pm on a school night? One is at the batting cage with my husband, one is writing poetry on WritersCafe.org, and the oldest is watching YouTube. They are done with their homework.
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Summer vacation is private family time. The school system has no business over-stepping it’s bounds and trying to mandate something on our family. My children do plenty of learning in the summer months. It’s the type of learning that doesn’t include paper and pen.
I will not give my children summer homework.
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My biggest problem with homework is that it’s not necessarily given to the students who need it. The teacher who mentioned the student who couldn’t tell her what half of 50 was is correct in stating that this student requires more help.
However, this child has obviously not learned things he should have during the school year – not only on summer holidays. If this is an indication of where he’s at accademically, and assuming he’s not receiving tutoring during the break, chances are homework or not – he still will be no further ahead in his math come September.
My children receiving summer homework are entering Grade 7 and Grade 9. They are Honors students. They get A’s all year long. They have English summer homework. My eldest has three English assignments. Three assigned reading books, with an essay, a journal & a ‘creative’ assignment (ie/powerpoint presentation) to be completed on the three books.
He is already an accomplished reader. The first book – “Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie” he read in one night. I read it and checked his comprehension – no problems.
The two of them will spend a lot of time this summer doing ‘homework’ in which they allready excell. They will go into school on Tuesday evenings to write AR tests on “approved AR” books. However, although AR books are good, so are the thousands and thousands of books that due to the simple fact that an AR test has yet to be written, are not approved ‘AR’, and thus, my sons will pass over.
I sigh as I watch them choose ‘AR’ books at the library all year long. When summer comes, I would like them to go to the library & choose any book that appeals – not just ‘AR’. Alas however, there are those AR tests to be completed, so, even in the summer, it’s AR, AR, AR.
My child has received the AR award at the end of each school year we’ve lived here. They attend awards night where they are recognized as top achieving students. Then they receive homework on subjects they already excell at, while struggling students who aren’t ‘Honors’ students receive none.
Perhaps they wouldn’t be doing this well if they hadn’t received summer homework in the past you ask?
Not so. We are not Americans. We are privilaged to live in your country (military) for three years on a posting. We have also lived in two other countries. In the other countries there was no summer homework. The boys did not forget things over the summer.
I would prefer summer to be:
A. Family time – with lots of homework during the regular school year, it doesn’t happen as often as I would like;
B. Time to travel and let the children see more of the USA while we are here;
C. Time for them to study subjects they, and we would like them to improve a little more in (ie/French – nice to learn here – mandatoy to know when we return home); and
D. Time to unwind, and persue any interest they didn’t have time for in the school year.
My observations on the American education system are that it focuses on the Honor’s students, with ‘make-work’ projects which will neither improve nor harm their performance come September, but which will hinder them from pursuing other interests over the summer break. At the same time the students who struggle the most receive no homework (at least where we live).
Summer school? My all ‘A’ students are offered a place?? I’m confused. A child who was struggling terribly (I helped in his class) could not get a spot. I’m disgusted.
Just a view from the ‘outside’. Final thought. I have met many hardworking teachers while here, but if your teachers were given the option to stop teaching to the SOL’s, perhaps they would have more time & freedom to help the children like the one who can’t tell what 1/2 of 50 is.
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On Summer Homework, in my opinion, it is busy work – prevents you from enjoying your time but yet not accomplishing anything useful. What I remembered, walking out of school on the last day before Summer vacation, it was relief from the stress and a break for a few months. It was a time to pursue hobbies and other things that are interesting.
One other thing I noticed, this hoopla on Summer Homework is mostly in the East Coast. Sounds like this is some Puritan carryover of the belief that idle hands are wicked. A lot of this attitude carries over into the corporate world where people don’t take their earned vacation but instead give it back to the company. In addition, those who take vacation willing and sometimes are mandated by company management to keep in contact while gone. So much for the idea of vacation, the base word is vacate, that is get away from work totally.
I worked for a tyrannical manager where you not only had to get approval to take your vacation time but you had to get permission to leave town. He didn’t even like it if you took a week off much less two weeks. He took his time off of course and usually took two weeks off in the Summer but at the same time, got livid at you if you wanted to use your earned vacation time.
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i was given summer homework and i went abroad for a month and when i came back i lost one of the parts and when i came back to school my fisrt grade was a zero
😦
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This sounds quite crazy i live in finland and we dont have any kind of summer homework from elementary-junior high, Many people here who just like to study and arent that lazy do fine in school and can get the work etc they want…somehow i feel like the school is too hard there or they like to assignt pointless things.
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Renzo, I have long admired the Finnish school system. You don’t do standardized tests, teaching is an esteemed profession on the level of law and medicine and is appropriately compensated and Scandinavian schools tend to start introducing reading later. David Elkind talks about that quite a bit in his books.
Admittedly, my daughter was an early reader. But Elkind writes that you should not formally teach your child to read in preschool unless they are breaking your door down, begging you to teach them. I’ve talked about gifted learners here before (my daughter is one of them) and Elkind favors acceleration for advanced learners. He asks, doesn’t that fly in the face of everything I’ve posited? No, he replies. The key is to teach children where they are, not to accelerate them unnecessarily.
Since most children are not ready to begin reading in preschool, don’t teach them then. We know that right brained children don’t begin to read until they’re 8, at least. I know several homeschoolers who just allowed their child to progress at his own timetable and now that child is a voracious reader.
Read endlessly to young children, yes, but don’t formally teach them the mechanics of reading until at least kindergarten. I have many friends who insisted on teaching their preschoolers to read, and years later those kids are no longer reading. They know how, they were all early readers, they just don’t want to.
Studies have been done on Scandinavian schools, showing they introduce reading at age 7 and have the highest literacy rate in the world. What we do with kindergarteners here, vis a vis DIBELS and regularly timed tests to assess progress, thanks to No Child Left Behind, is anathema in Finland.
Thanks for writing!
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I think there should be no summer homework,summer is the time to have fun and enjoy yourself not do homework.There is enough of that during the school year.And reviewing-that is done in the begining of the school year anyway.There is so much reviewing it gets boring.
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What is the point of Summer homework?. You’re moving into a new grade anyway…again what is the point. Even though I don’t live here, I think it’s time for America to take some pages out of Japan’s and Scandinavia’s books…
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I think this summer homework is not good for us children. I am in the 7th grade and i cannot have a relaxing summer vacation because of this. Yes, homework is important but if you make it summer homework, students will struggle with this, and since in 2009 this summer homework will be graded and we might fail if we don’t bring this in. Why should we doing homework during summer BREAK. We need summer break because we have to go to school for 10 months and we have very little breaks to rest ourselves. we only have 2 months to relax and this summer homework requires 1 month to be taken out of our break.
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I still have to struggle with summer homework because i lost some pieces and do not want to fail since i have good grades. this will bring me stress now because of this homework
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I had summer homework. We had to do a 5 math projects, 2 essays, and 1 stupid science project.
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BAN SUMMER HOMEWORK!
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Concerned teacher:
If what you are doing now isn’t working, what we don’t need is MORE OF IT.
We need to adjust our curriculum to reflect the science defining how brains mature and how children learn.
More worksheets and more passive learning does not equate to more education.
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I believe (as a student) that if homework is assigned in moderation and ungraded be it summer or no homework can be entertaining and a useful distraction as it allows you to exercise your mental facilities. The ungraded aspects allows one to not fret over the homework all summer long if they lose it or leave it at home while on a trip.
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Summer Homework IS BAD.
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Hmm,
The elephant in the living room of this discussion is the duration of the summer. I say this with some unease as I am a teacher. The two month holiday was implemented to facilitate the harvest. How many of us farm today? I respect the right of districts which have farms to maintain this tradition but what about the rest of us? If teachers are worried about retention then let’s shorten the break. Most parents get woefully short holidays and have to pay for camps and daycare during the summer. Students would still have time to ‘consolidate’ if they had two weeks less in the summer. Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers makes a strong case for more time in school. The paradigm he touts is from Asia. Longer hours in the classroom and less time on vacation equates to greater success in math and science. The American schools he describes that have borrowed this model are thriving. It requires more study I think and I would take a more moderate approach compared to what Mr. Gladwell describes, but it bears consideration.
If, however, governments are loath to pay the extra costs – several states have extended breaks in recent decades – then they could switch to a three month on, one month off system. Same number of school days but less time to forget the material.
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I hate summer homework.
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SUMMER H/W IS A BAD IDEA!!!!! WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS KIDS NEED A TIME OFF ALL YEAR ROUND H/W’S, EXAMS, STUDYING, WE DO NEED A REST LIFE IS STRESSFUL AND WE NEED FUN ITS A REQUIREMENT I AM 15 AND IM IN THE 10TH GRADE ITS SO STRESSFUL ANYMORE OF THAT AND I WILL KILL MYSELF ANYONE WHO SAYS SUMMER H/W IS IMPORTANT IS AN IDIOT!!!! IN THE SUMMER THERE SHOULD BE 0 STUDING AND DO THE THINGS WE!!!! WANT!!!!! NOT SOME CRAPPY H/W ITS ONLY 2 1/2 CANT WE EVEN HAVE THAT WITHOUT ANY STRESS UGHH THESE KINA PPL DISGUST ME!!!! (YOU MAY THINK THAT IM BEING OVERDRAMATIC BUT IM NOT ITS TRUE THIS SICKENS ME AND IM REALLY FRUSTRATED GOOD THING IS ON 10JUNE IM DONE AND IM ON VACATION FOR 3 MONTHS NO H/W WOHOOO!!!!!)
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We are currently enrolled in a New Orleans area Catholic elementary school. Last summer, I allowed my “straight A” children to choose not to complete their summer homework assignments. Both were given zeroes on the assignments. In addition, a test was given on the material. One son scored a 98; the other a 100. After pulling the zeroes up to “A” averages by the end of the first nine week grading period, we were told we could not return for next school year.
I can’t help feeling that this is a bit ridiculous.
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I am a eleven year old boy who very much disagrees with homework. me and my class are trying to get rid of it in our school and hope to get good results.
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vacation: a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday
Work over vacation does not make sense and should be illegal!
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I am an advanced student. All my life I have excelled in academics. However, I have a hatred of learning. Learning is nice, it gets you into college, helps you write reports, and bubble in answers on test. The only problem is-its a constant hassle. I have ALOT of homework to say the least. Even on whats supposed to be my VACATION. (I don’t know if school boards know the definition, they sure are happy to teach us more complex words though)
I toil over my work for 10 months. I don’t even get to rest when I come home. The constant stress of homework, and the hours of work it takes follow me like my shadow, and send me running like a groundhog. Funny, though, how it even shows up on a cloudy day. My piles of homework can block the sun too.
And, that glorious day when school lets out is never sweet. I leave my gigantic homework cloud at school, and trade it in for a smaller, but more pesky one. One that blocks the sun; the clear rays of sun and fresh air after being trapped in a prison stolen away by the constant threat of my looming AP packets.
You adults when you take a vacation get to actually take one. You get to escape from it all. I guess you hide the actual definition from us kids, so we aren’t embittered by the fact we never get a vacation. Even those who work their tails off.
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Homework during the summer is the worst idea yet. Kids need TIME OFF for God sakes. Summer homework makes summer lose all its meaning, summer camps do to.
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“I think that summer homework is very important as a teacher, I believe that homework during the summer will help the students remember better the material covered in the school year.”
—-What a joke, as a straight a student in high school I can personally tell you that it does not. Maybe one book over the summer and a short report on it is ok but three or four assignments is overkill. It is a waste of time and the burnt out stressed feeling from the end of school and having to deal with finals never goes away like it shoud during summer. Teachers may BELIEVE it helps but they don’t KNOW. Students do know. The main thing that really helped me in class was spending actual time in the class, with a teacher, and going over things.
Time for summers is continually reduced anyway – i don’t know about other schools but my summer is down to about two months. We NEED the time off. Worrying about school all summer and making sure we do the assignments right is abosolutly terrible. One assignment i recieved was a 700 page book about the civil war era. We had to read it then do a report on it. I read a lot of books away from school and so my reading level is at a relatively high level. For this book i only read 25 pages each day because it would take me so long; about an hour, sometimes more. That is crazy. It was only one of my subjects as well, i had three other homework assignments of this size.
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“The elephant in the living room of this discussion is the duration of the summer.”
Spliting up the summer or making it shorter is a bad idea, it a relaxation period, one ment for rest. If a student forgets things or cannot remeber them after a short refreshing period at the begging of school it is their fault. They probably cramed the material before tests and copied homework. Generally memory is not a factor.
“Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers makes a strong case for more time in school. The paradigm he touts is from Asia. Longer hours in the classroom and less time on vacation equates to greater success in math and science.”
Did he also happen to mention the increasing suicide rates at those long hour schools? Even the ones who haven’t commited suicde are under extreme stress. This is not what a kids life should be like.
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“I toil over my work for 10 months. I don’t even get to rest when I come home. The constant stress of homework, and the hours of work it takes follow me like my shadow, and send me running like a groundhog. Funny, though, how it even shows up on a cloudy day. My piles of homework can block the sun too.
And, that glorious day when school lets out is never sweet. I leave my gigantic homework cloud at school, and trade it in for a smaller, but more pesky one. One that blocks the sun; the clear rays of sun and fresh air after being trapped in a prison stolen away by the constant threat of my looming AP packets.
You adults when you take a vacation get to actually take one. You get to escape from it all. I guess you hide the actual definition from us kids, so we aren’t embittered by the fact we never get a vacation. Even those who work their tails off.”
–This student puts the feeling of the cold grip of school nicely, there is almost no relief when school ends, just worry.
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I really don’t mind if i have one book to read over the summer because that is understandable. However, now I am in high school and in all honors and I have an unbelievable amount of homework. For English I have four books and a 500 page book for social studies. Also for social studies i have questions for each chapter, a six page essay, and I have to make a huge map. I was not happy when I got that huge packet. If i don’t do it, they are all summative 0’s and I will have already failed the first quarter. I think it is excessive and unessessary.
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i think teachers should not give summer homework at all. A book are 2 and a little summary would be alright but more then that will be too much. Summer vacation is suppose to be spent with your family and enjoy it without worrying about school work. Having homework during the summer vacation causes me quite a bit of stress
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I hate summer assignments. I mean really..I can’t go with my family to hawaii during the summer because I have to watch my science project? WTF that’s not right. Especially since I work so hard during the school year that it takes me the entire summer to get over how burnt out school makes me. And I already know how to do science projects so how in the hel lis watching stupid flies replicate going to help me with Ap Envoirmental Science. Can’t I just watch that on youtube or something?
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Memory my a**. Its not like the students will remember every single thing they learned when they graduate high school, so i’m sure they can afford to forget some topics for the sake of relaxation. Plus I am going to be a senior next year and I needed this summer to visit colleges…but no i’m stuck doing homework for my stupid Ap classes.
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What is the point of summer homework? I mean, when my mom was my age, her summer homework was to tell what she did over the summer. Is summer break is really just an excuse for teachers to pound their useless(except for the only really useful classes, math, science, and english) “knowledge” into the skulls of students to further burn them down, or are the nations school systems really that flawed? I thought principals wanted students to be eager about learning, not so sick of school that they make the decision to altogether drop out due to lack of enthusiasm.
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I will soom be a freshman at a Catholic high school in Omaha, NE. This year I am in as many honors classes I am allowed to take. I got assigned a 368 page book to read for honors English. I just have to read it and the first two weeks cover the book. I think it’s ridiculous! I’ve been getting summer homework since 5th freaking grade! It’s so annoying! I used to be able to relax during summer and now I can’t! The thing is my parents, of all people, act like it’s perfectly fine for the school to deny my right of BEING A CHILD! I realize it’s wrong and have the goal to one day take the issue to the school board. Summer would be the perfect time to plan my “attack” but I can’t because they give us homework! I happen to suffer from bruxism, which is the unconscious act of grinding and clenching of teeth. It is almost always caused by stress, and I blame the schools fir giving me so much homework every waking moment that I literally have no time to ever relax! I may seem to be relaxing but the assignment is always looming in the back of my head. I routinely receive hours of homework that I don’t need. Yet the kids in non honors classes who constantly get C’s and below are receiving little to no homework. It’s been proven that homework every day I’d not needed for a student to be successful, let alone HOURS each DAY! Sadly our a-hole of a President (more like an a-hole of a government as a whole) doesn’t seem to realize we need a major overhaul of our education system to keep up with other countries. I am an honors student who has only gotten a grade below a Zb once, and I really don’t see why we get more work while the people struggling do not receive the work they need soo they can practice. And I’ll leave it at that, because I could go on forever about the bullshit that is summer homework, and homework overload in general.
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I’m in the 8th grade and in gifted classes, and over the summer of 6th and 7th I was required to read 3 books and do a report on them and a mathbooklet of 340 problems on average. They didn’t help AT ALL. The only thing it did was stress out my entire summer and made me tense thinking about, “I don’t remember this!” or “I need to get home and do my math and reading” And as far as shorter summers, I went to year round school in elementary. (Every 9 week syou have a two week break and your summer is 1 1/2 months long.) I HATED it. It made my vacations so short, and the whole time all I could think about was how soon school was. Plus, when other schools got out it just made everyone feel like they could just stop trying. We have our whole life ahead of us to work all year and let stress age us quicker, how ’bout letting us enjoy a little bit of childhood, eh?(:
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@Concerned Teacher
I’m not sure what school you teach at, but I don’t know a single student like that other than students who are developmentally delayed. As a student who is in the “Gifted” program I get great marks and I know that students who aren’t in the gifted program get good marks as well. In my school you dont get homework in the summer, but my parents do leave me homework. In my eyes any homework in the summer is not very useful. Your summer vacation should be used to relax and not stress you out. The curriculum was designed so that if you study or do your homework in school you should be set for life.
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Summer homework is the enemy. Instead of hanging out with friends at the mall or going to birthday parties or enjoying bbqs, I have to attempt to finish the monstrous amount of homework assigned to me. I have AP Biology homework, which consists of 7 textbook chapter outlines, reading a 300 pg book and writing a comparision. Then AP World homework which consists of reading a 250pg book and writing an abstract journal about each chapter. Then I have to read a 150pg book for english. Then for science research, I have to research 20 science articles, summarize 10 of them, find 10 scientists you are interested in and then do a shitload of summaray sheets. This summer was spent agonizing over work, which it shouldn’t be. Its summer homework that makes high school students want to take easier classes so the workload would be minimum. Something definetaly needs to be done~!
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I think just one book and a small report on it would be fine. But for my summer homework I got a 15 page math packet, must read three books, and a nother big packet for it. I HATE it!!!!!
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I think that students should be given some required reading during the summer at the most, but students should not be forced to answer numerous questions and write numerous essays. Summer should be a time of relaxation, not school work. Isn’t the whole point of summer vacation to have a vacation from school?
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I speak as a Highschool Student. Though we do not have much work, it does annoy us and ruin our summers. I have seen numerous complaints on Facebook and from my fellow students. I do not mind reading a book and finding quotes that show different parts of a character, or maybe researching a fun project such as finding out more about a chinese character for the class. These are examples of my own work. However I do not think multi-chapter History assignments with multiple long questions that require even longer answers are necessary for us as students. It burns us out and just takes out of time we could be relaxing. That is what summer is for, for the most part.
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I am a teacher and am appauld that my 9th grader and 10th grader not only have enormous amounts of summer homework but it counts for a large % of their 9 week grade. My son’s AP teacher counts it as 50% of the grade. Her job is easy, she assignes it, I harp and harp on my son to spend his whole summer working. She grades it in a class period and he is unmotivated to work due to the lack of respect she provides him! Then parents are expected to motivate and hold their students accountable.
I wonder where the lack of motivation comes from? It’s hard to succeed when you are set up to fail!
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homework sucks
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Homework is taking children away from there personal time. I see kids my age every day cheating off the smartest kid in class. Homework is a waste of time and trees
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