Disclaimer: I will be continuing my Singapore chronicality next week. Today I am doing something a little different.

Today I am posting an essay that I started today during my homeroom class. It is an argumentative essay and I have tweaked it to my best. Please, share your opinion and stir up an argument of your own.

Kanmani Harivenkatesh

April 28,  2017

English 6B

Defects or Deception

Imagine that you are sitting in your classroom. Your teacher is giving an important lesson that will help with future tests and projects. From the distance you see that one of your fellow classmates is just sitting there, head laying on the desk, the hands that are supposed to be taking notes are just laying there, lifelessly. You see his eyes, usually there full of life and jubilance. Now there abnormally droopy, and dreary. His face far-off and secluded from his surroundings. You whisper, “Hey, you okay?” He replies with “I was up all night doing homework assignments.” He looked as if he hadn’t had enough sleep. You noted in your head that students needed to have at least eight to nine hours of sleep. It seemed that your fellow classmate and friend has been spending the time where he needed to sleep, doing homework. You explain to him that he needed to get more sleep and that he shouldn’t procrastinate as much. You then ask him, “When was this all assigned?” As you stare at the binder in his backpack that seems to undulate with papers and packets. A notebook is faced upward, you see notes, words seem to be jumbled, squeezing into the margins. The lettering looks rushed. “These were all assigned yesterday.” You look at the sheets of paper again. “These are all for science, math, English, and history.” You then reply with “You mean to tell me that you were assigned this much homework in one whole school day, and you are expected to finish it all by the next day?” Your friend sighs and then nods.

When I was in elementary school, I would eagerly wait for my friends that were a grade above me beside their classrooms when it was recess time. But I noticed that every time they came, they always seemed to have bags under their eyes, or their movements didn’t seem to match up with their natural age. I always asked them why they were so tired and weary. They always replied by grumbling, “Homework.” They told me that each night they spent their time doing homework instead of getting the eight to nine hours of sleep they needed. Over the years, I started merging into the person that seemed to spend the night either doing homework, or drooling all over the textbook that is supposed to help me with my homework. But instead I lay there, my head using the book as a pillow. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Why not they just do their homework super early?”

Well, the thing with middle school homework is simple. In the start of the year, you are assigned eight classes. Each day you have four of those classes to go to. The next day you have the other 4/8 of the assigned classes. In each class you are probably given an assignment or project that is based of the curriculum, the project would probably take a week or two to finish, This all includes rough drafts, revisions, final drafts, evidence to support claims, reasoning in your text, citing the sources you used, (maybe using a specific website to cite those sources). As well as designing it to look refined and unique. Each day you are told to do a specific part of the assignment, your peers and predecessors are usually the ones who help you. But alas, even with the multiple resources students are given for an otherwise wonderful education doesn’t seem to satisfy the people who actually need to be actually satisfied. They are teenagers, tweens, and, well, kids. They are the middle school students themselves.

A weight on their shoulders that will last for the longest of times. The boulders that seem to make their eyelids sag. Though homework is quite beneficial, most students seem to be more informed through interactive lessons, group activities, or any physical work done in a classroom environment. Doing independent work at home with a pencil and paper in hand seems to be very distracting, considering the fact that home is also considered the place where students, of all ages, seem to let loose and don’t seem to have a care in the world. But the reminder that they still have to do a 5 paragraph assignment for reading class, a graph for science, a set of ratios to figure out for math class, and a geography essay based off of ancient lands for history is like a little river leech nagging on your skin after you spend half of your free time swimming freely in the waters of your home. You end up by cramming all of your homework into the time in which you have to sleep. Instead of having the eight to nine hours of sleep your body assigns you, you end up with six to seven, or sometimes even five to six hours of sleep. This is the usual cause of students barely keeping their eyes open in class. Leading them to miss important information based off of future tests and large projects.

To most students, homework is like a dirty word on their tongues. When a teacher announces a new homework assignment, all the teacher receives is at least one or two thirds of a class groaning. To any parent or to any person in general it can be a shock to learn that a student’s undesirable attitude towards homework can affect a student’s grade. Though this is a small defect, it can still affect a student’s optimism towards any social activity in class that is housing the current lesson.

Though parents( according to Time) are “worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage.” They really are wrong.. But the loads of homework that are given to student can be very stressful. Sure a few projects or two for a lesson are good, but homework that is given four or five times  a day can stress a student. Stress is very dangerous for a grown woman or man’s health. Just imagine what it could do to a teenager, or even a child. This can affect physical and mental health in dangerous ways. And medical procedures can have many defects. About one hundred years ago, doctors “were testifying if book bags with books inside are bending a child’s spine.” Now we are debating whether or not we should let children have physical and mental health defects. I personally think that students should live a healthy, educated life.