Back-To-School Exhaustion
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been experiencing a major form of writer’s block lately. I will literally sit in front of my computer some days and stare at WordPress’s “Add New Post” screen, and nothing will come to me.
Today is no exception. I’ve been staring, searching the internet for ideas, and… nothing.
I think a lot of it has to do with simple back-to-school exhaustion. After a long break from school, teachers are expected to drop everything and hit the ground running. However, we often ignore a very simple fact: It’s hard to go from zero to 110% in just one day. And that is often what we’re expected to do.
Personally, I’d be all for year-round schooling. Split up these long vacations and give them to us in shorter chunks around the year. It’s no secret that I am done with summer about halfway through the vacation. I start getting restless and bored, and if I don’t find some kind of project or job to do, I start to lose my mind. I get so bored that I can’t handle it anymore, and I start looking for things to fill my time.
I imagine students are the same way. On top of losing up to a month’s worth of information each summer, they get bored. They start getting restless and getting into things they shouldn’t. Sure, lots of students use the time for productive activities, like taking prep classes, doing summer school work for their fall classes, or getting a job, but it seems that just as many students just get bored and restless.
Even my students this past week were just exhausted. Many of them couldn’t keep their eyes open in class. We’re not only asking teachers to go from zero to 110; students are asked the same thing. And, for them, it’s next to impossible. They cannot switch their schedule at the drop of a hat.
Year-round school seems like a great option. We still get our vacations – we’re not actually in school any more than we are now – but the longest break we get would be three or four weeks long. This prevents summer learning loss, and doesn’t allow students or teachers to get into too much of a “summer routine.”
This sounds a lot like complaining about my schedule, though it’s not. I’m mostly just writing about being exhausted because I’m too exhausted to write about anything else, though I am interested in exploring options when it comes to year-round schooling, because it seems like a great way to both help with the issues that come with breaks that are too long and improve our schools.
I’m sure there are a lot of reasons not to do year-round schooling, too, but on the surface, it does seem like the benefits would be numerous. However, I’ve never gone to school year-round, nor have I taught year-round. Have any of you ever had experience with year-round schooling? What are the benefits and drawbacks?
Photo Credit: me