When the school year comes to an end, you would expect students to be ecstatic. With the warm summer months getting so close it should be the most exciting time of the year. However, this is not the case. The end of the school year means the end of the term. The end of the term is the worst two weeks of every student’s life.
As the days get longer, and the warmth of an upcoming summer is in the air, students start to anticipate sleeping in and staying out late. Unfortunately, this is not the time to daydream.
The last couple weeks of the school year are often made out to be a careless prelude into the warm summer months, however this is not the case. The end of the school year is one of the most hectic months of the entire year for many students.
The feeling of summer suddenly begins to fade as deadlines set in. Teachers begin to lose patience and students lose motivation at the worst time. Teachers are ready to be done and want to close up all of their assignments before the final exams.
Students are suddenly reminded that it is time to stop procrastinating and kick into fourth gear. This creates a sense of urgency that makes it very difficult to manage priorities at the end of the year.
Along with all of the school stuff, extracurricular activities such as sports teams, clubs, and part-time jobs become much more demanding. These responsibilities can fiercely compete with the little time that students have available. This often leads to feeling overwhelmed and stressed out.
Along with all of the final exams in classes that end up determining grades, come AP tests. AP tests are extremely demanding and require a lot of studying. Students work so hard all year to keep up in these college level classes before the big test rolls around.
Kids will stay up all night trying to pass these tests because many feel that they wasted time taking the class if they don’t pass the test. This causes a lot of stress, and demands so much extra time.
At this time it is also easy to procrastinate. Everyone is counting down the days to when they can start to miss class and teachers stop taking attendance. At this point kids become lazy and stop turning in assignments and everything starts to pile up.
The end of the year should be super fun for everyone. It should be a time to celebrate the school year and get ready for the summer. This is why there should be more free time at the end of the year so that kids have time to study and stay on top of their work.
This way, instead of spending the last two weeks stressed out, students can participate in all the festivities celebrating the year’s end. This will also encourage the students to keep coming to school at the end of the year so they can celebrate with their friends.
The end of the year needs to have a new feel to it. This should be a time of celebration and fun. Rather than tests, and assignments kids should have time to relax and focus on more positive things and finishing the year.
