Returning from Thanksgiving Break, students face the busiest three weeks of their school year. During the time between Thanksgiving and Winter Break, more testing takes place, grades become finalized and stress is increased.

Unfortunately, many begin to lose motivation to do well on assignments, exams and daily work. This motivation is lost because many get relaxed on the previous break, forgetting about the stress of school. But once school starts back up, students are hit with what feels like a brick wall. Yearning for the next break from school, students in all grades begin to suffer.

Returning to school after a prolonged break or even a weekend break feels incredibly draining on many of the students because they have to get back on the routine of waking up early, and getting ready for an eight hour day of sitting and retaining knowledge. Unfortunately, this brings a tidal wave that sweeps away all the motivation students have. This lack of motivation is the result of getting a taste of freedom and that freedom is not having to go to school or do excess work at home.

With the lack of motivation, effort in work takes a drastic downfall and from this students in all grades stop caring as much about the tests they need to take or the homework they need to do on a Wednesday night.

The combination of minimal effort and lack of motivation creates a tornado that destroys a grade in every aspect.

The reason for this cut back of effort is because students want a break. Students in all grades want to go a span of time without needing to worry about having a test to study for or a number of pages to read at night for a history class. Students also want time to spend for themselves instead of mainly focusing on school, so they look forward to the weekend breaks they have.

Sadly, these factors feeds into the not caring. It’s when a student laughs about getting a bad grade instead of freaking out. It’s when a late assignment is shrugged off or the passing grade is all someone settles for. That’s not caring and it doesn’t just have an effect on students. Not caring also affects parents and teachers.

Teachers have to deal with half hearted late work and nag at students until they turn in their assignment. Other teachers handle late work by just having the student take the fall. Parents want to push their kids to excel in classes, but when their kid suddenly doesn’t care, parents begin to worry.

Unfortunately, not caring is not an excuse because in the long run, students will need that GPA if they want to get a shot at their dream college. Students will need to retain the information they learn when they study for a test or or just their weekly check for learning. Without the effort, for students it just feels hard to sit in a class because they feel like they can do something else with their time.  

So to resolve, distractions are created to curve around the issue. Students may turn to electronics such as phones or computers to keep themselves occupied because a Netflix show is probably more entertaining than listening to a teacher talk about math equations.

This issue of distraction helps tie together the decline of hope towards school creating an issue that may turn into a habit for some. And because only half of the school year has been completed, students will still need to truck through more months of learning and work.

Unfortunately, for students, working through feels a lot harder than giving up and accepting the late assignment.