The Other Column

The Other Column

1Zeyna wrote NO REQUIRED HOMEWORK across her notebook before debate practice. After school, she watched her younger brother until their mother returned. Worksheets usually waited until his bedtime. When the coach assigned her to defend required homework in Friday’s practice debate, she turned the assignment slip facedown. Across the table, her partner Harlan began dividing a page into columns.

2Their practice room was a classroom with the desks arranged in a horseshoe. There was no podium to stand behind, and the opposing pair sat close enough to read Zeyna’s crossed-out opening. Each speaker would have to restate an opponent’s point accurately before answering it. Zeyna had expected to deliver a speech; this arrangement required a conversation. She pulled her notebook closer.

3Her first argument was that homework kept students from wasting time. Harlan stopped tapping his pencil. “You don’t believe that,” he said. “I don’t need homework because I’m lazy. I need another chance to find out what I can’t do yet.” He explained that he often understood a math example in class but discovered questions only when trying a problem alone. Zeyna looked at the sentence she had written. It described neither of them.

4That evening, she opened her own math assignment after her brother fell asleep. She finished the first problem, then stalled on the second. In class, she had copied each step without noticing where she was uncertain. Beside the unfinished problem, she wrote a question for her teacher. Then she checked the time. Recognizing a use for practice had not created another hour in her evening.

5On Friday, Zeyna crossed out her opening but kept the page. She argued for short assignments that helped teachers identify confusion, with a supervised homework room available before students went home. An opponent asked whether that room would help someone who had to leave immediately. Zeyna started to repeat her prepared answer, then stopped. “Not that student,” she said. She drew a small box around the unanswered objection instead of covering it with her hand.

6Afterward, the coach praised her accurate restatement of the opposing case but circled the gap in her proposal. Harlan asked whether she now supported required homework. “I still wouldn’t vote for it,” Zeyna said. “But I’d ask what kind before I argued against it.” Under her original heading, she drew two columns: What practice can do and What students need. The boxed objection went between them. When Harlan reached for the notebook, she slid it toward him with the unfinished page open.