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5th Graders Against Homework
Benjamin Berrafato, a fifth grade student from Seldon, New York, is fed up with homework and he's not going to take it anymore. In an open letter to his peers, Berrafato urges his fellow fifth graders to "unite against homework" and makes a case for why it should be abolished.
Berrafato argues that homework is "cruel, inhumane, stressful, unhealthy," and ultimately, illegal:
" Homework is assigned to students like me, without our permission. Teachers expect us to do homework, even though we'd rather not. It can be hard sometimes. We get punished if we don't do it. If we do it, we get no reward; we just don't get punished.
Simply put, if we don't, we get punished, and if we do, our reward is ... nothing.
Thus, homework is slavery. Slavery was abolished with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on Dec. 6, 1865.
So, every school in America has been illegally run for the past 143 YEARS"
The young man makes several other points in his impassioned post and even uses outside sources to support his argument-something that can be difficult to get children to do when they are writing. He writes:
"According to Wikipedia, "Harris Cooper, [the] nation['s] top homework scholar, concluded after a comprehensive review that homework does not improve academic achievement ...; kids who do 60 to 90 minutes of homework in middle school and over 2 hours in high school actually score worse [than average on standardized tests]."
Ben's essay can be found here: http://www.nydailynews.com/opi...
Posted by: L
Source Article
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Posted in: News on February 20, 2009 @ 12:00 AM
Tags: School
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Smart kid. It's good to see kids breaking these stereotypes and actually going out and doing something intelligente in opposition to school.
Brilliant Benjamin Berrafato.
Sometimes, the younger kids are the smartest ones.
A 5 year old in my city climbed the fence of his kindergarden to get out of school.
Of course, if a high schooler did that, they'd probably get arrested!
hope this goes some where. if a 5th grader says this it should tip them off.
Awesomeness. The comments on his essay are quite sad though.
Also, I posted this on Digg: http://digg.com/educational/Fi...
Awesome! Let the whole world unite against at least homework! For it is something that practically everyone hates!
I had an "Operation: Destroy The School" in fifth grade. Didn't go too far.
YES!!! We,the students, shall unite into one band and blow homework off the face of the Earth. That kid's amazing, he's think exactly as I, a seventh grader, would have thought. If I knew this kid, I'd be his right hand man on this issue!
Ahahaha, I may not like the way slavery ended up being illegalized, but he provides a pretty thorough point. Looks like someone is actually learning from school and using it for the better <3
*claps* Amen. Reminds me of my 'School Resistance' in 5th grade. Lasted a whole 4 days. Anyway...
That kid brings up points that we've been trying to tell for years. Next step: Do away with forced hell er, school for good. And yes, I'm back on SS.
"cruel, inhumane""even though we'd rather not"
You have got to be kidding me...When I was 12 I used to follow this site,only to realize I was using it as an excuse for my own laziness.And for the last part,is it trying to convice me than NOT studying will HELP me with tests?Yah lets get rid of schools,then people like me who's parents are to busy to homeschool,cant afford private school or a private tutor can just dissappear.The stories about kids getting strip searched and unfair treatment really used to make me hate school and want it to be abolished until I realized that NONE of that was happening to my current PUBLIC school and I was being given nothing but a perfectly good chance at a good education.Unless you're really being subjected to the unfair treatment in some of the stories on here and aren't just bored and trying to find an excuse to weasel out of work,then you should stop complaining about FREE education and start getting ready for your future./rant
If someone happens to reaad this (which I doubt since i'm posting on month old news)I'm sorry if you're offended in any way...and by the way i'm not really complaining about this kid since he's a 5th grader but i'm going to assume most of you aren't.
"[Y]ou should stop complaining about FREE education and start getting ready for your future."
But that's not what the majority here are complaining about. It's fine to have a public education system (though I dislike the currently established one and find that it doesn't work), but not to force people to attend. The current system should be offered as an option - one out of many, but not the only one. Your comment insinuates that you believe the people here advocate the complete abolishment of the public education - that is, that they think everyone should be forced to homeschool, go to private school, etcetera. I doubt that to be the case, even when only considering the hypocrisy of such a situation. I'm sure the reformation of the educational system is supported, just not abolishment. Forcing people to not attend is just as bad as forcing them to attend.
Rambling aside, the main point is that I believe there should be free public education, but the decision to enroll or not enroll should be the student's to make, not the government's. Basically the same thing that's said all over this site...
But either way everyone will have to get some kind of an education,public,private,or home.I was more against comments like "get rid of it because everyone hates it."I mean compare starving children to people like us and it will look we're living in paradise.But people here still complain about asinine things(myself included).If we somehow created a far superior school system and had plenty of choices i'm sure someone would find things unsatisfactory,and there would be more sites not unlike this one.Not that its a bad site.I mean its a good way to express feelings by sharing ideas about school but all this anti-everything just seems endless.
I love it!
I absolutley love it!
come on kid...change the world!!
WOOOHOOOO!!!!!! If i knew when Benjamin lived, i would shake his hand and join. I hope it works! GO BENJAMIN!!!!!!!!!!!
see, now, this is where i come in...