If there was one thing in these 13 years of school I could change, it would be teachers respecting our lives outside of school.
I understand there is research about homework being beneficial, and there aren’t enough hours in the day for classes to get through their course work, but when homework and makeups are absorbing all our time at home — whether with family, friends or outside of school activities like sports, volunteering and religion — the lines been crossed.
An average teacher at BV has only five classes. I have seven classes, am a leader in three clubs, have athletic training after school, a job and am Jewish. I spend eight hours of my day at school learning, doing busy work and feeling like I am suffocating with all the different assignments. Then I go home and am expected to do two more hours of studying. This proportion doesn’t match up. I spend more time doing schoolwork than sleeping.
Where can I fit in a cute friendsgiving, a cousin’s birthday or Jewish holidays? Beats me.
During the September-October months, I also celebrate the Jewish New Year, which means I am supposed to take off school and be at synagogue. I really only take two of those days off and have to make up several tests afterwards. That’s seven classes of makeup work and missed quizzes expected to be done by the end of the quarter (1 week after the holiday) just for missing two days.
What’s worse is that my teachers — who I adore and had much respect for — knew months in advance about these religious customs and were even asked weeks before, by our administration, to avoid scheduling any big lessons, tests, or quizzes over those four days.
Did the teachers listen? No.
I missed multiple quizzes, important lessons and a lab. Am I excused? No.
“You can just make it up in Academic Support Time,” they all said. The only issue with that is that there are not enough AST minutes to complete even half of those things. I have had to come into school early, stay late and lose hours of sleep just because I wanted to celebrate our most important holidays of the year.
This is simply not fair, and I have lost respect for some of my teachers after asking them to move major tests and grant me extensions on homework, so I can really celebrate these holidays and be with my family, who I don’t see often.
One teacher did push a quiz that was scheduled for one of the marked days, but the second day she had two tests.
I am fully aware, especially in my AP classes, that teachers have a thorough timeline, and it’s hard to move things. But, they know about these dates in advance and should pay more attention to the things that matter to us. I know they don’t want to work on Christmas or New Year’s, so why do I?
