Winter Break is one of the most awaited events of the school year, beat only by Spring Break, field trips and Graduation day. It offers everyone a chance to catch up on sleep, relax and get work done from school. Students get time to focus on something that isn’t school or sports and have family celebrations.
While it is amazing to finally get your eight or more hours of sleep, there’s one event towards the end of the break that seems to ruin it all: New Year’s Eve. On this night many people regularly stay up past midnight, diminishing all of the sleep made up in the days prior. Then, just a day later, break is over. Many people feel it’s too much of an abrupt ending to such a relaxing break, so should our winter break be longer?
Sophomore Brendan Campion thinks it should. More importantly, rather than leaving school earlier in December, he thinks we should get one more day. Jan. 2 is to recuperate from New Years, so Jan. 3 should be for school prep and classwork.
“I think [additional days] should be at the end, so that way people notice, start getting more sleep, and actually get their homework done. It isn’t New Years Eve, and then [the] jumpscare [of school],” Campion said.
With the current break as is, it often feels like you don’t have enough time to build back up your energy. As is, you have time to sleep, to hang out with your friends, but those one or two days more would do wonders to rejuvenate you and get you back in the saddle.
“I was very tired on the first day of school, so I wasn’t really doing my best. I wasn’t able to pay attention as much,” Campion said.
If students are returning to school more tired than they left, then what purpose does it achieve?
As things stand, we have a two-month summer break, which is more than enough time to lose all of the momentum of the previous year. Winter and spring breaks are barely enough to recharge student batteries.
“One of the challenges of having a winter break is that we lose a lot of momentum in our instruction and classroom, so a longer winter break might make it harder to regain that momentum for students. But I also appreciate that it is beneficial to have a longer break for the sake of travel and family,” English teacher, Kyle Townsend, told The Fanscotian.
While the extra day of Winter Break might require the sacrifice of a day or two of summer break, the summer vacation is long enough. Also, students who need that one extra day to get ready for school, will benefit immensely.
“I would rather have a longer winter break than summer. It would be a nice adjustment, to get more family time. It would be pretty awesome if we can have an extended break to accommodate some family concerns and get more time to prepare for the school year,” Townsend said.
