This year students were given a week off for Thanksgiving break rather than the usual three days. While this extension does provide more time to spend with family and to relax, it also leads to a loss of learning time heading into finals week.
The addition of the extra two days takes away from the time students will be able to spend in the classroom. This causes teachers to have fewer days to teach students new material and less time for students to review with their teacher. With a whole week off, students will be on their own in terms of studying as compared to structured review and learning during a typical school day. This lack of structure will prove detrimental as many students need structured study time in order to retain information and apply it.
While some students may take the time to study over the break for their upcoming exams, a large portion of students will not. The week-long break will cause many students not to take advantage of the time and instead resort to cramming closer to final exams.
According to “Cramming: Why It’s Ineffective & Should Be Avoided” by stanford.edu, “… such behavior should be broken because it is ineffective and could even pose a hazard to one’s health. It goes without saying that cramming places too much stress onto the brain, pushing it beyond its limits.”
Due to the added stress from cramming, many students will come back from the week-long break feeling stressed as they begin to cram for finals. Realizing the amount of time they have before finals week. With structured learning time in the classroom, students will not have to cram and can thus retain information for their final exams.
The extension of the Thanksgiving break not only affects students but also teachers as they need to adjust their lesson plans to fit the new schedule. This adjustment did cause some lessons to be cut out of the normal teaching plan, according to Social Studies teacher Casandra Parada.
“I didn’t realize that it was going to be compressed until this week coming back knowing that I had to squeeze a lot more in because we lost those two days,” Parada said. “I had to cut a couple of lessons out while still trying to get through the curriculum.”
However, Parada also argues the need for having a break during the fall time to ease students’ stress as they head into finals.
“I think we needed a break at some point this year,” Parada said. “I know some districts give an October break, so that might be something that we could look into or benefit from versus Thanksgiving break.”
A week off school for Thanksgiving break may feel like a relief for students in the moment, but considering the repercussions it could have on a students’ academic performance during their finals week, the break should not be a full week.