Why is there homework over the holidays?

As I was finishing off some homework after eating way too much food on Thanksgiving, I started thinking. Why did we get homework over this holiday break? Normally I am opposed to homework even over the weekend because it should be our time to have to ourselves and spend however we want, but what really got to me was the fact that the school gave us this 5 day weekend because of the holiday. So, if the school doesn't want to have school go on over the holiday, why are we forced to do school work at home during it? It doesn't make sense to me, and it never really has.


My brother came into town from college for the weekend, and I know a lot of other families either went out of town to visit relatives or had relatives come into town. They come to celebrate Thanksgiving as a family and spend time together, but I found myself having to do homework a couple of hours each day rather than spend time with family. We get the couple of extra days off of school to be able to spend time with family, so it's crazy to me to actually have to do work over days our own school gives us off.


I then decided to look online about what other schools are doing regarding homework over holiday breaks. A high school in New Jersey decided to say no to homework over winter break, and is one of a handful of schools to actually do it. I read this in an article here.


Lastly, as a teacher, would you really want to be grading papers daily instead of spending precious time with family? I didn't think so. Cut us some slack please, I feel it is well deserved.