By Dar Alon, Josh Nislick, and Astha Agarwal
Students received less homework during the school’s second No-Homework Weekend than the first one, marking a shift towards students and faculty embracing this new policy, a South Senate poll revealed.
Prior to this school year, Newton South’s Faculty Council established a policy designating one homework-free weekend per term to alleviate some student stress. South Senate’s unscientific poll indicates a 10 percent drop in students who feel their teachers have violated the bill since the first homework free weekend.
English teacher Alan Reinstein, the Faculty Council coordinator, believes the second No-Homework Weekend, which occurred over the Thanksgiving holiday, represented considerable improvement.
Reinstein felt that several factors contributed to the relative ineffectiveness of the first homework-free attempt, which took place over Columbus Day Weekend. Although the Council wanted students to enjoy a long, stress-reduced weekend, an early release day and the Jewish holidays preceding this weekend made it difficult for many teachers not to assign work.
“I think teachers felt it made it harder for them to conduct their classes,” Reinstein said, “so I think there was a greater percentage of teachers who found some way to outright neglect the policy and just give homework or double up on one side.”
According to Reinstein, students and faculty alike resented the fact that some teachers followed the policy while others decided to assign work regardless.
Yet despite the criticism surrounding the first homework-free weekend, the school’s second trial drew much more praise. Reinstein attributes this shift to better timing, greater teacher preparation, and more enforcement of the policy by Principal Stembridge.
“I think the principal also made an effort to remind teachers that it’s a policy that they accepted and that we’re bound to it whether we like it or not,” he said.
Students responded positively to the latest homework-free weekend. Junior Hanna Berga, who was unsatisfied with the enforcement of the first weekend in October, said that the previous undertaking was effective in curbing work.
“I did have less homework, although I somehow managed to spend the whole time studying anyway,” Berga said. “However, they were only long term assignments, and some stuff I [had] put off.”
Many students agree that the policy has decreased stress and created a weekend which they can rely on to be free from work.
“I think the bill has been a success,” sophomore Camila Hernandez said. “Even though some people might use it to catch up on homework anyways, it still feels like there are less expectations and much less stress.”
Berga agrees that the temporary pause in work allows students to catch their breath. “I can’t see a reason to be against it, it gives people a bit of time to relax, even if they still have work to do,” she said.
Although students have welcomed these homework breaks, many teachers feel that such mandatory no-work weekends hinder their ability to educate. Science teacher Jordan Kraus said that while the policy did not personally disrupt her classes, the mandatory nature of the weekends force teachers to make irregular breaks in their curricula.
“I think that most teachers try to keep homework to a minimum and try to have it fit logically with their schedule and their lesson plans,” Kraus said. “Sometimes [picking] a particular moment in time to say, ‘This is going to be when we don’t have homework,’ can be problematic because it may not mesh well with where [they] are in a particular class in terms of lesson plan or the content.”
Kraus recognizes the need to reduce stress, but she feels that universal homework-free weekends are not necessarily the solution. “I think honestly most teachers would prefer the matter of common sense rather than something that was mandated to fall at a very specific time,” she said.
Reinstein understands that teachers have struggled to accept the new policy, but he feels that faculty members must all follow the same rules and that it is unfair for some teachers to give homework if others are not.
“I think it’s OK for well-meaning teachers to be troubled that they have to follow a policy that they don’t agree with, but it’s the policy and I think they are bound to it,” he said.
While students accept that the policy has some weaknesses, they would like to see South continue the initiative next year.
“I can’t say the policy is perfect, but I can’t think of any exact improvements it needs, either,” Berga said. “Some teachers think it takes away time from class, but I think that personally I do better in a class if I get a break every once in a while.”
Following the success of the latest no-homework weekend, Reinstein believes this policy will be here to stay.
“It’s merely a band-aid but it seems to have struck a chord with a lot of families,” he said. “I think for the faculty to vote against it and say ‘no,’ that would be a really unhealthy thing to do.”
