Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… a pile of homework up to your nose. Picture it, your high school holiday break: ice-skating with friends, drinking hot chocolate with a mountain of marshmallows, and shopping for your little sister’s Christmas gift (even if she doesn’t deserve it). Unfortunately for our students, this is not the case at North Atlanta High School. There’s nothing quite like writing an essay on Christmas morning and completing math problems during the countdown on New Year’s Eve. North Atlanta has ripped away the joy of the holidays by tormenting its hardworking students with assignments over breaks.
Throughout the year, NAHS students labor through rigorous courses, including the difficult International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme pathway. So, breaks are expected to be vacations, relaxing on white sand beaches and drinking coffee at a European cafe. Instead, our North Atlanta teachers have been known to hand out homework due at the end of the break, with little time to complete it during class. Schools literally define breaks as an opportunity to rest and reset, so when students open Google Classroom to see an essay on the value of the unknown, and a deltamath of 30 questions, and an online science lab, and a scavenger hunt regarding the events caused by the Printing Press, it is not hard to fathom how they feel a sense of whiplash. This sudden jerk back to their academic lives after the false-sense of relaxation vacations from school bring is incredibly unfair to everyone from freshman to senior year.
One can argue that the internet is the cause of an excess of homework that floods into the holidays. With more information at a student’s fingertips, they are expected to complete assignments faster and understand academic content with ease. In past decades, homework could not be assigned online, so submission dates during or directly after a break would have been seen as irrational. But now, it has become the norm for students to be burned out and exhausted, dragging their sore fingers to the turn-in button, bleary-eyed, at 11:59 p.m. It is scientifically proven that exhausted, overworked students perform poorly in school and do not retain information well, so why is our educational system forcing our generation to work for months on end, with no escape during breaks and vacations?
Finally, homework over school breaks doesn’t take into account students’ personal situations. These breaks are times for vacations, when students have the chance to immerse themselves in different cultures. Arguably, these experiences with new people, trying new food, and learning skills beyond the classroom are just as important, if not more important than, the homework assignments. Additionally, many high school students have jobs, with increased hours during vacation, or have to take care of their families to make sure they stay afloat. With these responsibilities, it is difficult for them to find the free time to study and complete assignments, especially if they don’t have a calm, quiet space to do so. Homework over break favors students with more resources, those who will not be affected by the extra time taken by a teacher’s assignments. It is simply unfair, and students should not be penalized for the need to recharge, relax, engage in real-world experiences, and spend time with their families. A break cannot be considered a break if you still have homework.
