STUDIES OUT FOR THE SUMMER

Summer Homework Should Be Given During Summer Break

BY JULIA LUCK

What time is it? Summertime. School’s out, scream and shout. Finally summer’s here. Good to be chillin’ out. I’m off the clock, the pressure’s off.” These lyrics from Disney’s High School Musical have the aspect of summer all wrong. Instead of having fun and going to the beach with friends, summer is bombarded with loads of summer homework. Instead of the “pressure being off,” students still have stress on their mind.

During this current school year, 75% of teens reported that they experienced major amounts of stress and on a 10 point scale, teens had an average stress rate of 5.8. The normal stress rate should be closer to a 3.8. Students need summer break to decompress from the school year; however, summer homework is not letting students do this. Teens get so overwhelmed with all of their summer homework, that they end up being just as stressed as they were during the school year. Instead, they should be relaxing and having fun.

The reason why schools claim that they distribute summer homework is because they do not want students to forget all of the information that they learned during the year. But, what schools don’t factor into that logic is that in order for students to retain information, they need to be motivated and engaged. Students are so burned out from the school year, that by summer time they do not want to think about school work.

“It is very time consuming,” sophomore Suzanne Beshears said. “It stresses me out before school starts and I hate feeling stressed.”

In summer movies and television shows, students are portrayed as having fun and enjoying their summer. This idea of summer is engrained in teens’ minds. Once summer work is thrown into their schedule, all motivation is lost mainly because summer work is not and should not be the main focus of summer. Due to this, students are not learning anything and not retaining any information. So, by the time they are back in school, they will not remember anything and the summer homework served no purpose. Moreover, first impressions on teachers are extremely important. This is how teachers will see and think of a student for the rest of the year. If students do not have the motivation and drive to do their best work over the summer, teachers might think the student is lazy or not a good student. This may negatively impact the remainder of the school year. Instead, teachers should only focus on the work turned in during the academic school year when the student is most focused. Many students spend the majority of their time on academics during the school year. They are unfortunately left with little to no time for sports, internships or activities that involve their passion. When universities accept students into their programs, they look for a well-rounded student. Universities want to see that a student has devoted a significant amount of time towards something they are passionate about, not just academics. The summer allows students to do just this. They can intern or volunteer in a field they may pursuing once they graduated college. sports is the student’s passion, they may want to join a summer travel league that allows them to compete at a national level and further their sports journey. They could even travel the world if that is what they love to do. The dreaded summer work only hinders students’ capabilities to experience these extracurricular activities that are essential for college acceptances. If a student doesn’t need to worry about their summer work, they can focus on any of their passions over the summer.

Some would argue that summer work keeps students engaged throughout the summer so that they can begin the school year strong and ready to learn. This is not the case, however, because students did not get any down time to decompress. Instead of coming to school ready to learn after a relaxing summer, they are starting the school year tired and not wanting to do their school work. Unless a student is struggling in a subject, students should not get any required summer work. Teachers should post optional work if a student struggled in