High School students always complain about homework. But when it comes to protesting summer homework, they may have a point.
Marin psychologist Dr. Madeleine Levine, who recently published the book The Price of Privilege, said, “In middle and upper middle class communities, rates of depression are three times the rate of teens in general, rates of substance abuse substantially greater, self mutilating substantially greater.” She believes this has to do with the academic pressure put on teens by schools, parents and society.
All of this academic pressure encourages students to use alternative resources. The Cougar distributed an anonymous student survey to all AP/Honors classes that assigned summer homework. Almost every AP English and English 3 Honors student said they used Sparknotes. Many students in AP Chemistry and AP Bio said that they used someone else’s homework to complete their own.
English 3 Honors teacher Juliet Chiarella said, “I believe that most students who plagiarize are capable of doing the work, but when they’re desperate, that leads to plagiarism.” She has seen numerous cases of plagiarism in her English 3 Honors class this year. And it’s only October.
Most students who took the anonymous survey said they were taking more than one AP/Honors course. Some were taking as many as four or five. Given the amount of homework most AP/Honors courses assign, the desperation to complete assignments and cheat is understandable.
Many students who took the anonymous survey said they, “couldn’t relax over the summer” or “always knew in the back of my mind I had work to do.” Others pointed out that they were playing sports, participating in international programs or taking classes at universities and found it difficult to complete summer homework on top of this. With homework all summer, academic students don’t have time to relax.
When asked about summer homework, Dr. Levine said, “I suppose that I wouldn’t think summer homework would be so bad if you weren’t so stressed out during the regular year. The point is that kids are so massively overwhelmed during the academic year.”
Students feel like they are in school all year round. They feel “the constant burden of work” hanging over them.
Teachers feel the pressure, too. They feel they must cram everything in in time for the AP tests. However, some high-achieving schools like CPS in Oakland don’t assign much summer homework and their students do well on the AP tests.
The paradox is that teachers are worrying about covering all the material necessary for the test before May, but only 69% of AHS AP students are taking the AP tests for the classes in which they are enrolled. Berkeley High doesn’t give AP credit to those who don’t take the test. Milpitas High students receive “No Mark” if they haven’t paid test registration fees by the end of the first grading period.
The low number of test sign-ups indicates that students are only taking these AP classes for college admissions.
However, Levine said, “The school you go to has a zero correlation with your happiness as an adult. (It has a) minimum correlation with how much money you make.”
Students are learning to do the bare minimum, ruining their summers, and upsetting their teachers, but none of this will make them any happier or richer in the long run.
Chiarella said that as a teacher, she hates seeing plagiarism. It saddens her and is really hard to deal with.
Summer homework creates an adversarial relationship between teachers and students from the first day of school. Students are angry that they didn’t get a vacation and teachers are upset that their students cheated.
Teachers at AHS are reluctant to change summer assignments because AHS students do very well on AP tests in comparison to California state averages.
When asked if they had a policy on summer homework in AP classes, representatives from the College Board and Albany High counselors said that they did not.
Yes, when summer homework works, it gives students a leg up on the material. It gives teachers a leg up on their students’ abilities. But many wonder if there has to be so much of it.
Leslie !
this is wonderfully written. i had thought that i would offer you some (possibly) helpful advice later but this is really well done. i may find something to suggest later but i have so much enjoyed this piece on first reading that i doubt even that. i would suggest that you send this (with the data section) on to Laura. i’m cetain that she will find it insightful. thank you so much for this work. brent
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AP BIO STOLE MY SUMMER
and the homework isnt even checked so seriously T_T
ap bio makes me cry