Natalie Le (284)

Are summer assignments more tedious and time consuming than beneficial, or are they essential to acing our courses? The question on the importance of the summer assignments is answered with clashing opinions from both teachers and students. Helpfulness, time consumption, and relevance are all factors that contribute to the strengths and weaknesses of summer assignments. Although these assignments are mandatory, there is no unified consensus between students and teachers on whether they are helpful to the school year or burdensome for our summer breaks. 

Based on interviews and surveys, it has been revealed that while summer assignments can be a good refresher; the workload and task of learning new subjects individually is the driving force for student’s dislike for them. Students argue that the overall motivation to complete the work is depleted by the large amount assigned. Ketevan Kobakhidze (284) described summer assignments as “almost a constant nagging feeling at the back of [her] mind,” expressing the feelings of stress that trumped her attempts to relax during the break. Most students agree that the work and activities they are responsible for create a hectic summer that lacks the feeling of a true break. The constant worry of work affects balancing life outside of school. During the summer, many students have trips, internships, or jobs that take up most of their time capacity during the day. John Liu (283) relayed that “self-teaching while balancing [his] job was terrible,” and Ketevan Kobakhidze (284) shared that it “stopped [her] from spending some time with [her] family and friends.” Among the understood responsibilities of school, it still seemed that when effort was put into the assignments, it often proved to yield few benefits. Its material was soon forgotten and many times only proved helpful in a single assessment. For Ian Sellers (285), the work didn’t aid his learning in his new classes and he “just used them in the first week.” In spite of the general dislike of the assignments, it does not seem that students are totally against doing the summer work. It is only the lack of usefulness in many classes throughout the year and the large amount of time they take to complete that have earned summer work its reputation of being a burdensome task to complete over break. 

On the other hand, our teachers believe that summer assignments are indeed helpful and vital to class structure. Oftentimes, students are not on the same learning level, and summer assignments may allow a better basic understanding of their student’s capabilities, giving them a better guideline to work off of. According to Mr. Meinhart, the long hours of these assignments are necessary because “if it is meant to teach you something, it is going to take time and effort.” Though there may be stress in the obligation of summer assignments, it does have benefits for the classroom environment. Mrs. Rendsburg states these assignments allow students “to have something to talk about at the start of the school year—to build community within the grade bands,” pointing to the positive effects such as fostering a stronger culture of education and jump-starting classes for an easy transition into lessons to come. Generally, teachers have a positive outlook on summer assignments as they can keep students active in the summer and create a baseline for students. 

The summer assignments have vastly different perspectives from both teachers and students. While teachers agree that these assignments provide a necessary basis to start the year, students believe that the assigned work would be unnecessary to start the year. Despite the many groans and sighs that are heard when summer assignments are mentioned, it seems that teachers as well as administration will continue the tradition for its educational benefits. As Mr. Meinhart puts it, “summer work is here to stay.”