Why Students Don't Have Time

Why Students Don't Have Time

When I was a student, my teacher once said to me that a large amount of time is only good when you can use it wisely. The tactics of the teaching profession that I, a modern educator, am about to describe, result in the very opposite.

I. In the first place, ladies and gentlemen, the amount of time a student has outside of school, like Romeo's love for Juliet, is precious for every minute. A student's time is like a person's income before taxes. Free time would be the amount remaining after all homework (taxes) was done. Focus, therefore, on the small amounts of free time a student actually has than large expanses that he appears to have from 2 PM to 8 AM.

II. Whatever amount of work has been done in class, a teacher is to give the students the same amount of homework each day, between one and two hours a night. Even if the entire year's curriculum is covered in the first three class days, a teacher is to find homework to give the students each day following, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the subject matter of the class.

III. A teacher is not to make any exceptions for his tardy work policy no matter what the excuse. The punishment for someone who had a big game or whose house was burned down or whose house was buried under ten feet of snow shall be the same as someone who has no reasonable excuse. A teacher shall not even hear trite excuses such as "my dog ate my homework" even if the student in question has a 12-week-old black Labrador retriever that has a serious biting and chewing problem and chews everything from socks to shoes to, unfortunately, homework.

IV. A teacher is to give numerous out-of-class yet short-term projects to his students. They will then think that they have spent all the time needed for one class but then have to work for another hour on another class project. These projects should be the type by which procrastination is not an option; ones that the teacher give five weeks in advance but are due a day after they are able to begin. For example, a reading assignment out of a book specially ordered by the School District due five weeks in advance but due the day after the books arrived.