This Is My Life

One of the banes of my existence since the day I discovered it, or rather, the day it was forced upon me, is homework.

In elementary school straight through to high school, it was a waste of my time, a task meant to keep me quiet at home and not out playing with my friends, or reading the newest book from Madeleine L'Engle. My teachers and parents told me that it was meant to reinforce the knowledge I had learned that day in school, but since I was a bright kid who almost intuitively grasped the subjects at hand, it was busywork. A waste of my time.

Some folks will tell you that homework is a way of teaching children that they have responsibilities. I say that's what chores are for. Some others say that it's how to instill obedience in children, that they have to do what's expected of them. I say that's just plain bullshit.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

The fact of the matter is that I did as little homework as I could get away with throughout my school career. Even on into the first two classes of my college life I did very little homework, not wanting to waste my non-class time by writing out things that I already knew, already grasped. Why would I want to waste my time?

Something turned around in me.

Every day I would go to class, dreading being asked to turn in the homework. I didn't want to go because when it came time, at the end of class, to turn in the homework I didn't want to hear "Jeremiah, did you do your homework" as I ran out the door. I wasn't quite shamed by it, but embarrassed.

So then I did the Winter session of Linguistics. I thought to myself "self, what happens if we do every homework assignment? I mean, it's only an hour a night, and isn't an hour worth not feeling like a total tool?"

Come to find out, it is.

So here I am now, taking Intermediate Arabic. The homework is more difficult than Linguistics, and the teacher more demanding. It takes more of my time. Is it worth spending two hours every day doing homework, just so I don't feel like a complete screw-up at the end of class? Is it worth the time for a better feeling, and a slightly better grade?

I just finished my homework due in three and a half hours, and I can say that it is. It really is.

I still think busywork is crap. I just feel better about it.

While I was in High School, I often got my teachers angry. I didn't do it to be a wise-ass, and I actually didn't do it purposely at all. It was just the simple fact that I refused to do my homework, which hurt my grades, which upset most of them because they "know [I] have so much potential."

In my Sophomore year at VVS High School, our French teacher said something that I took as a challenge, even though she never meant it that way: "You can pass this class without doing any homework, but you'd need to get 100% on every single test, and even then you'll only pass with a grade of 65."

I passed French that year with a 65 and never did any homework.

The simple fact of the matter was that, in High School, all homework did for me was create busy-work. It was pointless for me to do, because I had already grasped the concepts in class, and the homework did not reinforce anything for me except that school was boring; that it interfered with what little social life I had.

I still feel I was right.

However, now I'm in college, taking a class that has very few similarities to my own, and isn't based in any background with which I'm familiar. Even the alphabet differs from anything I've ever done. It's read backwards, for heaven's sake!

I'm doing my homework, every night. I recognize the fact that, in order to pass this class I need to read the book, do the exercises, hand in the worksheets, and push myself. Homework must be done, because without it there is no way I'll ever catch on, especially since homework doesn't go over what we've done in class, it actually introduces what we're going to learn the next day. Then, after we've read the homework, done the worksheets, Professors Khalil and Ikram Masmoudi go over the concepts that we've already learned.

I'm absolutely adoring the way the class is going, and think that this teaching style is magnificent. I think I will do well in class. I'll do the homework, I'll learn in class, and I'll use my own time to practice the language. I haven't felt this energized about learning something since grade school.

It's new, exciting, and interesting. I'm even enjoying the homework.

My High School self would probably shoot me right now.