Picture a student that is sitting in class and can’t concentrate. Now they are getting yelled at because they aren’t focused. But wait! There’s a solution. Chew some gum! Gum can actually benefit students in many ways.

See there’s something you may not know about chewing gum. That is, that chewing gum improves memory. In March of 2000, Japanese researchers showed that brain activity in the hippocampus, an area important for memory, increases while people chew gum. Studies have also shown that gum chewers scores were 24% higher than the controls on tests of immediate word recall. This means that chewing gum can benefit students on tests.

There are some other benefits too. Chewing sugar free gum has been proven to improve oral health. It produces saliva which helps fight tooth decay. In addition to that chewing sugar-free gum after eating is clinically proven by the ADA (American Dental Association) to be an important part of good oral health. Plus mint gum will make everyone's breath smell better. We all know that most people don’t like the smell of bad breath. So now while we are improving our memory we are also improving our oral health.

Now, there is the issue of kids putting gum under desks, but there is a solution. If kids get caught putting gum under desks make them clean it up. If it happens more than once give them a detention. There is one more way; you could have a day at the end of every trimester for students to go clean up gum around the school. Since most students wouldn’t want to do that they probably wouldn’t put gum everywhere. Now that we’ve resolved that issue there is no reason why gum chewing shouldn’t be allowed in school.

If students were allowed to chew gum it would also make the teacher’s lives easier too. Now they wouldn’t have to yell at kids for chewing gum in class, which disrupts the class and stops the lesson. With so many good reasons and only one bad reason that can easily be fixed, what’s the harm in allowing gum in school?