It is the first day of school. You walk into your first class fresh off summer break. You haven’t used your brain in months and you are looking to ease into things and then–BAM!– you have two tests, three projects and more hours of homework than you can count. You just wanted a chill day to get back into the school year but for whatever reason that can’t happen.
Teachers should give us a grace period in order for students to get used to being back in school. The beginning of school can be stressful enough with finding your classes, getting to know your teachers, figuring out your schedule and getting back into a healthy routine. We don’t need three tests and who knows how many hours of homework on top of that.
I know that teachers think that the school year is so short, so they feel the need to get into the material right away when we come back from school, but can we just take a few days to chill out and get our brains back into “school mode.”
According to the Education Resources Information Center, “When students return to school after the summer break, teachers need to re-teach previously taught material. The academic loss may result in achievement gaps that widen each year for students.” So when students get back to school, teachers shouldn’t throw a test on them that incorporates new material right away. Instead teachers should spend a few days reteaching material that was taught last year instead of giving a test on new material right away.
I strongly believe that giving a student work right away not only makes them more stressed at the start of the school year, but makes them struggle more than they need to when it comes to academics. Is it really going to hurt to use three to four class periods just getting back into the swing of things? There are plenty more class periods to get all of the material done.
