http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/6612677.htm
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Easing homework stress for high-gear students
P.A. SCHOOL AMONG THOSE LOOKING TO LIGHTEN LOAD
By Nicole C. Wong
Mercury News
The blasé summer days of hangin' out, lyin' around and doin' nothing are ending this week for many Bay Area teenagers, but that doesn't necessarily mean a return to the manic mode typical of ambitious high school students.
Lynbrook High School in San Jose will kick off school today with new guidelines that discourage teachers from assigning homework over weekends and holidays.
And Palo Alto High School, which welcomes students back Tuesday, is granting its first homework holiday at the end of the semester to give high-gear students some time to chill.
Administrators' attempts to lighten the homework load are part of Bay Area high schools' efforts to ease student stress.
The gestures acknowledge that the intense competition to win admission into elite universities by cramming teens' schedules with unwieldy amounts of academic classes and extracurricular activities may be taking a toll on students' physical, mental and emotional well-being.
`Kids are people'
``It's recognizing these kids are people. They're not just these little academic machines,'' Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt said of Palo Alto High's efforts to alleviate student stress.
In a world where students load their transcripts with advanced classes, sports, clubs and volunteer activities to impress colleges, education experts say concerns about stress are valid. Too much tension is linked to everything from cheating on tests to binge drinking and suicide.
``It's very scary,'' said Denise Clark Pope, a lecturer at Stanford University's School of Education. ``We're hurting our kids.''
Lynbrook High administrators said they have been working on reducing academic anxiety for a while. Students attend only half of their classes Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and they jump on trampolines and blow soap bubbles during the school's annual stress-free week.
``Some kids are just stressed all the time,'' said Barbara Minneti, Lynbrook's assistant principal for school climate. ``They don't have time to do anything. They're trying to pad their résumés with jobs and 2,000 clubs. And then they're doing homework until 2 o'clock in the morning.''
After watching exhausted students fall asleep in class after plowing through an average of seven to 10 hours of homework a night, the school created homework guidelines. Among other things, the guidelines recommend students be given reading and practice problems on topics already covered, instead of homework assignments dealing with material that their teachers have yet to explain in class.
Palo Alto High's homework holiday is a mandate, not a suggestion. This year teachers cannot assign any reading, exams or projects over the semester break. And apart from the college-level advanced placement courses, exams can't be given and projects can't be due the first day back from winter and spring breaks.
``It really is a chance to just shut down and regenerate,'' Principal Sandra Pearson said.
Such adjustments in the homework schedule may seem like good ideas, but often wind up being what Stanford's Pope calls ``Band-Aid approaches.''
Homework breaks might not change the total time students spend on essays and problem sets, she said.
Some have doubts
``Teachers just cheat and assign more due on Tuesday,'' said Pope, author of ``Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students.''
Henry Dreyfus, who will be a senior at Palo Alto High, is not looking forward to the homework respite.
``There are ways to limit stress, and I don't think a homework holiday is a good one,'' said Henry, 17. ``We need the homework for reinforcement. I think as a result, we're going to get behind, and teachers are going to have to go over the same thing in class.''
But junior Christine Lockner, 16, said the brief break is ``all good if it actually works out.''
Students at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont won't see a significant change in how homework is handled. Instead, Principal Stuart Kew said, the school tries to take the edge off the college-prep craziness by reinforcing ``the concept of having a really memorable high school experience.''
Mission San Jose keeps in mind a lot of little things, like waiting to hold junior prom and senior ball until after advanced-placement testing ends.
``It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience,'' Kew said. ``We are concerned that some of our students might be forgoing those experiences because they're so highly concentrating on academics.''
Other approaches
San Jose High Academy is taking another tack toward soothing nerves frazzled by too much studying. The school has transformed a bland hallway into the Bulldog Cafe, where students can unwind as they admire the new mural, plants and Ikea furnishings.
``It gives a really nice relaxed feeling,'' Principal Betsy Doss said.
Some schools have discovered their swell stress-reduction ideas don't catch on.
The science department at Cupertino's Monta Vista High School thought more students would enjoy football games if they didn't have to worry about turning in lab reports the next day. So last year, science teachers attended many sporting events and handed out passes allowing students who stayed for the entire game to turn in any assignment a day late.
But after the first semester, ``it just kind of fizzled,'' said biology teacher Lani Giffin. Some students still sat in the library instead of in the bleachers. And others whined about inconsistency because teachers didn't attend junior varsity events.
``We tried to do something nice,'' Giffin said, ``and all we got were complaints.''
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From my standpoint, this sounds like someone is just trying to make people look better. As much as I hate homework, it actually helped me a bit. Even though I was applying to a couple schools, I still had time for my homework...