Just as IHS students looked on hopefully toward the beginning of Spring Break two weeks ago, many noticed a significant shift in teachers’ homework policy from the beginning of the year: more classes seemed to have become quite comfortable with the idea of assigning homework over break, despite the precedent that had previously been set by the district. Simply put, this apparent change fails to take into account the underlying circumstances behind students’ greatly altered schedules and priorities this year.
When students and members of the workforce alike hear the word “vacation,” their ears inevitably prick up. A vacation is meant to be a time of rest, relaxation, and renewal. Periodic vacations are highly beneficial to the mental and physical health of hardworking members of society, young, old, and everything in between. Some would say such respites are even necessary. And yet, when students at IHS go on vacation, we can hardly ever expect a stress-free break. All too often, we begin thinking about our homework as soon as the final bell rings. Even if we’re being whisked away to a tropical paradise or planning to spend time with our beloved family, we still have to worry about fulfilling our academic obligations.
Back in the early days of remote instruction, teachers were told that ICSD was planning to greatly limit the amount of homework given to students over breaks. The district cited concerns with technical difficulties, increased family responsibilities for many students during the pandemic, mental health, and the idea of break as a time for students to unwind and recharge for the coming week. Such concerns were entirely valid in many respects – the rapid transition to Canvas and remote learning would naturally result in complications for many students in a regular year, let alone one in which a global health crisis and economic recession caused discord and uncertainty for households across the nation. Whether it was during our first snow days or our long-awaited Winter Break in December, the message was clear: teachers would be advised not to assign full-length homework assignments during break, and those who did would be few and far between any given student’s schedule.
However, after a full year of online learning, several classes have opted to pile assignment after assignment onto their students during a period specifically designed, at least in theory, for students to wind down and recoup their studious energy for the quarter ahead. Perhaps this was simply due to the imminent end of the third quarter; perhaps it was just negligence on certain teachers’ part; or, as has often been the case in the past, it might be that many instructors perceive break as an open slot on students’ calendars – one in which they are free to pack as many assignments as can fit within twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
This onslaught of work is all in spite of the fact that many of the district’s concerns from the first semester have not subsided in any way. Although more students are available to attend in-person classes now and the vaccine rollout has fortunately been steadily underway in Tompkins County, the chief consequences from the end of the world last year—responsibilities, mental health, the need for students to unwind—have not become any less prominent by any metric. Even after the pandemic comes to its long-awaited curtain call and sees itself out in the coming months, this superficial change will not change the fact that students’ productivity and mental health have long been negatively impacted by the simple lack of unoccupied time slots in our schedule throughout our high school years.
All of this does not even take into account the negative impacts of prolonged screen time, as break homework requires that students sit in front of a screen for even more hours per day, without a spark of hope of escape from our blue light ocular prison. Screen time has already drastically increased to the realm of ten to twelve hours per day with online classes and homework; depriving students of the one (1) week in which they are free to experience the world in a format other than pixels undoubtedly has a large impact on the attentiveness, drive, and motivation of students throughout the rest of the year. This may be beneficial for the eyeglasses and migraine pill industries, but the well-being of an entire generation of students hopefully ranks slightly above the district’s list of priorities than the entirely irrelevant Q1 earnings report of Luxottica.
Given both the continued impact of online learning and the ever-persistent cycle of leisure-deprived students resulting in low productivity and academic vigor, it is our belief that teachers should refrain from or strictly limit the assignment of homework over break. The marginal benefit gained from one additional problem set or break project is vastly outweighed by the marginal cost of a lost week for students. The invaluable experience of getting to breathe fresh air for a week in high school is one that simply cannot be recovered once lost.