Monday, November 4, 2013

Do teens have too much homework?

Freshmen Beth Tejral and Allison Dorpinghaus want your opinion on something--and so does your humble librarian!

Beth and Alison showed me this little estimation of how much free time teens have, and I immediately started poking holes in the writer's logic and math skills.

What do you think?  Is this teen (whose post has been floating around Twitter and other social networking sites) a whiny teen?  Or is he/she bravely pointing out a horrible injustice?

Let's put a little reward on the line...a free book to both the best argument SUPPORTING and and the best argument CRITIQUING this person's math and logic.

Put your argument in the comments below!

9 comments:

  1. If exams take up 35 days, that would be 840 hours of exams. We only meet 180 school days and have 8 periods of 3/4 of an hour each which totals 1080 hours. So you are arguing that 840/1080, or 77.7% of your time in class is testing!

    Also, can you please name the 40 holidays you are taking off? Also, aren't some of those days going to fall on Sunday (Easter) or on the hot days (July 4th) which you already deducted elsewhere.

    Also, when you deduct a day for being too hot or being a Sunday or a holiday, you must also then reduce the number of hours of sleep, hours eating, hours talking to family/friends because those days have already been removed once.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Eric! Can you include your first and last name so we know who to give the prize to if you win?

      Delete
  2. In my opinion, teens may have too much homework, but I disagree with what the teens reasoning. He/she looks at it hour by hour, and then adds those hours up into days, but I don't think that is correct. The truth is, teens do have free time. I am able to eat, sleep, go to school, hang out with friend, do extracurricular activities, and still get my homework done and have time to study.

    I think the logic of going hour by hour is flawed. for example, the teen said we spend a total of 122 days sleeping, but we do not sleep 122 days in a row. If your count up the specific hours mentioned, you only get 12 hours of eating, sleeping, messing around, and talking to others. This still leaves you with 12 hour left in the day, some of which is spent at school. Any way you look at it, with an 8 hour school day, you are still left with four 4 hours. These are used for homework, studying, and extracurricular activities This should be plenty of time to complete homework, not to mention the time in school (study halls) that is given to you.

    In conclusion, I disagree with whoever posted the comment. Students may not have time for homework with their extracurricular activities, but that is their choice to participate in them.

    Kylie Jespersen

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  3. In my opinion this article has many flaws because nobody is the same in the way that there schedule is organized. Also, it did not explain the times that it takes for chores, bathroom needs, emergencies, etc. Nobody is the same for example for me it might take half an hour to study something whereas it might take someone else three hours to study the same content so the article did not take into consideration the amount of time it takes to study may vary. ALso, this article has many flaws because the amount of tests everyone has to do is NOT the same becasuse everyone has different classes and different teachers who requires different things. And not to mention how long the amount to study is like a quiz takes much less time to study for than a final exam. I hope you take everything ive said into consideration when choosing the winner. Thanks!

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  4. In my honest opinion, I think everyones life is so different, that a math equation couldn't explain the half of it. I am surely not going to do the math, (im not very good..) but I feel in my own life that i have enough time to complete homework, it's just whether or not I am motivated to complete it. I believe all students should be able to finish their homework most of the time, but some days are much busier than others and homework will be left uncomplete.






    Adrie Gunn

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  5. In my opinion i belive students have way to much homework. So we dont have enough time to study or do the homework. I feel like i dont have enough time to study because of my daily activities.

    Kelsey Aanrud

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  6. I feel like math cant determine whats what. Sometimes I have time to do homework, and sometimes I dont. Some teachers (spanish teacher for example) give out 3 pages of hw so we have no time for the others which makes it difficult. Its also difficult with activities I do outside of school.


    Carly Kesterson:-)

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  7. I belive that this article is false. Although we have many things going on in our lives that doesn't mean that we have no time to study. You have many times you can do your homework, for example you are still able to do homework on your birthday and you can still do homework while eating. I don't think it's fair to make conclusions that everyone has no time to do homework based on others shedules they could have time. I think that although he does the math to support it that there is time for homework in everyones shedule.
    -Sarah Mixdorf

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