Homework

Utah State University student Patrick Romero, seen here in a frame grab, took his English homework to a different level, creating a video by interviewing USU students to find out “Why Men and Women Can’t Be Friends.” The video has since gone viral on YouTube.

USU 'Why Men and Women Can't Be Friends' video goes viral

LOGAN -- Patrick Romero multitasked a Utah State University homework assignment into a platform to annoy his ex-girlfriend.

The student made a video essay, required for an English course, into an exploration of whether men and women can ever be "just friends."

Homework has gotten way out of hand

I look forward to summer for one reason: freedom. It's the only time I have that someone isn't dictating my every move, telling me what I should try to learn and sucking up my leisure time with how I should learn it.

Marshall High School senior Manny Hernandez discussed homework during a meeting with a Los Angeles Times reporter in Los Angeles, California on June 17, 2011. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

New homework policy gives students a break

LOS ANGELES -- Vanessa Perez was a homework scofflaw. The Marshall High School senior didn't finish all of it -- largely because she worked 24 hours a week at a Subway sandwich shop.

Alvaro Ramirez, a junior at the Santee Education Complex, doesn't have his own room and his mother baby-sits young children at night. "They're always there and they're always loud," he said, explaining his challenges with homework.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school system, has decided to give students like these a break. A new policy decrees that homework can count for only 10 percent of a student's grade.

Critics -- mostly teachers -- worry that the policy will encourage students to slack off assigned work and even reward those who already disregard assignments. And they say it could penalize hardworking students who receive higher marks for effort.

To tune or not to tune ...: Some say music helps when doing homework, others not so much

Homework stinks! After a grueling day at school traumatized by the tsunami of information that has just overflowed the brain, teens are now expected to come home and use all of the information they have just ingested, spit it back out, and continue to do more work at home, rightfully establishing its common title -- "homework."

The one thing that relieves me from the stress of homework is to accompany my tasks with pop or country music. Usually, when I am working on calculus or science while listening to music, I become more relaxed and focused.

Also, homework requires hours of strenuous focus and attention every night, and if I listen to music while I'm working, the time seems to go by much faster. There is nothing like getting swept up in the beat of Flo Rida's "Club Can't Handle Me" or Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" while doing some complex math problems.

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