Stress, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary can be defined as “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.” Stress is also something that could be defined as what every teenage student feels, whether from school or at home. In the past, schools typically haven’t done anything to help students with their stress, until now. Recently, a new experiment has been added to the RIH district called Wellness Weekends. Wellness Weekends are meant to relieve students stress by “no homework and no tests or assessments on the following Monday.”  However, the school may be trying to ease our minds, what they have failed to see is that by enforcing Wellness Weekends onto the students and teachers they are only increasing and even creating the amount of stress students have to deal with.

Most students I know, as well as myself, have never really experienced a “work free weekend.” Even if teachers do not assign homework for the weekend, students are still reviewing notes from class or preparing for a test that hasn’t been given yet. Since, The workload that is put on students these days is very overwhelming, pushing everything back until Tuesday will only make things more hectic. Now, since assignments will be due after the weekend, student’s will not only have the work from over the weekend to complete, but also the work assigned on Monday nights as well.  This takes away from the purpose of Wellness Weekends, by adding even more stress for the students.

“Wellness weekend is great until you realize that the Tuesday you get back to school you have 3 tests, a book to finish and all the homework that was absent during the so called ‘stress free weekend.’” –Anonymous Student

An experience that I have had with Wellness Weekends was from the last one that was put into effect. Before Wellness Weekends, our class was assigned a 20-page reading that was due after the weekend. When our class brought to the attention of our teacher that that weekend was a Wellness Weekend, all our teacher did was push back the due date of the reading from a Monday to a Tuesday. This happened with not just one, but also all of my classes, which resulted in more work piling up for Tuesday. These probably were not the schools intentions however something still needs to be done about the effects of Wellness Weekends.

“The wellness weekend over thanksgiving was all fun and games UNTIL the Tuesday on which we came back. That Tuesday, which brought on more tests, quizzes, and stress than I have ever seen in the duration of my 16 years. Here's a notion, instead of pushing work back, why not assign less work for the average 7-8 classes a student has each week. School board officials should take the focus off of grades and place it onto the actual learning process in classes, WHICH is undermined when grades are given priority over learning.” –Anonymous Student

What this student is trying to get across is that the schools board should not even be focused pushing work back but they should be more focused on giving less work, which most people agree with. School isn’t meant mainly for grades, its focus is to teach students and help them learn new things. So what should really be happening is less work for each class so that students can focus more on the learning aspect of school, not “getting A’s on tests and quizzes.”

Stress is inevitable if you are a teenager. Even if not from school, probably from something else, like self esteem or peer pressure. School stress, however, can be easily manageable. And while the school knows this, what they don’t know is how to manage it. The way they try and control the situation is not effective in any way, shape or form. We will always have work in school no matter what. While the school may be trying to help us by stopping all work for a weekend, what they don’t know is that most of us will always still have some work to do no matter what the case is. So what the school needs to do is focus less on getting rid of homework, and focus more on making sure the teachers give us LESS homework.