OPINIONS
Is summer reading really necessary?
YES!
Do you find value in summer reading?
BY: HANNAH EDELHEIT Web Editor
It’s August and everybody is preparing for the upcoming school year. Summer reading is usually the last thing on students’ minds, except when it is the first day of school. Right about this time, is when everybody starts to use Sparknotes to at least do well on the school wide summer reading quiz. Now I know I may seem like a total nerd for liking summer reading, but I find it beneficial because it allows you to actually read something that provokes your thoughts. I also find it fun because it gives you something to focus on over the summer; in fact, if I don’t read I get super bored over the summer. These summer reading books are also a good introduction to the class that you are taking. This also allows you to practice your reading skills over the summer. I understand that people are going to say that the books can be boring and confusing and a total waste of time, but if you can actually sit down and really read the book it enables you to start to think about things in your own life. According the American Library Association, summer reading is beneficial because it helps children retain and use skills they learned in the year before. Summer reading also enables critical thinking skills and strengthens their reading skills. If we don’t read over the summer, it can be detrimental. According to Homeroom, the blog for the U.S. Department of Education, there is a developmental loss when kids are not reading. This “summer slide” can affect kids later in life and impact their reading abilities as they become more advanced in the schools
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TOTAL POLLED: 228
Yes: 22% No: 78%
system. This can even further the achievement gap between different classes of people. Summer reading is vital to keep the mind working because it keeps it thinking and retaining. This comes back to my point about how summer reading keeps kids from getting bored. The books are also usually easy to follow and enable kids to actually read something. I know these books enable me to start thinking about school. My favorite book so far has been “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton because it was really interesting. It also opened up my eyes to a different world because the book was written in a different perspective than my own. These summer reading books are super valuable and enable students to see different worlds that will widen their perspectives and enable them to step into someone else’s shoes. “Reading is really an important part of understanding language and culture,” English Teacher Joel Morris said. “I think the point of summer reading is to keep that brain muscle working over a long break,” said Morris. These books are chosen through a process of thinking what would be interesting, accessible, and appropriate. Sadly, the English teachers can’t just choose any book as it needs to meet these standards. They also try to make sure that the books are shorter and not super long so they are easier to read. Because summer reading enables cultural gain, better critical thinking, and better reading skills, it is beneficial for people to read the books. It’s only a couple days of reading, really, that’ll help you a lot.
Summer reading is vital to keep the mind working because it keeps it thinking and retaining.
Summer should be a time for relaxation and fun, not stress and forced reading.
NO!
BY: J. GINSBERG-MARGO Opinion Editor
What do you do during your summer break? You know, the few months we students get away from the seemingly endless days of school? Some go away to exotic places, others chill in their houses. Some play video games, other go outside everyday to enjoy the warm weather and beautiful sky. But the one thing that never excites a student on any of their breaks is homework. Homework, by school policy, is not given to students during winter, fall or spring break. So why is it okay to give students work during summer break? Short answer, it’s not, Long answer, it shouldn’t be. Summer reading is a hotly debated topic within the student body. Some like it and others despise it. But let’s be honest, it’s the worst. I would rather spend the day throwing a ball around with my father, or leaving the house for hours only to return when the sun goes down at 8 pm, only to stay up till 3 am the next morning binging my favorite show, Blue Bloods. Then after a relaxing weeks, I get reminded by some obscure word that I got a book forced upon me to read. Not to mention that none of the books are interesting. A Separate Peace? That book can be summed up in 16 words: Two kids mess around at a boarding school, one gets jealous and the other one dies. Even some teachers agree that summer reading is too much. In an article from Education Week, teachers express ideas such as mandatory outside play time, or rather than having mandatory reading help to encourage reading on students own time. Others
consider summer homework and reading an overreach of schools into students lives. None of the books ever explore anything but the monotony of the human experience. Books like “A Separate Peace” or “Cry, The Beloved Country” tend towards a disengaging narrative, and complicated writing styles. None of the books contain humor, action, romance, or any of the things that make books so successful. Books like Percy Jackson, The Dark Tower, and Ifunny are interesting because of their unique premise and well-developed story lines. Even more obscure books like The Inquisitor’s Tale and Ready Player One have done well because of their narratives and story, not in spite of it. If students can’t read good, interesting books, then why force students to read over the summer at all? Why is it so important that students spend their summer doing something that they do not want to do and does not help them. It is stressful to think that even though you are on a long awaited break from the slow march of school, you have to prepare strenuously for the next year. It is stressful to think that for the first week of school you will have a test. Now, more than ever relaxation, and stress-free time for students is important. Putting students in stressful situations all year round won’t encourage learning nor a love for furthering their knowledge, but rather stifle anyone who wanted to spend their summer learning a new skill or simply enjoying themselves for a few weeks a year. Summer should be a time for relaxation and fun, not stress and forced reading. May 2019
OPINIONS
STAFF EDITORIAL If we haven’t made it clear already, this year has been a mess. It’s been emotional and overwhelming and, quite honestly, very difficult to understand. We’ve talked through a lot about the events that have occured in the past few months and have begged the question: What can we do? Firstly wrapping our head around everything is difficult as it is, then trying to distinguish what needs to be changed seems impossible. What we do know is some concrete change needs to happen. To begin, we would like to acknowledge that although there are tragedies happening with our community, the administration isn’t really responsible. We are thankful for their efforts to enact change and for their open-minded communication with the student body. Although it’s difficult to devise concrete ideas and plans we have a couple suggestions: •
•
We, along with other students, appreciated the relaxed curriculum day that we had on April 5. We believe that having a monthly or quarterly “mental health”/study day would be beneficial for our mental health. We also felt like the assembly brought a sense of uni-
ty and was a good start to a schoolwide mental health conversation. We feel that periodic assemblies addressing the mental climate of our school would be helpful. However, we would also like to note that mental health is a fragile subject and leaders of the assemblies should be considerate of triggers.
It’s been emotional and overwhelming and, quite honestly, very difficult to understand. •
We want to acknowledge that if there were indeed periodic assemblies, many students would not attend. We were thinking of ways in which we could immerse students in mental health awareness and education by hav-
ing some sort of a Mental Health Week similar to our Homecoming Spirit Weeks and Power Weeks. We feel this would be a great way to start a conversation as well as promote teamwork and unity. • Along with all these things, we believe that as an education institution, education about mental health should be placed at the forefront. We need more discussion about mental health in health classes as well as within regular classes. We need more staff trained in dealing with mental health that have the tools to help students who are struggling (and to lessen the workload for our pre existing staff). We need more basic training for non-mental health professionals (teachers) about mental health. Mental health in general has lagged behind in research and treatment and we feel that now is the time to start pioneering research and implementation. We understand how big of a job handling the mental health of an entire school is, but we are ready to start making the changes that will better our school.
Dear me: revisiting my freshman letter BY: HARPER HANSON Staff Writer
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
LETTER FROM THE PAST: Each freshman, in their Creek 101 class, is instructed to write a letter to their senior selves. The letters allow the seniors to rediscover a younger version of themselves and reflect on how they’ve changed, or not. I sat on the ski bench outside of the IC Cafeteria holding an envelope with little mandalas drawn in each of its corners. I sat there for what seemed like hours, debating if I should actually open it, and after a long era of indecisiveness I opened it with shaking hands. Four years later, full of highs and lows, I opened the envelope that my ninth grade self wrote to my senior self. What I expected to read was very different from the words I had written, and the last thing I expected to do was cry. What I imagined to be this naive and immature little girl was wise and elegant with the words she chose. She was brave and poised, something that I have never given myself credit for until now. Although I have finished my four years of high school, I will not be graduating. Because I missed so much school for treatment for my OCD and chronic pain syndrome, I do not have the credit I need in order to graduate on time, and instead of taking an extra year to finish high school, I have decided to get my GED and move on with my life. I went into reading this letter worried that I would leave feeling disappointed in not achieving my dreams of going to college right after high school, but instead I wrote something that I never would have expected. I wished for myself to be happy. I wished for my self to take time to myself and enjoy life, even if that meant not going to college. In a way, it made me sad. Sad to think that life had already worn me down so much, that instead of being excited May 2019
for what I may achieve oneday, I was just hoping I had found some peace. I had said, “I hope you go to school or maybe take a year of and enjoy time to yourself,” and I think my younger self would be glad to hear that although I have not found peace in all aspects of my life, I am much happier than I used to be. I am also proud. This young version of myself had already endured so much and was not oblivious to the fact that she would endure so much more. I wrote to myself, “I hope there is not too much that has happened you in highschool, but understanding my life, something will,” and although I have been through a plethora of events in the past four years, I praise my younger self for standing with her head held tall and her heart still capable of love. There is a poem titled “Invictus” in which William Ernest Henley states, “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.” I feel this stanza encaptures my high school career and encompasses how I view my freshman self: so very strong. Sometimes the things I wrote gave me the reminder that at age 15 I was not all mature and hardened by the world. In fact, I had a pretty good sense of humor. I dreamed of going into the medical field, and I even have the same favorite movie as my freshman self (Short Term 12). But
what shocked me most was not the movie or the my dream career, it was that the people I loved most then are the same people I love the most now. These are the people who have stuck with me through it all and I could not be more thankful. I was never a troublemaker, but I think I was expecting my calm personality to drastically change when I entered high school. I even wrote, “Please stay out of trouble and I hope I did during high school,” and I think she would be happy to hear that I am probably even less troublesome than I was in middle school. Although the tone in my letter was serious and earnest, I was also reminded that I was still a kid, a kid who was funny and hopeful, a kid who only had one dream: making their future self proud. My years in high school have not been easy, I have dealt with many bad times, but also many good, and I wrote to myself, “Just take time to look back at the good times, and the bad, but remember that the world is a beautiful place and no matter what happens, I am proud of you and I think you are a miraculous person.” So freshman self, as I look back on these memories, the good and the bad, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for hanging in there, I want to thank you for the bravest thing you ever did. Thank you for continuing to live.
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