Every school year, around April and March, the student body connects more than usual. For three weeks, instead of typically scrolling on a phone, a conversation will break out instead. During week one, the question is, “What are you doing for Spring Break?” and then during week three, the question that’s always asked is, “How was your Spring Break?” During week two, social media becomes more interesting as everyone posts what exciting things they did or the mistakes that they made. Vacation photos and pictures with friends emerge by the minute, exciting everyone. I love the idea of Spring Break, because the name fits the week so well. The word “break” is a perfect choice, that one week is a major reset button for the majority of the school. I wanted to highlight Spring Break this month, because it resembles the fun moments of high school, and saves student’s mental health from the pressure of third quarter.
I personally asked 56 students whether they would rather stay at home or go travel for Spring Break, and the results were shocking. I didn’t think too much about this question when I first asked it, because I just assumed that it would be an easy choice, and an overwhelming amount of “traveling” votes. I was planning on using this poll to support all the pictures of students on vacation that I received, but instead I was caught off guard.
39 students out of the 56 that I asked told me they would prefer to stay home for Spring Break, leaving only 17 students who would go travel if they had the choice. When I started to see the unexpected trend, I began to ask for an explanation. Students started to tell me that they use Spring Break to catch up on sleep and schoolwork, and to clean rooms and backpacks in preparation for the fourth quarter. During these conversations, people that I wasn’t close to ranted to me about the stress of school, and how hard their classes are. One student told me that, “I used Spring Break to just sit in my bed and recharge, I don’t know how people can drop everything to go on vacation in the middle of the year.”
This poll did not cover the entire student body of C. Milton Wright, but just from those 56 kids, I realized how stressed out my school is, and how important Spring Break is for them. Even though it only lasts one week, it gives the hard workers a chance to fuel up again and finish the school year off strong.
