Stupid High School Summer Assignments... (1 Viewer)

[Scooter]

Out of curiosity...how many of you went to the link I provided and left comments there? Just wonderin'....

 

[Morgan Jolley]

In case you don't know, Matt MacFarlane is a friend of mine and a fellow student, so he and I are both victims of these stupid assignments.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

I read the link and I agree with Scooter. Summer assignments are pure bulls**t. I've never heard of such nonsense before.

So these assignments are due on the first day of class. If the student doesn't have anything to turn in, I assume the student gets a score of zero and it will affect the student's overall grade. Okay then, so what do you do with a new student who moves into the area a week before school starts? Does the new student get a zero score for not completing a assignment that he/she didn't even know had been assigned? Or does the new student get ambushed with the assignment upon registering at the school, with only a few weeks or possibly a few days to attempt to do it? Or is the new student exempt and his/her grade will not be affected by it? None of these options are fair: the first two are not fair for the new student and the third is not fair for returning students.

I think you can make a strong case that the "start date" of a school term carries as much importance as the "end date". If work cannot be finished "late" then it should follow that work cannot be started "early".

 

[Morgan Jolley]

New students are exempt from the project.

If they gave us the project like at the beginning of the 4th marking period and had it due at the end of the the first month of school the following year, then I wouldn't mind it. But we go to our summer vacation, they send the project through the mail, expect us to do it, and then collect it the first day of school.

School ends in June and begins in September. So why are we doing work that won't teach us anything during July and August?

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Gee, what would happen if the postal service LOST that letter? Have fun!

Glenn

 

[MikeAlletto]

Because most students forget most of what they learned over the summer. I'm all for year round schooling. I'm tired of the restaurants being full during lunch time during the summer. You kids should be in school, not hanging out at the pool doing nothing all summer long.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I could agree with you Mike if I thought the quality of education was better but it's not. When I was in HS (class of '86) some of the requirements to graduate really have absolutely no impact on what kind of job a person could get or prep them for better jobs (physical ED, intro algebra, and English Comp most likely won't help as much as typing, financial math, and reading/understanding forms which would for example). Schools need to be a ground for preparation and not jobs for those teachers who took liberal arts courses and foster them on people for a more "rounded" education.

 

[Greg Rowe]

Summer vacation let's kids explore things they are good at and enjoy doing. I wonder how many chemists toyed with chemicals (probably building fireworks!), or musicians practiced their instruments, or computer geeks coded during their summer vacations. They get to think for themselves and come up with their OWN ideas. Pretty soon school is just going to start turning a few different students:

Model 1 - excels in math
Model 2 - excels in english
Model 3 - got burnt out, didn't make, the QA dept. has taken care of the situation.

Greg

 

[Sam Posten]

Morgan, if it were not for the fact that you live above the Scootplex 9000, I would have but one word for you:

Move!

Sam

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Actually, I would love year long schooling. The way it works is that you have 4 weeks of school (weekends off) then two weeks off. For spring and winter and summer you get extended breaks, but you still get a lot of schooling and lot of free time, evenly spread out.

Personally, I wouldn't mind sitting inside of an air conditioned school instead of mowing the lawn in the hot sun all summer.

 

[Greg Rowe]

air conditioned school

!!! OK, I have no more sympathy for you . Back in my day we didn't have no stickin' AC. I remember 90 degrees comes June time.

 

[Justin Lane]

I think the whole point of these summer assignments is to encourage life-long learning. Just because school stopped, does not mean the mind should stop working. I know I had a couple summer assignments when I was still in high school, and did not get as much out of them as I should have in retrospect.
English especially, I do not think the teachers choose specific novels just for torture, but instead expose you to a work that you would not pick up on your own and may come up in a future conversation sometime down the road or if you are a contestant on Jeopardy
Being a college student, who has also been out in the so called "real" work force through the co-op program at my university, I can tell you constant learning is a must. Those at work who do not take the initiative to learn on their own, seem to be the ones looked down on and stuck in the same dead-end positions.
J

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Not all classrooms are air-conditioned. Only the language rooms (foreign languages) in the basement and some of the computer filled rooms. And the ITV room. Luckily, I have several classes in those types of rooms.

Tomorrow is the last day of real school. Then 4 day of finals, in case you're insterested.

I just got my summer assignment for this summer. Keep in mind I'm in regular (not honors) english:

We have to read a book from a list (1 of them I've already read, which is The Hobbit, 2 I have movies for) or find a book that applies to next years themes (something about identity finding and growing up) and get approval from a teacher (via e-mail). Then we write 1 typed double-spaced page about how the book relates to the themes. Finally, a full paragraph about the author's life. We need to include a bibliography about any sources used for the author's biographical info.

In other words, I could do it tonight. THIS is the kind of summer assignment I would prefer we start getting. I still don't like my math one:

Do about 80 problems from the first 2 chapters of the book we are getting next year (we're given it after finals) then mail the assignment to our teachers by mid-August. We are tested on the material within the first week of school.

I don't mind learning all year, thats why I watch Discovery Channel and TLC. What I do mind is having to learn something without a teacher or do what amounts to summer-long busy work.

 

[Matt MacFarlane]

I don't mind learning all year, thats why I watch Discovery Channel and TLC. What I do mind is having to learn something without a teacher or do what amounts to summer-long busy work.

I agree, because what it adds up to is that if you don't understand the chapter then basically you are screwed and will not only fail the summer assignment, but the test also.

 

[Justin Lane]

I agree, because what it adds up to is that if you don't understand the chapter then basically you are screwed and will not only fail the summer assignment, but the test also.

It is tough learning new things on your own when you have relied on a teacher for most of your school career, but the sooner you learn to rely on yourself, the better. It sounds like your teachers are accessible through e-mail so shoot them a question if one arises, or use the incredible resource the internet provides.

I am only a few years removed from high school, and can still remember what a pain in the ass summer assignments can be. If you guys go onto college, you will see that many professors do not slow down if you do not grasp a subject. They have a certain amount of coursework they have to cover and they cover it regardless of your understanding. Many times you have to read and teach yourself.

If you guys are worried about not understanding the Math problems, why not get a group of friends together and tackle them together. You may be able to help each other out on particular problems that are hard for you to understand.

J

 

[Matt MacFarlane]

I just got my summer assignment today, and I have the same math assignment as Morgan, plus three reading assignments and a three-page essay.

 

[Leila Dougan]

I hated summer assignments too. But after I started college, I wished I had those kind of assignments again!

First off, I think 2 chapters is nothing. Generally, the first 2 chapters of any text book I've seen covers review material. Likely most of it is stuff you've already covered in other classes or just introduces new ideas without being too hard. 80 problems in 8 weeks (or however long your summer is)? That's 10 problems a day and I bet most of them are identical to each other. Surely if you can't get together with other students or email the teacher, you can find better explanations on the internet. After all, you can find ANYTHING on the internet. Or, you could head down to the library or bookstore and take a look at other text books that cover the same topic. You'd be surprised at how much difference another explanation can make.

I know it sounds terrible of me, but I really think its important students learn how to teach themselves. College is a whole other ball game, where half the time you are tested on things not even covered in class. If you cannot read a text book and extract the necessary information, you won't learn or do well in class.

My math classes (starting in the 7th grade when I started algebra) consisted of 70-100 problems A DAY! A three-page essay can be written in a couple of hours as well.

It may suck now but you'll likely thank them for it later.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Actually, the summer assignment for math has to be mailed to our teacher by mid-August so they can correct it by the time school starts again. If they made this an extra credit assignment and also used it to find out what they NEED to review at the beginning of the year, it would be OK, but its mandatory and can severely hurt you.

Teaching myself is one thing, but the chapters are around 70 pages long, with the problems in the chapter only on the last 5 or so pages. Thats 65 pages of material we need to read DURING OUR SUMMER VACATION.

So we have around 5 weeks to read around 140 pages and do 80 problems. Also, we are doing this all on our own and during our time off.

 

[Craig S]

Well, for the most part I'm with Scooter & Morgan on this one. I'm glad I grew up in the 60s & 70s, when you could still enjoy your youth. It saddens me to see summer breaks getting shorter & shorter.

The funny thing is, we keep reading about how American students are falling behind the rest of the world in math & science, they don't know geography, etc. Yet these reports seem to have increased along with the increase in school hours & work. Back in the 60s/70s, we were doing just fine on 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, with an average of 3-5 hours of homework a week. The problem is that the quality of education has fallen drastically. Increasing the amount of "education" isn't going to fix the problem.

My math classes (starting in the 7th grade when I started algebra) consisted of 70-100 problems A DAY!

This is absolutely ludicrous. There is simply no need for so much homework. As someone above pointed out, after so many problems it just becomes busy work.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

The main problem with schools nowdays is that the teachers lack the power to discipline children and parents don't want to hear that their precious child might not be the the intellectual juggernaut that they think they are. I know in my state that corporal punishment was banned in schools (let's face it, some kids only respond to this type of punishment), and in some cases a teacher can't yell at or fail a student due to having to interact with the child's parents (we are passing kids that are rude, ignorant, childish {for their age}, and simply lazy) with the administration caving in (sort of like business now days, just make the offended party quiet even if they are wrong). This is also complicated by the teaching staff playing musical chairs with a troublesome student or simply passing them so they don't have to deal with the problem the next year. Instead of arresting parents of such children who skip school, fail school, or have discipline problems maybe we should have camcorders in each class and see if the problem is the teacher (yes, I believe a lot of the problem can come from this), student, or even their classmates and then take the appropriate solutions necessary.