According to an article in the Bethesda, Maryland, Walt Whitman High School newspaper, of the 500 Whitman students surveyed, 70 percent admitted to cheating on a test, and 95 percent admitted to copying homework. One of the students is quoted as saying, “I consider copying homework to be cheating yourself, but I do not consider it an offense. I feel better about copying if the other person doesn’t care if I copy their homework. You’ve got to do what you got to do to survive.�
Stop Homework 
“You’ve got to do what you got to do to survive.â€?
This is soooooooooooooooooooo true.
What makes people think that if the kids have a choice between doing homework (taking an hour), and copying homework (taking ten minutes at most), that they will choose to spend an hour of their time doing something that they dont have to nor want to. Why?
Who in their right mind would do that?
You see, the problem is that the educational system that is in place now is making kids do busywork that they dont even want to do. Do you honestly think that they are going to do the work for the education? Well i tell you that the majority of them dont. If you can cheat on the homework and then cheat on the test, why do the work?
The point is that you get the grade.
You have to realize that at some point the kids are going to say “i want my own life, i dont want to be dictated by these people anymore”. The brilliant part about it is that we (the students) have the ability to control the school system now. You (the “teachers”) have showed us how to manipulate the system. We have been watching and learning about the way that you control us; and the great thing about being human and possesing this knowledge is that we can find the holes within your system. Go ahead, try and stop it, you wont be able to, there is always new and brilliant minds coming out of the woodwork.
Because of the way you taught us, we can always stay one step ahead of you.
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They are right-we will keep adapting in ways you dont want us to if something about the educational system isnt changed
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i cheated my way throgh year 8 cuz i didnt understand a word of the science or maths. come year 9 i was in top set 4 science and 2nd set for maths (thats out of 7 groups) because i was in a higher class i had to pay attention to keep up and i dne really well in test and stuff. now im doing my GCSE im in a top class and thus i have opertunities to do tests that will give me higher grades. if i was in a lower grade i would be doing foundation. cheating rocks! its saves time and effort. the only tests that count (Sats, gcse, A levels) its impossible to cheat and not get caught. in this world u gotta dfo what u need to do to get by. others 1 bad day an u might flunk 1 lousy test, get set back a grade, ddo a lower level test, not get the grade u need to get into the school of ur choice and BAM end up in mcdonalds as Miss sawer always says.
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Students who cheat are just doing what they feel is easiest. It is so much easier to copy someones homework then have to actually look the answers up yourself. Cheating isn’t really bad, because it’s just not applying yourself. And kids shouldn’t get penalized for that because it is the schools fault they that make cheating so unbelievably easy! i mean in high school i can’t remember a time i didn’t “borrow” someones homework or look over someones shoulder during a test. It is all to simple. If the schools made it harder to cheat there might be less of a it, but also students are finding new ways to cheat that teachers don’t recognize yet. Teachers don’t give us the credit of how smart we actually are to come up with a new way to cheat and not get caught! i think that as a student i can honestly say that cheating is not bad. Eventhough it won’t help you in life, there is still nothing wrong with it!
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YES! i cheated till yr 7 but i stopped becouse if you have a BRAIN and think that if you cheat what will happen when you have a job and you get questioned something you dont KNOW AH…………………………………… What you gonna do then say I DONT KNOW?!?!?
CHEATERS THINK THEY DO WELL CHEATING UNTILL THEY GET QUESTIONED SOMETHING THEY DONT KNOW! LOL in my eyes it not worth it
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Joseph Lachausse says:
You have to trick them in to telling you.
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They probably do, one search for homework cheater on google gave me 140 000 results. Does that prove anything? I think so!
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Ive cheated before,
Ive copied homework before,
have i done anything wrong?
Im accually in school right now talking to my girlfriend over ftp messaging instead of doing my work
But the thing is… i dont need to cheat
i have the intelligance
i sleep during my classes
yet i still know the work
i dont need to cheat, it just makes life more easier and gives me more time to talk to the one i love;)
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im entering as a freshman in high school next year and i have never cheated in my life and i got terrible grades last year but now i know all you have to do is make LOTS of friend to get answers from & you will get good grades. its bullshit that we should have to go to school for 8 hours a day and then have to do fucken HOMEWORK for another 2 hours a night. and last year our homework was shit like COLORING (FOR MY HISTORY CLASS!!!!!!!). because, as we all know, most jobs today require that you can cut on dotted lines and use crayons correctly!!! when i grow up i wanna be a fucken model so why in the HELL should i have to put in tons of effort for a high school degree? and spend a half an hour after school COLORING for a history project OR COPYING OUT OF MY SCIENCE BOOK FOR BIOLOGY CLASS (another assignment). WHY DONT THEY JUST THROW OUT HOMEWORK AND MAKE THE TESTS MATTER A LOT MORE INSTEAD SO WE COULD ACTUALLY COVER IMPORTANT MATERIAL THAT WE NEED TO KNOW IN LIFE INSTEAD OF THE BULLSHIT BUSY WORK TEACHERS MAKE US DO FOR HOMEWORK?! THEY JUST GIVE US BUSY WORK BC ITS EASY TO GRADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I am gathering information for a class I teach to secondary level students and would like opinions on why/why not to assign homework. I found this link and would like more opinions. Thanks for these!
Honesty is always appreciated but please realize if you’d be so kind in your response I do have younger aged students, too!
Thanks so much!
Nancy
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Hi Nancy,
I’m glad to hear you’re thinking about your homework policy. Have you read The Case Against Homework, The Homework Myth, and The End of Homework? All three books discuss the reasons for not assigning homework.
What do you teach?
–Sara
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I know a friend who cheated in my Japanese class and I am really angry because lots of people studied HARD (like myself) and then my friend hides the answer sheet under her desk while she does the test. What should i do? I mean I can’t do nothing, i’m really upset at her.
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Hi Nancy,
Well, I’m a student and i think that you should assign homework unless you give your students occasional, easy tests on what they’ve been learning lately. The tests should be very small and worth very little. But you SHOULD give your students a few assignments here and there.
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Homework should not be given. It is a waste of time and effort. Ive seen alot of things online and in real life that proove this. I never ever do homework but i do great on tests and quizes but because i dont do my homework i fail classes. This is just stupid, i mean im proving that homework dosnt teach me anything by not doing it but still knowing the material. As long as kids pay attention in class and learn while they are in school there is no reason in giving homework. If they dont pay attention in class thats their fault and who cares.
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i’m doing a speech on how homework is bad for high schoolers because some of us have to work and go to school and to add to that we have hours and hours of homework, yeah i will admit i have cheated on my homework more then once but i have to keep my grades up and thats the only way i can do everything i need to.
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Hi Anna,
I hope you’ll send me a copy of your speech when you’ve finished it. As you can see, I’ve published other speeches or papers by students, and I’d like to consider yours.
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We turn in homework and git no grade for doing the work.
Like what the flip stop giving us work you wont look at!!!!!!!!! 😦
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i cheat because i dont understand what they saying.
so i go home on the computer in cheat before that i had bad grade but know i got good one
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I recently cheated on a HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT and got caught. the wording was sort of word for word because yes the teacher sucks and each homework assigment is the same and becomes redundant. i am sick of it so i copied my friends homework once. we really were just working together and i did not think we were not allowed to do that. first of all it is theatre homework and second EMPHASIS ON THE HOMEWORK part. i am having a meeting with the administrators and some important people and we are getting in a lot of trouble. he called my house and my parents are furious. EVERYONE DOES IT!! so i am getting caught and in alot of trouble and im pissed and hate my teacher!!
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homework is a neccesity in a public school environment. homework helps students secure the information they learned in school that day. alothough in a private schools (non-regents) homework should only be given in classes where it has been the most challenging on the students.
in addition to this teachers must understand something about the amount of work given by each teacher. for some reason teacehrs seem to think that they are the only teacher giving work that night. for example, my math teachers thinks that it is ok to give the class 25 questions a night on limits where each answer can take up a full page of paper. this work can take up to 2 hours and on top of that the same night i still had spanish work, chem studying, a sat tutor, and a 2 hour hockey practice. i understand i am voluntarily a member of the hockey team but i also go to a private school. do some teachers have no mercy toward their students.
did the teachers forget what it is like to be in high school?? please for the teachers that read what i have wrote: show mercy toward your students try to understand their point of viewa. plus the mork work you give is the more work you must grade… dont you want a night off every-now-and-then
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I did know that it is wrong and when I got caught I knew that it wasnt worth the pain and the distrust that the teacher have in me now. Everyone does it and we all can admitt to it. No matter who you are you did at some time and we all denie it ever happpening. But becuase we all did it that doesnt make it right. So please if you plan on cheating dont, becuase if you get caught it is the worst felling. As someone who sadly did, regreting it now please do yourself a favor and dont cheat. I though that I was a good person but I am not anymore, labled as a cheater for life.
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it sux.
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hell
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i am currently working on an english assignment in year 7. it’s a lot of work for me (probably not you older guys)but i can do it. the point here is that it could take two hours to genuinley finish it or…spend about ten minutes on it and then do something that i care about. it is way to easy to just cheat AND get away with it. so im sitting here typing this message and doing some crossword about a book we read in class. like making crosswords is gonna help me in the future! as if my teacher is even going to take a second glance when he’s marking it. i spend at least half of my precious time at school only to come back home and do more work?!?wateva.come on teachers, if your reading this i will just let you know that YOU are not the only teacher giving me work! in year 7, we study maths, english, humanities, science, art, music and foodtech. thats 7 oppurtinities for YOU to hand out work to students. dont you remember your high school days? PLEASE, HAVE SOME MERCY,IT IS AND ENDLESS ONSLUGHT OF HOMEWORK HERE AND SOM OF US JUST ARENT COPING!!!!!!!!
yours truly,
victim of homework.
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Cheat your way through school. It’s pointless anyway. Wait till you get to the real world. You’re fucked.
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I’ll tell what, they are teaching how to become a professor now..not how be more intelligent,yes in the beginning knowing how to substractmwrite and read is great,but hey WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT ATOMIC SCIENCE.
If i was a racing teacher..i would never force someone to learn,neither would i block them from having the job of their dreams because they didn’t want to know about MY PASSION.
School’s shit,cheat it.
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Btw ”Terminator”
My mom who has a bacc here in Canada as a nurse understands fuckall about secondary 2 maths..yet she saves people!
Being fucked in our world can happen anytime,ask my ”dad” who was a lawyer and became a janitor.
It’s all about having the diploma and the skills,the skills to PERFORM.You don’t need to understand highschool they teach how to become teachers.
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AMEN, ah yes homework, a lot of it not good for much
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I as a math teacher find homework as necessary. In class students all seem to understand then they go home and practice on their own and can’t do the problems. There is a direct correlation in my classes with students success and the percent of completed homework assignmnets. As far as work is concerned, you will not have to cut and paste but you will be required to do busy work that you deem as trivial but is necessary. You students make it sound like you have so much more homework than in past generations and that is crazy. You don’t have it any harder than any other generation. It is very sad to me to see how you students assess life as students. Will you ever have to know how to solve a calc problem in the real world? Maybe not. But part of school is learning how to think!! We are in real trouble for future generations with the mentality that your generation has. It is very sad to me.
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As a teacher I understand the need to assign homework but I do agree that busy work should not be assigned. That said most of the comments supporting cheaters were so poorly written that you basically make a great example of why cheating is wrong. You folks have obviously failed to get a good education and will suffer for the rest of your lives.
I should also note that cheating often happens in front of teachers who are so used to it that they do nothing in response. I admit I do not always bust cheaters. I do however have a much lower opinion of those students who I see peeking at others papers during a test. Teachers have eyes and ears and know a lot more than you think. Remember that when you get an essay back and your teacher has ripped you a new one. Maybe they are sick of your pathetic attempts to subvert your own education.
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Bioteacher, I appreciate your remarks. I will tell you my high school junior daughter does not cheat, I am sure of it. When I homeschooled her, I could have left the math textbook open during a chapter test and gone to the grocery store and I assure you, she wouldn’t have peeked. She tends to be honest to a fault.
What I loved about the on-line Johns Hopkins U. math course she took is how much they trusted both me and her. She went through the textbook, chapter by chapter, and took a test after each one. I then mailed in the completed test and the tutor sent her the results and commentary via email.
Only the midterm and final required my signatures. On those two major exams, they did inquire how long the test took (JHU CTY on line math tests are untimed!) but I was not asked to verify that my daughter did not cheat. It goes without saying and I appreciated that, for once, an entity respected and trusted my parenting.
Public school tends to be so regimented and rigid. It often looks like the polar opposite of Alfie Kohn and the whole genre of respectful parenting. Homeschool parents so embody this concept of respectful gentle parenting, particularly in the unschooled (not to be confused with no schooled) world that when I took my daughter to homeschool Park Day, I’d whisper to her to please be exquisitely well behaved because the homeschoolers are!
I realize public school has the whole crowd control conundrum to contend with (love alliteration!), but I conclude that the more tightly controlled children are, the more they have no voice or say in their education, the more disaffected, disillusioned and dishonest they become.
Bioteacher, I agree with you that the students posting on this thread need a lot of work. In language, grammar, syntax, civility, maturity and intelligence. Regardless, I still am opposed to homework (certainly for our family), particularly homework overload because of what it has taken from us.
On face value, the argument that some homework is okay would appear to make sense. The problem with homework limits is that teachers do not seem to pay attention to them and my daughter’s homework load is completely out of control and has been for years and years, only growing worse in high school.
I’d be willing to settle for two hours if teachers truly kept to that but they clearly do not. And I wouldn’t even mind giving a teacher the benefit of the doubt but few are reasonable. My experience is most become defensive when you bring excessive homework to their attention. I’d like more listening and less preaching if this is truly the :partnership” it’s touted to be.
I understand there is pressure from above but however you slice it, my daughter is caught in the middle with an unwieldy absurd homework load that far exceeds anything remotely healthy.
My daughter attends a selective magnet high school and cheating has been a problem. Now she has to submit every single paper to Turnitin and it’s just one more thing, one more assignment. It bothers me that she has to do this because the school is treating the cheating symptoms and not the root causes. But addressing the stress level at the school and why students resort to cheating would shine the spotlight on the administration rather than the student and I suppose they are not willing to do that.
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@anonymous (#29) You said:
I as a math teacher find homework as necessary.
OK. That is your opinion. Your personal anecdotal experience has led you to determine that homework is necessary. I would like something more than that, given that 95% are cheating on assignments, so they must not share your “necessary” sentiment.
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man homework is bullshit man. im in advanced math in my school and we already get a lot of classwork.and then we have to go home and i have often spend more than 3 hours working on it. man i freakin hate math. its not too hard but it is annoying and time consuming.
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home work stinks
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I am a high school student. Homework is absolutely ridiculous when you ask a tutor to help and they dont even understand the problems. I have looked online everywhere to try and get a site to help me do these frigging word problems but I cant get it done! my mom refuses to help me with my homework anymore. Homework is a useless exercise that only brings depression and other shit on us students. It basically ruins the better part of our lives. If the teachers were doing their jobs correctly we would understand it the first time through and not have to go do 300 problems at home for practice.
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If you have to, do it…it doesn’t make sense how much homework i get in every class…it’s way too much. Me and my friends rotate…i do math homework every other day…on the days i dont…i copy him, vise versa, i have a friend like this in every class…trust me it works!
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I am currently trying to complete a History assignment at 10 to 1 in the morning and trying not to cheat. But it’s impossible. We were given 3 weeks to do it and it was due in on Monday (yesterday). Because SOME people did half a page over 3 weeks and it was all copied from the internet, we ALL have to the it again, without copying, in 2 days. You know what I think? FUCK HOMEWORK.
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Homework is supposed to be given,and if you cannot find time to complete it you are doing to many extra ciricular activities(I know I misspelled “ciricular”,Get over it LOL).Work comes before fun,you know ,but I do agree that students need a balance between each.Thank you
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Yes, of course, Crazy. Here’s an idea. Instead of homework, work on your reading. Good readers make great writers. Who can spell.
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Here’s are my thoughts:
homework should be stressed between junior high years and the first year of hitch school. After that homework should not be given as much because students will have an understanding that if they do not do the course work they will get bad marks. I am not saying that assignmets should not be given, but assignments should not be marked. Another thing is that teachers should not give a lot of small quizzes. With all that other work in school having to study for a small quiz can really enrage people. It usually ends up bringing marks down because constant studying for small tests becomes extremely monotonous and tedious. Students ho plan to succeed will study anyway but donor always have time to study- you get what I’m saying? Ps not all of us are bad spellers.
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To start off, I’m a sophomore in a relatively prestigious private institution; I have an IQ over 180. I don’t need to cheat. But why wouldn’t I? Hell, I don’t bother on tests, I get all the answers right before most kids in my class, but the sheer volume of homework I receive every night is absolutely ridiculous! Tell me, if I’m already investing 8 hours in school, 2 in sports, 2 in other ECs, how in the hell do my teachers expect me to add 6 more hours to homework?
I’m not stupid, it’s not a matter of me being slow with my work, there just aren’t enough hours in a day for school, rugby practice, play rehearsal, and that much homework! I’ll give a run-down of what I’m supposed to do tonight:
AP U.S. History: Take (meticulous) notes on chapters 40-43 (the end of the text, thank [insert deity here].) Prepare for in-class essay on anything that occurred during Roosevelt’s presidency. Okay, so that’s not so bad, but we still have another 6 classes to cover.
English II: Read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and be prepared for a test tomorrow or the next day. Two worksheets on Moby Dick. I should probably also start on the autobiography due next week, since I can’t really cheat on that.
Latin II: Translate two books of Jason, test tomorrow.
Algebra II/Trig: 78 problems covering material that our teacher has conveniently forgotten to teach us.
Biology: Not too bad, just read and summarize a few articles from Scientific American and write up a lab report.
Gym (yes, gym): Look up all sorts of vocabulary concerning sports that nobody has played since the middle ages, and memorize it in two days.
AP Stat: Busyworkbusyworkbusyworkbusyworkbusywork
How the staff a) expects students to do this much work while maintaining sleep/sanity (luckily I’m an insomniac and I went insane long, long ago) and b) thinks that anybody does some of this ridiculous @%!&, is absolutely beyond me.
The only kids who don’t cheat are the kinds in all fundamentals classes who don’t know any better. If I could begin to describe to you the network of cheating that runs beneath this school, well, you probably wouldn’t really be all that surprised, but it’s still ridiculous.
Anyway, I feels good to get this off my chest. I predict that nobody will ever read this rant, but if you do, and by some miracle you made it here to the end, please know that this post was fueled by 12 sleepless nights, a fever, and a mosquito that has been in my room for the past hour that is pissing me the hell off.
Thank you, good night.
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Appy pollies for the double post, but the 12 days has little to do with the school workload. It’s more due to a programming deadline and my own insomnia, as mentioned. It is possible to be awake for 12 days, though I anticipate that few will believe it to be such. I’m not sure that this post is necessary, or if it will be of any consequence. Oh well.
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Sophomore, I read your rant. My daughter is in a uber-demanding school too and I feel your pain.
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AN uber demanding. I hate my typos! I’m sleep deprived too because my daughter has insomnia issues as well and last night woke me up to tell me she couldn’t sleep. I told her to do that because I wanted to know how bad it’s gotten this week. This is a very stressful week.
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In response to the person who wrote the lengthy comment about cheating as a means to survive, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve gotten about 3-5 hours of sleep every night this week. Monday and Tuesday we had three hour play rehearsals. Wednesday I had to miss periods 1-4 to rehearse (yay make-up work). Wednesday and Thursday night we have three more hours dedicated to performances. Then Friday and Saturday we have full day theatre festivals (more excellent make-up work). To top it off I’ve got four quarter finals to study for.
My IQ is 125 according to the psych test which is not by any means up to your level, but not low enough that it should warrant upwards of four hours of homework a night with an eight hour school day. It doesn’t help my learning at all that I’m too tired to focus well. I can listen and take it all in but my short term memory is botched and the dark circles under my eyes don’t exactly spell A-W-A-K-E. Even with this absurd lifestyle, the standards are so high and the education system is so flawed I’ve put in more efforts than both of my parents did and have a substantially lower chance at the colleges they were accepted into, UCLA and Columbia University.
And although I get what you mean and don’t mind giving my work to others, I don’t copy theirs. When I got my IQ tested I was also diagnosed with minor OCD and Anxiety and I always feel as if I will get caught and punished and it will hurt my chances at a reputable college. It’s perhaps mental but I can’t do it. This has quite clearly led to a decrease in grades; the worksheets some of my friends copy and ace, I don’t. It’s obviously my fault, not doing work and not getting grades for it, but I completely understand people who cheat.
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Wow, you feel like you have to apologize because you DON’T cheat? What kind of a crazy world is this?
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Homework is bogus!!! my teacher says you need to do it but I say FUCK IT!!!!!! because what the fuck is the point?!! we already know all this we learned it in class we DONT NEED HOMEWORK!!! sure i have cheated on tests all my life cause well it’s fucked! the school system is idiotic! like come on!!!! I havent done my homework since year one!!! thats how stupid they are since YEAR ONE! what the hell do you think about homework?…..
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i would say that 95% of the kids at my school cheat. I AM IN MIDDLE SCHOOL(year 7). i am 13 years old why should i spend 2-3 hours of my day up in my room doing homework. half of my homework is just copying text from a stupid textbook. A kid (or me) goes home, nice sunny day or snowing but you get the point i want to go outside. Homework hurts learning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am not going to do my homework but wait until last minute. lets say it is math homework, i would rush the problems learn it the wrong way and now i am screwed. If there was no homework but we SPENT more time on ONE THING AT A TIME then we could all learn it better than rushing to do it at home. And history, HOW WILL THE DOWNFALL OF THE BANTU EMPIRE AFFECT ME LATER IN LIFE, WHY SHOULD I WRITE AN ESSAY ON THAT?
When teachers say spend more of your time doing homework, i want to scream what so you can just barely look at it and then turn around. WHY SHOULD I PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO IT?
well thats just my opinion
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I agree with the last comment i agree with every thing that person said but writer dont be afraid to put out your name. its almost impossible for teachers to find eneything on the web. and it will take days for them to find this website.
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look i don’t care what any of you fuck heads think homework should be band think. homework is there for a damb good reason and that get what you’ve learned stuck in your head so you don’t forget, ok so what if 95% of kids cheat, that doesn’t mean it gives you the right, when all the other kids like me work our arses off slaving away in our rooms, your out partying and wasting you time, after you leave school you have a lifetime of fucking around to do. i’m 16 years old and in year 11, i do philosophy, english, electronics, chemestry, atomic science and I.C.T and i get a shit load of homework each week, i also have 3 jobs, one at a bakery, one as a waiter and the other at a fast food joint, and i only go to 4 out of 5 school days a week and i’m still passing with A’s and B’s and i’m not a smart student just a hard worker and i know that in the end all that will pay off, and its not as hard as it sounds i still have time to myself i still go to parties and have fun down the street with some friends but i always put my work before my fun, because when i leave school i’ve plenty of time to fuck arse around adn have fun.
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