The week before breaks: Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

Every year, students are blessed with the opportunity to hear the hallelujah chorus of bells, welcoming them into a break from the daily grind with arms open wide. They charge out school doors to let the sun kiss their neglected skin, birds compose a song for the “listening ears” of studious pupils and swift breezes prying open the tired eyes of late study nights. Oh… wait. What’s that you say? We still have a week of school left?

When there’s only one week between you and the sweet bliss of a lengthened mental stretch, everything is heightened, including the work load. Somehow, it seems all of the tests, homework assignments and projects that could have been nicely distributed over the entire quarter are stocked into the one week your mind is more likely to be found tanning in the Caribbean than fawning over that letter x’s true identity. So what do you get when you mix over 2,000 teenagers and a moderately heavy workload? Complaints. Complaints, complaints, complaints.

We all hear it as we trudge on to our next class:

“OMG. I have so much work this week! Why does Mr./Mrs. [insert name here] cram everything from the entire year until the week before break?! We could have done it so much earlier!”

But in reality, could you really have done the work earlier? Since when have high schoolers ever done work sooner rather than later? In short, never. Procrastination is our best friend. It’s almost every human being’s best friend. As such, even if we had been assigned the work earlier, it probably wouldn’t have gotten done earlier, and even if it had, let’s face it… We’d still complain about our workload.

I say we cut our teachers some slack. They have lives too, ya know, and they work hard all year to invest in your education. So who cares if they have to put a little extra into the last week before break? In reality, it’s for your own good. More work before break means A) you don’t forget everything you learned before you’re tested on it, and B) you spent more time on specific subjects that the class wasn’t catching onto earlier in the quarter. Either way, you’ll thank them later. How about instead of complaining this year, we appreciate the cramming that occurs at the end of the quarter as proof that your teachers are educating you and looking out for your academic well-being? If you ask me, it’d make for a much more relaxing, enjoyable week before break.