Let me paint a picture: it’s 5:30 p.m. I’m sweaty, exhausted, and fresh out of volleyball practice. By the time I make it home, all I want is a shower, a snack and maybe a second to breathe. But nope! There’s an 8 p.m. deadline looming and suddenly I’m in a full-on sprint from the volleyball court to my desk, racing against time like I’m in the last two minutes of a championship set. For students with practices, rehearsals or club meetings, this kind of deadline is hard to manage.
Now, I get it. Teachers need time to grade assignments and they want to make sure everything is ready before class the next day. But there’s gotta be a better way to balance things out. This is why we have the glorious 11:59 p.m. deadline. It’s like the perfect sweet spot. Students get the entire evening to work at their own pace, whether they’re cramming late into the night or knocking it out right after dinner. While I know some people will argue that late-night deadlines encourage procrastination and staying up too late, it’s a lot better than racing home from practice to submit something that says it is due at 8 p.m.if we didn’t finish the assignment in class that day.
I’m the type of worker who wants to turn in quality work and when I get the opportunity to finish it up at home, I take advantage of the extra few minutes to fix up my mistakes and then turn it in. But then, I get assigned an early evening deadline that I’m usually still at practice for. This causes students with extracurriculars no not to have the option to get it finished at home causing us to be forced to rush it in class so we can at least get credit.
While we’re on the topic, let’s also talk about another troublesome deadline: 8 a.m.. This deadline does not take into consideration the fact that most classes do not have an 8:00 start. So, if there is an 8 a.m. deadline for a class that actually meets later in the day, then students who may have a free before the class meets are not able to capitalize on that time. For those of us lucky enough to have a free period in the morning, it would be really great to be able to have that time to work and finish up some homework rather than scrambling the night before.
That said, one thing I do like about the 8 a.m. deadline is how If I have to pull a late night and submit something, I won’t have to rush to make sure I get it in by midnight. I am able to go a few minutes past 11:59 p.m. But even so, I would advocate for assignments to be due at the time a class starts.
In the end, we need deadlines that work with our lives, not against them. I vote for more deadlines at 11:59 p.m. and deadlines which vary for when the class starts. This would give students a chance to breathe, balance extracurriculars, and still turn in goodwork.
