By Greg Goulder ’13
The ROUNDUP

Any student at Brophy is familiar with the feeling of stress from class work, but is all of this stress really necessary?

It is known that a small amount of stress is beneficial because it provides motivation to finish assignments.

However, too much stress can cause students to rush through schoolwork and lower the quality of the finished assignments.

This raises the question: Does the amount of work for students taking honors or Advanced Placement classes cause unnecessary stress?

It is no secret that these courses include an increased amount of work, but I feel some of the work is not needed.

It could be argued that these classes require so much time not because of the difficulty of the material, but because of the amount of work assigned.

I am currently taking three honors classes and two advanced placement classes.  Needless to say, I spend many hours per week doing homework.

I recognize much of that comes with the territory and is vital to understanding important concepts.

But at times, I feel that my teachers have assigned what amounts to busy work rather than meaningful homework.

Some of these “filler assignments” include homework assigned just for the sake of assigning daily work and does not contribute to a complete understanding of the material.

Another example includes extensive notes on a topic that will be covered again in class.

Brophy student Kapil Kanagal ’13 agreed.

“Yes, lots of the assignments I receive in certain classes … are, in my opinion, somewhat pointless,” Kanagal said, who is taking four honors and two AP classes.

I propose that teachers either eliminate these types of assignments or replace them with meaningful homework.

Otherwise, the elimination of these assignments would result in a better understanding of the material and give students more time to complete other work, resulting in less stress.