Student Weeks

The High School Survey of Student Engagement (Indiana University, 2004) found that 55% of the 80,000 students surveyed said they did fewer than three hours of homework each week, and most received As and Bs anyway.

I just received a paper by a HS student from Oregon, and her information sheet
included a listing of the hours per week she spends on activities:

Equestrian Team: 5 hours a week [52 weeks a year]

Theater/Drama: 15 hours a week [13 weeks a year]

Teach Africa: 3 hours a week [40 weeks a year]

Volunteering at the Hunt Club: 1 hour a week [50 weeks a year]

Volunteering for NARAL: 10 hours a week [1 week a year]

Scholars' Alliance: 3 hours a week [10 weeks a year]

Food Drive: 15 hours a week [2 weeks a year]

Total outside of homework and school: 52 hours a week for one or more weeks.

[To be fair, the "Scholars' Alliance" is a Saturday seminar taught by the superintendent
of the district on critical thinking skills, metacognition, the Art of War, the Tao, etc.]

Even so, it might be instructive to note this level of commitment (52 hours/week), in addition to any computer games, television, and instant messaging and other social activities during perhaps an average HS student week--the Kaiser Foundation has found that the average American teen spends nearly 45 hours a week on electronic entertainment media--and compare it with the Indiana University finding of half the HS students spending less than three hours a week on homework.

Could this have something to do with current levels of academic achievement? Is the question of the number of hours American HS students spend on non-academic activities during their waking periods each week worthy of a research study? I think so. If this has been done, please refer me to the study.

Will Fitzhugh
The Concord Review
www.tcr.org

Posted by Will Fitzhugh at December 9, 2008 9:41 AM
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