The Homework Machine

by Dan Gutman

  Homework is an essential part of learning.

  Not doing your homework because you do not believe in homework is self-defeating behavior.

  Keep track of your daily assignments.

  The more you review information, the easier it is to remember and the longer you are able to retain it. Even though you may not have written work to do, you can always review or reread assignments.

  It is your responsibility to find out what you have missed when you are absent. Take the initiative to ask a classmate or teacher what you need to make up.

  Have a place to study that works for you, one that is free from distractions. Be honest with yourself about how well you study when the TV or stereo is playing.

  Make sure you have everything you need before you begin to work.

  Develop a schedule you can follow.

  Be rested when you study. It is okay to study in short blocks of time. Marathon study sessions may be self-defeating. Study for 30 to 40 minutes at a time, then take a 5-to 10-minute break. Estimate the amount of time it will take to do an assignment and plan your break time accordingly.

  Prioritize your homework so that you begin with the most important assignment first. For instance, study for a test and then do the daily assignment.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  Miss R. gave us this dumb assignment to write about those Ten Commandments of Homework. This is what I turned in:

  We live in a democracy, where we have freedom, right? We’re entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So how can I pursue happiness if I have to spend every night doing homework? Homework is cruel, totalitarian punishment created by grown-ups to take away the freedoms of poor, defenseless children.

  Nobody ever saved a life, won a war, stopped a crime, or cured a disease while they were doing homework. Think of all the good things we could be accomplishing if we didn’t have to spend so much time doing homework.

  Doing homework causes eyestrain, fatigue, insomnia, and other physical ailments.

  Thomas Edison went to school for four months. He never did any homework, and look how he turned out.

  There’s a name for working without getting paid. It’s called slavery, and it was banned during the Civil War. If kids are forced to do homework, they should be paid for it.

  Homework is proof of teacher incompetence. If a teacher is any good, students would learn the stuff in school and wouldn’t have to learn it again at home.

  Doing homework wastes valuable natural resources. We have to use lots of energy to keep all those lightbulbs burning. We have to cut down trees to make paper and pencils. We’d save a lot of energy by banning homework.

  I keep hearing that American kids are way too fat, and that’s because we don’t get enough exercise. For every minute kids are doing homework, we are getting fatter. Kids should be outside running around and getting exercise, not inside doing worksheets.

  Virtually every known murderer, bank robber, and criminal did homework when they were children. How can we be sure the homework didn’t cause the criminal behavior?

  Homework sucks. There should be a constitutional amendment banning it.

  MISS RASMUSSEN, FIFTH-GRADE TEACHER

  I didn’t like what Sam wrote, but I gave him a B for using his creativity.

  SAM’S MOM

  We’ve had to move around a lot, and Sam never got to stay in one school very long. My husband was stationed in Oregon and we liked living there. But Sam was going through a difficult phase and he got suspended from school last year. We thought it would be a good idea to move and get a fresh start somewhere else. There’s an air force base near Phoenix. My husband requested a transfer, and that’s what brought us here. That was before the war broke out, of course.

  Back in Oregon, Sam simply refused to get a haircut, and he refused to do his homework. We couldn’t do anything to help him. What are you supposed to do, strap your child to a chair and whip him? Kids reach an age when they naturally become defiant.

  So we made a deal with Sam. He didn’t have to get a haircut if he would do his homework. We figured that homework was more important than hair. When it comes to raising kids, you have to choose your battles. His hair looked horrible, but at least he was doing his homework.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  Okay, I admit it. I like homework. Kids make fun of me and all, but I think it’s necessary and a part of our education. Homework reinforces what we learn in school each day. My friends and I used to go over each other’s houses and do our homework together. It was fun. It was a social thing. I always thought Snik made a big deal out of nothing. It’s just homework.

  MISS RASMUSSEN, FIFTH-GRADE TEACHER

  Compared to other teachers, I don’t even really assign that much homework. I give the students about forty-five minutes a night. That’s it. It was a lot different when I was a child. I remember spending hours every night doing homework. I practically lived in the library. I never complained. Back in those days, if you didn’t do your homework or you misbehaved, you might get a yardstick rapped against your knuckles. Today, of course, we don’t do that. Then again, I’d say the kids aren’t as motivated these days, either.

  We study a lot about Arizona history and geography of the western United States in fifth grade, so we devote a lot of time to that. We also cover the solar system. Explorers. Things like that. I thought the kids would like it. The homework isn’t hard.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  So one day back in September, Miss Rasmussen passes out our homework assignment just as the bell rings. I’m in a bad mood because it’s been a long day and I just don’t feel like going home to do more schoolwork. You know what I mean. And I look over at Brenton. He sticks the homework assignment in his backpack like it doesn’t bother him at all. You could give him ten hours of homework and he’d be perfectly happy. The kid is like a human computer.

  So I start in on him, saying he probably spends all his free time doing homework. And he says something in that voice of his like, “Well, no, actually I don’t spend any time at all doing homework.”

  Say what? I ask him if he’s got a brother or sister who does his homework for him. That would be a sweet deal, right? He says no. He says he invented a machine that does his homework for him. I said, “Get outta town!”

  That’s the first I heard of the homework machine.

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  It was a mistake on my part. I allowed my emotions to govern my behavior. But I have never understood why average and under-average students feel a necessity to poke fun at those of us who work hard and do well in school. If anything, it should be the other way around. I suppose I didn’t appreciate Snik making fun of me. But it was a fatal blunder on my part to have told him about the homework machine. I accept full responsibility.

  Chapter 2

  October

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  I remember that day we first heard about the homework machine. It was late September, maybe early October. I heard Brenton and Snik talking. Or at least I heard Brenton say something about a machine that does your homework for you. A homework machine? Can you imagine? It sounded like science fiction. It sounded like a joke.

  But Brenton isn’t exactly known for his sense of humor. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him crack a joke. At least not on purpose. Sometimes the kids laugh at the things he says when he’s trying to be serious. Not me. That’s rude.

  I thought about raising my hand and telling Miss Rasmussen what I had overheard. But I knew everybody already thought I was a big Goody Two-shoes and I didn’t want them calling me a tattletale too. Maybe I should have told Miss Rasmussen. None of this would have happened. I might have mentioned it to Kelsey.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  Oh, I totally believed it. Brenton’s a dork, but he’s a genius dork. I know he’s gonna find a cure for cancer or win the Nobel prize or something when he grows up. If any kid could create a machine that would do your homework for
you, Brenton is the kid.

  And what’s so amazing about it, anyhow? They put a man on the moon, right? They grow babies in test tubes, right? So why couldn’t somebody invent a machine that could do homework?

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  I knew I should never have told Snik. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized it was a mistake. Secrets are best kept secret. That’s why they’re called secrets. If I had kept my mouth shut, none of this would have happened.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  I say to Brenton, “Get outta town! There’s no such thing as a machine that can do your homework for you.” He says there is too, and he’s got one. I tell him that if he really has a machine like that, he should show it to me. Put up or shut up, right? And when he says he doesn’t want to, I just say that’s proof that he made the whole thing up. He looks all guilty, like maybe he’s gonna cry or something.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  I told Snik to leave Brenton alone. But he wouldn’t. He pestered him all the way out to the playground. It was really mean. Snik is one of those kids who doesn’t know when to stop. He’ll do something mean or say something mean and you tell him to stop it, but he’ll keep doing it. Then you raise your voice a little and say stop it and he keeps doing it. And then, finally, you shout at him, “STOP IT!” and he acts like, “Whoa! You don’t have to SHOUT!” But you do have to shout. Because if you don’t shout, he doesn’t get the message. And Brenton never shouts.

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  I didn’t want to show the machine to anyone. I never planned to show it to anyone. But Snik was really giving me a hard time. He called me a liar and a fake, which I am not.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  I thought Brenton was gonna cry, really. Judy and me told Snik to knock it off.

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  Finally I said to them, “Fine, come over to my house after school today and I’ll show it to you. But you have to swear on your life you’ll never tell anybody about it.”

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  If he really did have a machine that could do your homework for you, I wanted to see it. I work so hard on my homework and Brenton still gets better grades than I do. I wanted to see what tricks he was using.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  I didn’t even want to go to Brenton’s house. But I had nothing else going on after school, so I figured what the heck. Beats sitting around. We rode our bikes over.

  BRENTON’S MOM

  You can imagine my surprise when Brenton came home from school with that boy Sam who they call Snikwad and these two girls. I don’t remember the last time Brenton had a friend over. Maybe when he was a toddler and the kids had what we used to call “play dates.” And he never had a girl over.

  When he was little, the other kids never seemed to like him, or they couldn’t relate to him. I really didn’t know what was going on. It was always a matter of concern. I hoped he would grow out of it as he got older, and he would eventually fit in better socially.

  I was thrilled when the three of them came over. I thought that maybe Brenton had finally made some friends at school. I quickly whipped up a batch of those cinnamon rolls from a can and brought them up to his room for the kids. Just trying to be hospitable, you know?

  I wanted to hang around and get to know them a little, but they acted like they wanted me out of the room. So I went back downstairs. After all that happened later, I wish I had stayed.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  I always wondered what Brenton’s house would look like, what his mom would be like. Well, it was lovely and so was she. She even made us these delicious cinnamon rolls.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  Brenton’s room is weird. Most guys put up posters on their walls with pictures of their favorite athletes or rock bands or dirt bikes and stuff like that. Brenton has a picture of some old dude from ancient history.

  I say who’s that and he says it’s Leonardo DaVinci and I say isn’t he the dude who was in that Titanic movie and he says no he’s the dude who painted the Mona Lisa and I say the Mona what and he says oh forget about it. Have another cinnamon roll. So I did.

  He has some bumper sticker on the back of his door that says “War is not the answer” or something like that. That got me. You know, my dad was in the military and these people who don’t support the military get me really angry. I told him he was a hippie and a commie and stuff like that, joking around, but not really.

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  I explained to Sam it is possible to support the military and at the same time be against the war. To me, the best support you can give to the military is to keep them out of wars unless it’s in our nation’s vital interest. He didn’t understand. I didn’t press it. These issues tend to make people very emotional and are best avoided.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  Brenton closed the door as soon as his mom left. He locked it, too. I was looking around the room for a machine, but Brenton just sat down in front of the computer on his desk. It was nice, but it didn’t look like anything special. I mean, just about everybody has a computer. There was a scanner and a printer attached to it, but that was about it. Brenton said his dad works for a computer company, so he gets all kinds of stuff for free.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  Brenton said so you want to see how the homework machine works? We all said yeah. He took a piece of blank paper and wrote this on it:

  2 + 2 =

  Then he put the paper into the scanner, facedown. He sat at the keyboard and typed some stuff into it. A few seconds later, the printer started making noise and a piece of paper popped out of it. The paper said on it:

  2 + 2 = 4

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  I say that’s it? That’s the famous homework machine you told us about? Big deal! I just laughed my head off. Any kid in first grade can tell you that two plus two equals four. I’ve got a cheap calculator that can do a lot more than that. The whole thing looked bogus to me. What a joke! I couldn’t believe he called that piece of junk a homework machine.

  BRENTON’S MOM

  I sat downstairs the whole time wondering what they were doing up there. I thought about going upstairs and putting my ear to the door to listen, but that would have been an invasion of their privacy. Plus, they might have opened the door and caught me.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  I felt sorry for Brenton. I figured he made up the story about the homework machine so he would make some friends. He probably just wanted us to come over to his house. It was kind of sad, really. I told Brenton I thought his machine was cool, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5

  They didn’t quite grasp the concept at first. I just did the simple arithmetic problem as an example. If the machine could add two plus two, it could add any numbers. More than that, it could seek out any information on any subject.

  They lacked vision. They could only see the paper in front of them.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  So Brenton grabs his backpack and pulls out the homework assignment for that night. It was all this stuff about the solar system.

  MISS RASMUSSEN, FIFTH-GRADE TEACHER

  I don’t believe in tests for fifth graders. At this age, I would rather the kids not feel so much pressure. Their daily homework assignments and special projects are more important and more educational. I usually give assignments in which the students have to answer multiple-choice questions or provide short answers. They’re easier to grade.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  Brenton slipped the sheet into the scanner and sat down at the computer again. We were all making faces behind his back and rolling our eyes and trying not to laugh. He typed in a bunch of stuff just like before.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  Nothing happened for a long time. Like, over a minute. It was really awkward. We all sat there without making a sound. Brenton kep
t saying it will only take a minute or so and just be patient. The computer made some noises, but nothing seemed to be happening.

  I think I was the one who said that I really should be getting home. I was embarrassed for Brenton. I didn’t want to see him fail, and I didn’t want Snik to humiliate him.

  SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5

  I’m sitting there the whole time thinking how much fun it’s gonna be to tell everybody at school about Brenton’s totally lame homework machine. But then the printer starts making that humming sound.

  KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5

  The printer made some noise and Brenton sat back in his chair.

  JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5

  The paper slid out of the printer. I was sitting on that side, so I picked it out.

  Miss Rasmussen Science homework

  Name: Brenton Damagatchi

  Instructions: Fill in the blanks.

  Our Solar System

  The Earth is 93 mil. miles from the sun.

  The closest planet to the sun is Mercury.

  The word “galaxy” comes from the Greek word for milky way.

  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

  Groups of stars are called galaxies.

  The Earth makes 1 revolution(s) around the sun each year.

  When the moon is between the Earth and the sun, It is called a new moon.

  A rock or metal fragment in space is called a meteoroid.

  A chunk that lands on Earth is called a meteorite.

  Mercury and Venus have no moons.

  Earth’s northern hemisphere is tipped toward the sun in July.

  Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh.

  Haley’s comet visits Earth every 76 years.

  The diameter of the Earth at the equator is 7,926 miles.

  Right now, the Earth is moving at a speed of 18.5 miles per second.

  And for the longest time, we all just looked at it. I didn’t know what to say. Nobody knew what to say.