Headline: The right choice: no to homework on the weekend
Byline: Justine Picard, Feature Editor
I think homework should not be given on the weekend. Not only is this the popular choice, it also makes the most sense.
Students should take the weekend to relax, study and revise their classwork if they need to. High school students are teenagers who work hard enough in Oak Park High School and they deserve a break from their studies to charge their mind.
“I think it’s important not to give homework on the weekends,” junior Savannah de Giorgio said. “Homework on the weekends does stress me out more because I’m at school five days a week for six hours, and then I go home, and do more homework. The weekends are what I look forward to. If I have to specifically spend my Sunday doing homework, then what’s the purpose of weekends in the first place?”
Mandating homework on the weekends creates a distressing environment and encouragies last-minute cramming. When homework is given on the weekend, students will have the mentality of finishing it “to get it over with” rather than to “to learn something of value from it.”
Some people may be in favor of homework over the weekends because they believe they’ll get more credit for the class from the additional assignments. This may be true for some classes that grade more on assignments than exams. Still, the extra work does not outweigh the time you could have used to either rank up your volunteer hours, work on a hobby or extracurricular.
Extra work for the student also means more grading for the teacher. I highly doubt that full-time working teachers genuinely want to spend their weekends grading additional assignments on top of what they already gave out.
“The weekends are your only time to unwind because of how stressful Oak Park can be,” sophomore Kate Oberst said. “So the fact that they give us more work makes our week even more stressful. On the off chance I have a test or a quiz on Monday then the Sunday can sometimes be nice but I think that the cons outweigh the pros.”
Students deserve a life outside of school. Is this too much to ask?
Headline: Homework is helpful!
Deck: Practice makes progress through assignments handed out for the weekends
Byline: Nina Gerty, Senior Staff Writer
Although the weekend can help us unwind and regroup, homework assigned over the weekend is actually really beneficial for students. The purpose of homework is to practice the skills you’re learning in school, and reviewing the work on your two days off helps to retain the information.
“Having homework does sometimes stress me out but sometimes it also does help me review because if I’m trying to study for a test or just to review the material for a class then it’s helpful,” junior Peter Mendoza said. “It does help me, for example in Spanish. Sometimes I may not like to do it but it helps me.”
Homework improves outcomes – the more effort you put into it the more you will receive. If you don’t put in work on the weekends, then on Monday you will have an overload of assignments and work that you put off. This goes for studying on the weekends as well.
“I do better on tests or quizzes because it forces me to practice whereas on my own I may not always set aside time to practice. In addition, I think having homework is extra points that gives you a second chance to improve your grade,” Mendoza said.
Homework covers topics learned in class to boost understanding of what was learned that day or week. It doesn’t matter which day homework is assigned. Whether it’s a weekday or not, homework is there for help.
“I think homework in general is important because it solidifies your understanding on the lessons, concepts, and topics and when you have homework on the weekends it goes further into detail on things you might have missed during the lesson during the week,” senior Natalia Galstian said.
When assigning homework, students are allowed to independently rehearse their notes on what they noticed in the lesson. This is what helps me grasp the information taught that day. Friday’s lessons are still taught and homework is still given for the weekend so that us students can revise what we learned that day.
“It gives you more time to sit down and go in-depth and have more focus,” Galstian said.
Sitting down and doing homework for some time helps me stay on task with my studies while even balancing time between rest and recovery over the weekend.
“It helps because you don’t forget what you’re learning about and you keep reaffirming and rebuilding your understanding of the lessons. I do better on quizzes when having homework on the weekends because I can build my concepts,” Galstian said.
I find that students complain about teachers assigning homework on the weekends but they shouldn’t because it builds good study habits and organizational skills. I believe that if homework is given in small amounts for the two days we have off, it can overall help us all as students.
