With only a few minutes left in class, the clock is shamelessly harpooned by the piercing glances of all students in the classroom. Everything seems to be winding down, and finally, if only for a moment, each student can be sure that tonight, without a doubt, he or she will sleep a little easier.
But, wait! A homework assignment is slapped onto their plates just moments before the block ends, and each one of them swears a chuckle, an audible chuckle, was released by the fire-breathing teacher as they exited the room.
Okay, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but somebody has got to slam the books shut, throw the papers in the furnace and break that blinding-yellow Ticonderoga in half before all sanity is lost forever.
It's certainly a fair statement to say that I'm writing from a biased opinion, but students aren't the only ones griping about the loads of homework assigned daily in classrooms across America.
Accomplished author Alfie Kohn sides with the youth -- and he is often criticized for this position. One of his most highly-acclaimed books, "The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing," deals with the pressures placed on kids, from elementary to high school, by excessive homework.
"Homework isn't limited to those times when it seems appropriate and important," Kohn argues. "Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home.' Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). Later on we'll figure out what to make them do.'"
I couldn't agree more, Alfie. How can teachers expect students to actually learn from an assignment when they are constantly in a "get it done" state of mind?
But Kohn isn't the only accomplished adult who has a problem with American schools. Dr. William J. Bennett, who earned a B.A. in philosophy at Williams College, a Ph.D. at the University of Texas and a law degree from Harvard and hosts the nationally syndicated radio show "Bill Bennett's Morning in America," revealed a few disturbing facts about American educators:
"Forty percent of public high school teachers have neither an undergraduate major nor minor in their main teaching field, and 34 percent of public high school math teachers did not major or minor in math or related fields," he said. "Only one in five teachers feels well prepared to teach to high academic standards."
Oddly enough, despite this information, my problem is not with the teachers. The positive side of those facts is that most teachers in America are qualified. Besides, how can teachers really teach when their performance is not judged by how well their students perform as people but how well they perform on standardized tests?
Moreover, when we graduate after years of education crammed with book reports, open-response questions and meaningless facts, names and dates, what have we really learned?
Have we learned how to get and keep a job? How to manage unpaid bills? How to buy a house?
In short, have we learned how to deal with real life? I think not. It seems like the school system can't see the forest through the trees so to speak.
Until they realize this, I and the millions of other students across the nation keep on putting our heads down on our desks, trudging off to after-school practices and jobs, falling asleep on unfinished homework (probably sometime around midnight), and completely missing out on that whole "best days of our lives" illusion.
Anyway, it's time to quit writing. After all, I'm using my time for a hobby instead of studying for those three tests and wrapping up a book report that may or may not find its way to the teacher's desk on time.