Face-to-Face is a feature that allows two members of the Redwood community to grill each other, argue, or simply converse about a relevant issue or event. We provide the topic, and they do the rest. This month’s participants are Social Studies teacher Jon Hirsch and senior Nader Ghiassi. The two discuss the purpose of Quiet Week, the week before finals. Proponents of Quiet Week often raise questions about whether homework, tests, and extracurricular activities should be allowed.
Should teachers give homework during Quiet Week?
Jon Hirsch: Teachers should be allowed to give homework during Quiet Week. Teachers are deservedly given the discretion to decide what their students need to be successful and learn the material.
Nader Ghiassi: I agree with Mr. Hirsch that homework is the cornerstone of learning a course. But when a test decides your grade by 20 percent, you should be given time to study. You have the entire semester to learn concepts and by the time you get to that last week, it’s unlikely that students are going to put in the time to do some homework as well.
JH: I think most students don’t start studying for their finals the Monday of Quiet Week. I don’t believe the idea of studying necessitates the elimination of homework. Part of time management is realizing at certain times you have to knuckle down and do a little bit more than usual.
NG: But even in my classes without homework during Quiet Week, I’m doing more than I usually do in that class. In every class, more work is done than usual.
JH: The concept of Quiet Week has become something of a joke, considering the fact that it was originally designed to have nothing going on. No homework, no sports, no games, and there are games happening left and right during Quiet Week. Are you going to tell me that an athlete who has a 20 minute homework assignment for a class is going to be more impacted than traveling to Justin Siena for a game that takes five hours including travel? No way. If we want to enforce Quiet Week, then students should be able to get time off from their extracurriculars. To imply a few homework assignments are the biggest interfering factor between a student’s success and failure is ridiculous. Implying teachers should slow down the rate in which we deliver our curriculum, especially in courses that have state requirements and state tests where we have to get through a certain number of things, puts a teacher in a real bind.
How would you try to fix the flaws of Quiet Week?
JH: It would be interesting to do a controlled experiment, without any homework during Quiet Week for one semester, to see if performance on finals improved. And if it came out that students performed better as a result of no homework or limitations on homework, that would necessitate a discussion about the role of homework during Quiet Week.
NG: I think that’s a good idea. If teachers were to take this experiment on, they could compare their scores for the final while giving out homework and not giving it out, and they could figure out a way to see if it was successful.
JH: I can’t speak for other teachers, but I know that I’d make a goal of trying to minimize homework during that week so students can ramp up their studies if they want to.
Should we even have Quiet Week at all?
JH: I don’t think Quiet Week exists. It’s a myth, a joke. And it has been for a long time. If were going to call it Quiet Week, it has to be all or nothing.
NG: While in theory all or nothing seems good, I think it’s impractical and unlikely.
JH: I agree. I don’t see it happening anytime soon. My point is don’t call it Quiet Week if that’s not what it is. Don’t say we’re living up to this ideal as a community when we’re not even close. That’s why I think it needs to stay up to the teachers’ discretion.
NG: I think part of the reason why I feel as though teachers are partly responsible for this is because the finals are the reason why there is a Quiet Week. In theory, a central authority can minimize the amount of distractions during Quiet Week is great, but in truth that’s very unlikely.
