With less than a month of school left, absences and tardies add up, and work piles up on desks as students’ motivation declines. Projects and presentations loom before finals, but even worse than these time-consuming assignments is the ever-hated busy work: useless worksheets and handouts that are only effective as a way to kill time. All of the freshmen have developed senioritis, and all of the seniors are half-dead.

Teachers seem to be predisposed to handing out homework in only the most critical of times (when students already have numerous other assignments from other classes) and for the most unnecessary reasons. But students do not learn effectively from handouts with answers in the back of the book or online. Students learn by visualizing, listening, and having a hands-on experience with the subject at hand. Therefore, when teachers assign seemingly incessant busy work, students lose their will to put in effort. At this point in the year, no student is in the mood to roll out of bed, let alone attend to work they have already deemed hopeless from the glazed look in their teacher’s eyes.

In addition to this suffering during the last few weeks of the school year, there is nothing worse than a teacher complaining about all of the busy work they will have to grade after you have done it.

“There is no question that for some children and parents, at least some of the time, homework can be hell. Any mother or father who has ever struggled to the point of tears with a child made miserable by an inordinate workload or an inane assignment will surely identify with some of the unhappy kids and parents portrayed,” (Bennett and Kalish, 2009).

Every student has been frustrated by homework at some point in their school career, whether it is because the work is late, difficult, or too much to handle. That hopeless feeling of annoyance is only multiplied when there is no clear reason as to why the work was even assigned.

Busywork is a waste of time since many are not as motivated to throw themselves into their school like they did in the beginning of the school year. Students’ enthusiasm (even for busywork) will have to wait until their next year of school, whether it be at QH or a prestigious university in the fall.