Summer: A Time to Relax

It isn't summer yet.

But it's close.

Today marked one of the many days in the spring of the school year when teachers and students alike simply can't bring themselves to focus the way that they could in the fall. Some of it seems rather pointless at this point; most of the material has been learned and will shortly be forgotten over the months of July and August. Seniors are graduating and want to focus more on preserving their friendships and eagerly anticipating the future. Underclassmen are counting down the days until summer when they can take a break from high school before beginning the drudgery again in the fall. And the teachers are just as anxious for a break as anyone else.

Then there is the weather. I've heard rumors that there are air-conditioned schools in the south, but in the north, we suffer through the months of May, June, and September. It is hot and sticky and the entire school begins to smell. The windows are dirty but we can still catch a glimpse of pure blue sky and brilliant sun taunting us as we sit in the fluorescent lighting of the classroom. Some teachers are kind enough, or unfocused enough themselves, to take us outside for a breath of fresh air, but we don't get as much as we want: We want the grass and dirt beneath our bare feet and the feeling of having endless time to enjoy the sunshine.

Summer is, in some respects, a miserable season. It is too hot, too sticky, too humid; there are too many bugs waiting to bite you; the overabundance of pollen is a misery for allergy-sufferers; there are too many thunderstorms. But it is also my favorite season. My friends would tell you that I love summer because of my summer camp, which is definitely true, but I have other reasons. Summer is a break from school. And I don't believe that anyone but a current student could really understand why a break is so necessary.

When my parents were young, they didn't have a bunch of after school clubs. My dad was in sports, but my mom went home and played with the other kids in her neighborhood. On the contrary, I am involved in at least 7 extracurricular activities per week at any given time, and I don't even do sports. I have hours of homework every night (I am in Advanced Placement classes, and the AP tests are over. Hence, not as much homework at the tail end of school, and I have enough time to blog.). On a normal school day, I wake up at 5 am. I live in a regional school district, and I have to get up that early in order to get to school on time. School ends at 2:20pm, and extracurricular activities normally prevent me from getting home until 6 pm at the earliest. I start my homework immediately. My family eats dinner together, and that eats up (pun intended) at least a half hour of my time, if I don't help with the dishes. By the time I finish my homework on an average night, it is 11:30pm. On a night when I have a test or an essay or a project due the next day, I sometimes don't get to bed until 1 am or even 2 am. That means that, on average, I get anywhere from 6.5 hours of sleep to 3 hours of sleep. Experts say that most teenagers need 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night.

Modern school, with the pressures of standardized testing and college admissions, zaps students of energy. It is terribly important to have a long summer break in order to recharge and regain our enthusiasm for learning. When I hear politicians proclaim that America should have year-long school in order to match up with Asia in math and science scores, I cringe. The politicians, no offense to them, are old. They have no comprehension of what school and its accompanying stress is like these days. They also seem to have forgotten the benefits of summer. American students may have fallen behind in math and science, but we surpass most of the world in innovation (another word for imagination). The skills that we learn without consciously learning them during the summer are much more relevant to life than most of the classes in school. In Europe, businesses recognize the importance of having breaks; Europeans have much more vacation time than American workers. Vacation time is even more important for young people, who tend to have shorter attention spans anyway.

I'm tired. My body has taken a beating this year from stress and exhaustion, two major causes of obesity and other ailments. I'm struggling to stay healthy, but thank God I will soon be able to recover over the summer. I just hope that future students, who will no doubt face higher pressures than I have, will not lose one of the best parts of childhood and a desperately needed break.