Being a student athlete is no easy task. From late-night practices to long meets, student athletes truly are quite pressed for time when it comes to completing schoolwork. The balance that athletes face between achieving peak athletic performance and homework is quite indisputable if you ask students. Not only is homework mentally depriving, but it also greatly impacts a healthy sleep schedule needed for both academic and athletic success.
By balancing both a heavy workload and striving to be an exceptional athlete, the factor of getting enough sleep comes into play. Students often have to make the tough decision of whether or not they should continue their homework or simply go to bed.
Why Student Athletes Should Not Have Homework
Even though homework is not going away anytime soon, the incontestable role of a student athlete will only strengthen over time. Yet, the next time Air Academy students begin their homework, they should take a moment and understand that while this is a demanding task, it ultimately can make athletes be brighter individuals once they graduate.
No matter what I choose to do, I have to go to practice after school and repeat this process again every night. Teachers should sometimes give more time for homework because of this. I realize school comes before after school activities, but athletes are struggling in classes because of the loads of homework they have.
Not doing homework hurts grades, which could make athletes ineligible and would lead to them not being able to participate in sports. On the other hand, if they do their homework, there is a possibility of being up to or even past midnight. Having to wake up the next morning with only five or six hours of sleep leads to academic struggles.
A lot of students participate in sports. Mr. Sunkel is a science teacher and the tennis coach. He estimates that about 20% of his students are student/athletes. That is a lot of students who will be up late doing homework after their practices and games.
No matter how much time they get for homework, being a student-athlete is a tough challenge. As long as they are willing to put in the extra time and effort, student-athletes do great in their classes.
"With block scheduling and the efforts of our teaching staff, students have a chance to begin or finish homework before the end of class," he says. "There are less books being taken home and more technology available to help complete the task. But regardless of the amount assigned per day, I still believe (letting it pile up) really becomes a matter of choice by the student."
Transitioning to high school can be tough, but attempting to remain active in sports as well as taking strong academic courses can be particularly challenging. Student athletes often struggle with the time demands of homework along with long practices and travel for away games.
All the teachers and coaches have similar opinions about student athletes and homework. For now, it looks like student athletes should resign themselves to better time management since the homework is a reality to stay.
The second point I would like to bring into light during this debate is that Athletes come home exhausted and just want to come home and relax. In the process of doing this, they often forget all about homework and go home, take a shower, eat, and rest. I have been guilty of this many times, sometimes in this very class. The point that I am trying to get at here is that homework is often forgotten by student athletes.
If you think about it, homework can be traced down as the problem involving ineligibility. Imagine if there were no homework for student-athletes, would there be any casualties? If student athletes need not worry about homework, eligibility would be at an all-time high. This proposed change would benefit both coaches and students nationwide. It would benefit coaches by having a roster full of eligible athletes and the athletes in turn will have more playing time, and would not have to worry about one less responsibility when he/she gets home.
In conclusion, Athletes should not have homework because of all the positives that are involved in the change. If homework were to be eliminated, I feel that the positives outweigh the negative in the end.
Grade expectations for athletes should have a lower standard because of issues with time management and the dedication that comes with any sport. Teachers should go easier on the workload when these athletes have games or let them turn in the common homework assignment late.
Coaches encourage their athletes to get a lot of sleep for the next day or to keep working on skills outside of practice, and then teachers ask their students to study more, give them more homework or stay after school. The trick for student-athletes is to find the balance between it all.
For example, students that are in the marching band have practice every day for four hours and competitions all day Saturday. Many of the students in marching band are trying to complete the IB Diploma and get into a good college, but there is no time to finish all of their homework.
Besides, student-athletes not only learn and have great responsibility from team experiences, they also learn how to have better social skills and manners since coaches do raise their teams to a higher standard than any other club or activity in the school.
Student athletes are always being challenged and in my opinion, needing to do more than necessary. Student athletes are found all around the school every season of the year. There are many different sports that people participate in throughout the school year including football, swim team, lacrosse and more. With people having to have to keep up with academics and their athletics it can become very stressful and becomes a source of anxiety for these students. With the continuous workouts,games, and practices students need more time concluding the fact that, student athletes should not have to take physical education.
In conclusion is this why student athletes should not have to take physical education. Students are provided with extra stress and are being overworked. Students should be allowed to get their coaches to sign a form exempting them from PE and still cause them to get the credit or should not have the credit be required for graduation.
From roughly the ages of six to ten, children begin to discover their love for particular sports and extracurricular activities. The majority of students engage in sports such as basketball, soccer, football, and track and field, but these extracurriculars form an imbalance in time management. On the inside, students may severely struggle with balancing their sport and school work. Student-athletes struggle to choose between their sport or studying for their next test.
Student-athletes may undertake a lot of stress when balancing two extremely important things that can help advance their futures. On important weeks like finals, PSATs, and SATs, students prefer to stay at home studying and working hard to ensure test scores reflect their best work. Attempting to multitask in school and sports can generate higher stress levels that continue to increase when under pressure.
A portion of students believes that school should always come first no matter what. Time itself remains precious to athletes who work and train hard to make sure their bodies remain in the right condition so people can see them perform on the field, court, or track. A lot of schools that emphasize academics raise GPA requirements for athletes. They want their students to fully exercise their brains to continue down a successful path. These GPA requirements can produce problems for student-athletes who maintain very high grades overall, but the grades still displease school boards who will not allow them to participate in their desired sport. Students at those types of schools need to put in extra effort to learn how to maintain time management.
Student-athletes must maintain a good mindset, efficient time management, and good nutrition consistently, to perform at their best in both sports and school. Students should receive the opportunities to succeed in school and maintain a good relationship with their sport. This can help shape their potential future career and make sure they become the best athlete on the field.
In addition to the controversy regarding what athletes would get out of gym, the school would also have to look at what sport and how many sports each athlete plays. If an athlete played one winter sport, and only played that sport, would they be allowed out of gym for the whole year? This would open the door for student athletes to potentially abuse the study hall period privilege they get for being an athlete.
The best of both worlds would mean the student-athletes from club sports and school sponsored athletics would be allowed to be exempt from gym with a waiver signed by their coach, but doing this could still arouse controversy among athletes and non-athletes.
In fact, while the push to eliminate homework may come as a surprise to many adults, the debate is not new. Parents and educators have been talking about this subject for the last century, so that the educational pendulum continues to swing back and forth between the need for homework and the need to eliminate homework.
The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association recommend that students spend 10 minutes per grade level per night on homework. That means that first graders should spend 10 minutes on homework, second graders 20 minutes and so on. But a study published by The American Journal of Family Therapy found that students are getting much more than that.
In the scope of world history, homework is a fairly new construct in the U.S. Students of all ages have been receiving work to complete at home for centuries, but it was educational reformer Horace Mann who first brought the concept to America from Prussia.
School work assigned and completed outside of school hours is not without its benefits. Numerous studies have shown that regular homework has a hand in improving student performance and connecting students to their learning. When reviewing these studies, take them with a grain of salt; there are strong arguments for both sides, and only you will know which solution is best for your students or school. 2ff7e9595c
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