This past week, all students and teachers enjoyed time away from the walls of Marblehead High School. Some embarked on vacations with their families, while others opted for a “staycation” at home. The general consensus among all, however, was that we really needed a break.
It’s customary for teachers to schedule tests on the days leading up to school vacations. As we wrap up a given unit, they want to test us on the information we have covered before we have the chance to forget it during our time off. As a result, every school vacation is preceded by several days of stress and very little sleep for students. The one silver lining is that we have a week of relaxation to look forward to.
So we study for our tests and we write our essays, and we keep ourselves going with the knowledge that it will be over soon. Because we understand that if we want to do well in school, we are required to invest time and effort into our classes. It is what many of us do all year. So, finally, we make it to the last day before vacation. And in the last minutes of each class, as we wait for the bell to ring, our teachers tell us that those essays we’ve just written and those tests we’ve just taken were not the last of the week; we now have more essays to do over break, and more tests scheduled in the days immediately after. School doesn’t end over February Break.
We spend much of our lives worrying: worrying about our next exam, about whether we will get into college, about how we will finish all of our work on time, about what we will do with the rest of our lives. We worry, worry, worry, and we continually gain new things to worry about every day; that’s just life. But sometimes, we need life to stop for a few days. We need some time to forget about everything that causes us stress on every other day and choose to enjoy ourselves instead. We need to be able to sit and talk for an hour after dinner without running off to fulfill some obligation, to spend all day in our pajamas watching terrible television, to take a nap without worrying about how it will offset our sleep schedule, to just live.
Several studies have proven that periodic mental breaks are not merely a luxury, but a necessity. According to the Framingham Heart Study, working men who do not take an annual vacation are 32 times more likely to die from a heart attack, while women who do not take a break from work for six or more years are eight times more likely to get heart disease. The State University of New York at Oswego reported that men who go on annual vacations are 20 percent less likely to die of any cause. And, according to Shannon Torberg, a psychologist at Allina Health Annandale Clinic, those who take time away from their work enjoy improved physical and mental health, better relationships with those around them, a decreased tendency to experience burnout, and a greater overall well-being. If all of this information applies to adults, why would it not hold true for students as well? Why are students denied the ability to enjoy a week during which they can isolate themselves entirely from school-related responsibilities?
I fully acknowledge that, as students, we have 180 days during which we are expected to turn up every day to school and complete the work we are assigned. These responsibilities mirror those that we will eventually adopt when we enter the workforce as adults. Additionally, particularly in AP classes at Marblehead High School, there is a certain amount of information that all students must absorb if we want to do well on our exams at the end of the year. Still, all people, students and adults alike, deserve and need pure, unobstructed breaks every once in a while.
Instead, we spend our last few days of break hurriedly completing our homework and studying for our upcoming tests. We are forced to return to our mundane realities too early. And as we walk back into school on Monday morning, we remark to our friends that the week passed way too quickly, and that it didn’t really feel like a break; because it wasn’t. I am entirely willing to invest all of my effort completing every assignment I am given during the school year. I appreciate my privilege of education, and I often enjoy learning about the topics covered in my classes. But I do not believe that a good education is inevitably accompanied by perpetual schoolwork. What I do believe is that a good and healthy life must include a little bit of time each year for a complete absence of responsibilities, obligations, requirements, and deadlines. Immediately when we return from vacation, teachers should be free to assign whatever work they would like us to complete. Until then, give us a break.