Summer school work should be optional

More stories from Nat Tilahun

Students are forced to work during their break instead of resting.Many classes assign work that is due at the very beginning of the school year. Photo courtesy of pixabay user Hermann.

Students are forced to work during their break instead of resting.Many classes assign work that is due at the very beginning of the school year. Photo courtesy of pixabay user Hermann.

Summer homework goes against the purpose of summer and for many students, starts the school year on a bad note. The purpose of summer is to give students a break from schoolwork in order for them to come back to school refreshed and ready to get back to work. Thus, assigning summer work defeats the purpose of said break.

Of course, summer work is useful in keeping students’ minds sharp during the long break when it’s easy to forget a lot of what is learned throughout the school year. Though supposedly keeping students’ minds sharp, making summer work graded as the first assignments of the school year, makes the work less of a tool to keep students ready for school; instead becoming another tedious hoop to jump through.

Many students don’t complete summer work until the day before it’s due, forcing students to begin the school year already behind the eight ball. Everyone knows how crucial a good start is and how much it can affect a student’s mentality going into the school year. A bad start to a quarter can bring hardship, and I recommend taking any efforts to help students not have to face that difficulty.  

The beginning of the school year is already stressful enough for most students. For freshmen it’s their first time going to high school, for juniors it’s their most rigorous course load yet, and for seniors it’s college app season.

In order to avoid all this chaos, a simple compromise would be to make the summer work optional. This way, students still have the resource available if they choose to use them but are not facing a harsh penalty if they don’t.                                       

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