Shorter is better (12B)

Questions:

1.  Why is a Liberal Arts program beneficial to a college student?
2.  Is it important for a college student to use creative thinking in everything that they do?
3. Would shorter school days with no tests or homework change students ways?
4. Do employers look at the qualities that each student has?

Coming up with questions last week was a struggle for me because it is sometimes hard to come up with college level questions that makes you think and go into depth.  This week it was a little bit easier and the readings helped me come up with really good questions.  The question that I decided to answer was number 2.  "Would shorter school days with no tests or homework change students ways?"

I feel that kids that do not have any tests and homework and just concentrate on the material being taught in the classroom would be perfectly fine.  Teachers sometimes spend too much time working on tests and deciding what to give for homework.  I always used to think that school day was always too long and the days used to drag on.  I would always remember even in middle school and high school, I would always look at the clock and see what time it was and if it was closer to the time we had to go home.  High school is a little different in a way, because there's periods throughout the day and you aren't in one classroom the whole time.

Students get bored.  No kid wants to sit down in a room for a very long time because they are obviously going to get bored.  The kids are not going to pay attention the whole time.  Some kids also have really bad attention spans and they would stop listening 2 hours into the class.  If the school days were shorter the kids would pay more attention and actually want to learn.  The kids are able to take in more information rather than  Memorizing just specific things for a test just to pass, i think is just unnecessary.  If the student just takes the time to comprehend and actually KNOW the material, I think that's more important for them doing good on tests because they NEED to.  Some kids don't have good standardized test taking schools, it's not fair to some kids who have good learning skills and can understand what is going on and they do poorly on tests.  If kids have no tests and homework and focusing on paying attention in class or even doing activities that it would be way more enjoyable and kids will actually want to go school.

I feel that memorizing material for a test is not part of learning. Kids do better listening and learning in class and do certain activities rather than taking tests and giving homework that is just getting graded on material that will never be used again.  A shorter school day will make kids pay attention the full time instead of dozing off.

I think a shorter school day and no test and no homework will actually make the students better. It is really good to learn things instead of giving material that you need memorize and not guaranteed to score well.