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by Jennifer Bowman
Of course, it's normal for anyone between the ages of five and eighteen to loathe homework with a passion. The word itself rolls off of your tongue with a lot of malice, and a hint of bile. The remnants of anger regarding that word causes many to twitch involuntary eye muscles they didn't know existed, and if you watch carefully, you may just see the veins bulge out from their necks.
Yes, it's that bad. Not that homework itself is in theory a bad idea. However, like communism, what would work in theory does NOT work in reality.
I'm afraid the basic thinking is that kids have short attentions spans and all the required education regarding anything cannot be learned in whatever short amount of time is set before them. They need to review it. For the test. For the grade. For the GPA. For the college. For the job. For their income. For their survival. CHILDREN MUST DO HOMEWORK IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. (of course, you can jump straight from "For the Grade", insert "For the Parents" and go right to "For their survival", do not stop at go, do not collect $200.) And that is the basic train of though, I'm afraid, for most people today.
It makes me question the education system as a whole. Why must we be graded, anyhow? The point of education is for me to learn. I'm really afraid everyone's lost touch of the purpose and is only looking for the prize. But of course, I don't want to blame my fellow comrades, the students of public education all over America. It's not them who shape the education. We're just part of the machine. We're all in this robotic-like system. It's almost surreal to look at. It all has to do with the process. Everyone has to be graded and tested and re-graded and re-tested and for thirteen years in order to go to college, which is now an obvious requirement to get the most basic job.
You have to take the SATs, get a good score on it, and have an outrageous GPA to get into a decent college. Every failure you've ever had the misfortune of making is right there, for everyone to see and judge. No explanation on your part, of course. It just matters that you fail, and you get a nice big rejection. On what basis? I don't even know. Everything everywhere just seems so complicated.
What I want is to learn things like language, science, history, and literature. Ever since middle school, I kind of saw that math would have no bearing in my future occupation whatsoever. But I'm still required to take it. I don't know why. Every person is treated like a statistic or an experiment. My education is developed by old men who don't like me. My teachers are underpaid and unenthusiastic and wondering how long till school gets out. And everyone around me is the same. No one enjoys education anymore. No matter what you do, we're still not enjoying this standard set of learning tools you throw at us. I want to be in charge of what I'm learning. I want to have a plan set accustomed to what I want my career to be. I want to explore all the areas of knowledge I'm interested in, and if I'm obviously bad at it, I don't think I should be graded. There are plenty of kids who actually get and enjoy Chemistry. I, however, am not one of them.
I just ask that you look at me, as an individual. Not as an annoying part of the adolescent society. And treat me like a student, not a suspect.
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