Homework? I'd rather do housework.

What is homework? Homework is all that is, homework is all that ever was and ever will be. Homework is what comes out when you pour your cereal in the morning, homework is that muddled exhaustion in your head when you walk into the crowded lunchroom, homework is lurking even in the spoons you use when you eat your soup for dinner. Homework caused the war in Vietnam, homework is raising our taxes, homework is behind global warming, homework is what holds together the universe, keeping everything as we know it from decaying into chaos and disorder, leaving a swath of destruction in its deadly wake. Homework is you.

But let's face it, homework isn't actually much.

Okay, sometimes homework is useful for reinforcing concepts. I mean, it's not hard, but a little extra practice on how to integrate by substitution probably wouldn't hurt. But in truth, the majority of homework is nothing other than the b-word that teachers hate to hear - b_sy work. (After all, it would just be plain crude to say such a low word in a quasi-public forum, would it not?)

I hate to say it, Mr. Logsdon, but we've had a few assignments like that in your class. However, we all know that the king of pointless assignments is our favorite AP World curmudgeon, a certain Rick K. Holloway. Assignments consisting of over 300 vocabulary words, due at the end of the hour, are nothing other than work to be assignment to occupy students' attention (I'm trying hard not to say that b-word, Mr. L).

If homework is to lose some of its stigma with students, don't you agree that teachers should only assign it if there is something substantive, relevant, and important to be gained from its completion? As it stands now, there are too many problems with homework for it to really help students; as a result, most of us view it with considerable scorn. I love the paradox, though, of writing about the ineffectiveness of homework as a homework assignment.