The air is warm, the sun is shining, and summer is here. At last, on Memorial Day, school is finally out! We have three months, until Labor Day to be exact, of no homework and no worries. Three blessed months with which to swim, play, and hang out with friends before returning to the deep dark halls of school. I can hardly wait to—HOLD IT! This is not the summer I remember having. I remember getting off in late May with summer assignments and classes hanging over my head and living with the knowledge that I had to return to school in mid-August. The amazing scenario described is summer as it should be. Summer in the days of our parents and grandparents when teachers saw the value of some time off to refocus and refresh, getting time off to truly prepare for the trauma of returning to school.

 In this day and age, summer only remotely resembles those glorious seasons from days past. Even for grade-schoolers, homework of some form over summer vacation is now the norm.  School administrations seem to believe that after three months of a relaxing summer, students would forget everything and the teachers would have to start over again come spring. Our poor brains would just leak everything we learned and make a mess on the carpet. What the same administrations seem to ignore is the benefits that can come from a lack of work to do. Going into a three month period with two books to read and twice as many essays to write is not quite as exhilarating as going into summer without such a dreadful raincloud always hovering around. It is harder to enjoy vacation when you know that going back means a return to the drudgery of homework. By now, a lot of students have jobs and adding homework to the mix is downright outrageous. While many teachers—and parents for that matter—would encourage doing the homework right away to get it out of the way, such a suggestion is preposterous, to say the least. After nine brutal months of school, we cannot be seriously expected to sit on a hard, metal chair and start writing mathematical equations instead of going to the pool. Besides, some good stiff procrastination is what summer is all about.

While teachers have a right to assign books during the school year, summer should be the domain of the students. I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing than reading chapters upon chapters of a book I have little to no desire to read. Teachers also seem to think that assigning books to read over breaks will cause a miraculous upsurge of reading in students. I’d like to see those statistics. If someone is disinclined to read, making that person read a 150-year-old book will certainly do nothing to change his or her mind. On the other hand, people who already are fond of reading would do better reading material that fits their own personal likes and dislikes rather than the claptrap we are forced to read instead. All of this homework and these assignments are taking away from the magic of summer. It is a season designed for kids to “chill” with their friends and escape from monotonous schedules. Summer homework is not allowing such a beautiful season to make its full effect. Teachers have nine months to drive knowledge into us. All we want is three months to enjoy for ourselves.