I’m opposed to homework.

I think homework is mostly bad.

This is my anti-homework screed.

Actually it’s a podcast episode, but we’ll see what happens.

First of all, I’m proud to report I’m having some JOMO this week.

JOMO, or as I call it, joy of missing out.

There’s a big old podcast conference every year.

There’s actually two of them a year right now, and I didn’t go because the clients who I could get there, I don’t need.

The bigger clients that are actually meaningful for me, I can get to, and it’d be fun to be there.

It’d be enjoyable to see folks, but the fact that I don’t have to go and be away from the fam and deal with all the travel and all the meetings and all the crap, boy, that’s wonderful.

So some JOMO, but anyway, I don’t know.

I was thinking about homework.

My son, Liam, is working on some annoying summertime project where they assign a book that they want all the kids in the grade to read, and then there’s a bunch of homework to do about it.

He is rightly complaining about it.

He’s like, it’s a scavenger hunt.

I read the book.

I read the book twice.

The book was The Outsiders.

Instead of being like, give us some thoughtful feedback on the book of some form.

They’re like, hey, find a quote in the book that does this.

He’s like, so it’s basically searching back through the book to find quotes to support whatever these questions are.

It’s like, you don’t even have to read it to do that.

He and a couple other buddies who have the same assignment have all been complaining like, some of these questions are bogus.

I believe there’s seven questions and he’s done five of them.

He’s like, these other two, there aren’t quotes that support this thing.

Now, if I’m in his shoes, I would probably write a thing saying, actually, I can’t provide you a quote that does this because I don’t think there is one for X, Y, and Z reason.

That’s not his jam.

He does not want to do that, but he’s super frustrated and it makes it take a long time because he wants to find answers that will satisfy whoever this is going to go to.

That’s a summer assignment.

I have my own objections to those too, but every study on homework says the kids get too much homework, that too much homework is bad for them, that it’s bad for their mental health, it’s bad for their free time, their brain development, everything else.

There’s lots of different ways kids approach homework.

Sierra reminds me of me.

I would do as much homework as possible at school.

I would do it in study halls or whatever else.

Listen, I don’t mind if you sign a paper.

If I have to write a thing and I have a couple of weeks to work on it, great.

Sierra, like me, gets the vast majority of her homework done during the school day.

Then Ani, who reminds me of one of my sisters, comes home and has a bunch of homework.

It takes a long time with her, a couple of hours most of the time.

I think that’s really unfair.

I think it’s an unreasonable claim on students’ time outside of school that I don’t believe actually helps their overall education.

Anyway, I think homework’s bad.

Here’s my five-paragraph essay on why.

I thought about asking Chat GPT to write up arguments for me on why homework’s bad, but you can Google it.

Experts pretty consistently agree it’s bad for kids.

It’s probably hurting students more than it’s helping them.

Chew on that, teachers assigning stuff.

Anytime I see teachers like, I’m not going to sign anything for them to do at home, I’m like, you’re my favorite teacher.

Those are the ones they give the biggest tips to at the end of the year.

Can you imagine tipping a teacher?

I mean, I guess giving gifts, which we do at the end of each school year, is kind of tipping a teacher, but can you imagine just handing them some cash?

That’d be very awkward.

Anyway, that’s really all I have for this Tuesday.

Once again, if you have topics that you want me to cover, you know where to find me on the internet.

I’m happy to look at your suggestions to see if it’s things I’m willing to discuss on this very podcast.

Sometime in September, I am going to do a freestyle rap again, so get ready, buckle up.

I’ll warn you if that’s an episode you want to avoid.

Also, I should say I’m excited because I’m going to be doing some more improv, including at the end of this month, but I have a couple of improv shows in September, including my first ever as a comedy sports ref.

Comedy sports, as I’ve discussed, is set up as a competition between the red team and the blue team.

There’s a ref who keeps things running and handles the scoring and all that.

I’ll be the ref for my first time at the end of September.

I got to figure out what my whistle situation is.

I’ve ordered a couple of different whistles.

I have the ones that obviously you blow through.

I also have an electronic one and I have one that you squeeze and it makes a whistle sound.

I don’t know what whistle I’m going to use.

We shall find out.

I’ll report back.

The annoying thing with ordering those whistles ahead of time online is you don’t know how shrill or obnoxious the whistle sound is until you get them.

In some cases, particularly the handheld ones that I have, very shrill and very annoying, which is also my tagline for myself.

Bye.

Lex.