Chapter 37 : Sleep-Work (School Rant)

Ever since school started I've been trying to catch up with sleep as much as I can so that I can have enough energy to feel prepared for the next day, and the next day and the next day... So much so that I feel like sleeping while typing this post. Why haven't I been able to catch up with sleep you may ask? Well, I have remedial lessons after school till 5pm or 5.30pm which gives me only Recess, 30 minutes after school till Remedial and the rest of the time from the time I reach home to sleep but before I can sleep when I reach home, I have to do something which every student in Singapore has to do, have Dinner and do Homework. Some homework can be short and sweet and easy to complete, some can be long and tiring and require a lot of research, some homework are done in advance so that I can reduce the amount of homework, some homework are done during my free periods or recess time. That's how much time I spend doing homework and revision when I have the time and usually when I complete my homework it's about 9.30pm already.

I'm not complaining about the need for homework, I'm just stating the issue that the amount of homework received on a daily basis should be reduced, I know the school's trying to pressure us to achieve excellence maybe I just need some time to adapt to a lifestyle from 7am - 5pm and then spend the rest of the time doing homework and then start the day all over again, but all I'm saying is that it would really help if the homework is reduced, sometimes some teachers don't even go through the homework that is done which makes it meaningless if they don't go through with us and some even forget they gave us homework...

What I'm saying is that in order to have sufficient energy to pay attention in class and attend remedial lessons daily, we also need to have enough sleep, I'm sure the teachers also crave for sleep as well because everyday they spend the equal or even more time marking the assignments and homework, so everyone should have a fair share to be fair, less homework, less homework to mark, at most just get students to complete the work as much as they can during lesson time and complete the remaining few questions that is not complete at home so that they have lesser questions to answer or solve. Win-Win Situation for both the teachers and students.

In some cases, students that have tons of homework can feel stress because of the need to complete or they will have to face the rules that has been set by the school or teacher for not being able to uphold excellence by handing in homework on time and they'll feel guilty and feel bad about themselves for not being able to cope, while some of them may even result to copying homework from another person which only contributes 50% to their learning as it was not entirely attempted by them and it doesn't make any difference to not being able to gain any knowledge but only doing so because they either

a) have enough respect for the teacher to complete the homework so as to not disappoint them

or
b) to prevent from getting punished by the teacher for not handing in homework on time.

Homework can be a leisure and yet it can be a torture to some, it's just a matter of how you look at it, I tend to look at homework as a form of leisure, having to get the right answer after each Math question makes me feel smart in a way or getting a comprehension question correct makes me feel good about myself and when I get a question wrong, I just have to learn from my mistake and not repeat it again during the exams but when the homework start to pile up, it can be a bit of a torture and affect my sleep hours.

And with this, I hope you have a goodnight rest just like how I'm going to sleep now!!!