Have you ever seen the movie “Big Fat Liar”? You know, the one with Frankie Munoz and Amanda Bynes, where Frankie doesn’t turn in his term paper on time and, as punishment, is forced to attend summer school to make up for the lost credits?
He ends up traveling halfway across the country to Hollywood just to prove that his paper was stolen so he can avoid having to go to the supposedly treacherous summer school.
My question is this: What’s the big deal with summer school? Summer school is not just a punishment for students who failed classes. It’s also an option for high schoolers wanting to get some of their classes out of the way before the upcoming year.
I personally will be taking Government over the summer, and I’m pretty darn psyched about it. Or as excited as you can get about going to school.
My choice of enrolling in summer school was based on two things.
First, Social Studies is not one of my strongest subjects academically. Having seven other classes to worry about at the same time during the regular school year doesn’t exactly help. I’m a good student and everything--I take AP and honors classes--so, like most students, I feel a little overwhelmed with all the work sometimes.
Summer school enables me to concentrate on one class at a time, rather than trying to deal with studying and doing assignments or homework for seven different classes at once. As much as I love doing those long essays till three in the morning because I am loaded with so much other homework, it will be nice to only have one class to worry about at a time.
I’m sure that, in addition, there’s a great possibility of my grade and level of understanding going up exponentially as well.
My second reason for taking summer school is the fact that it opens the door for things I actually want to do next year. This past school year, I had such a full schedule that I could not take any electives or alternative classes that I wanted to. So, basically, my school schedule for 2010-2011 equaled no-fun-plus-MAJOR-stress as I tried to juggle all of my challenging classes.
Having signed up for my classes next year, I can already tell that my senior year is going to be a lot better. I actually had room to sign up for the art classes I’ve wanted to take, ones that I’m actually interested in and excited for. LHS has so many great elective classes to take, and it would be a shame to miss out on them.
I know summer is supposed to be a time for hanging out with friends and relaxing, but there are a lot of times over the summer when I do virtually nothing, moments when I am completely bored out of my mind.
For instance, when I have to work in the afternoon at my job, and I only have three hours in the morning from the time I wake up to the time I have to be there, I’m not going to try squeezing in time to hang out with my friends. Truth is, I’ll probably sit at home, half asleep, eating cereal and watching reruns of “Kyle XY”.
As productive as that sounds, my time would probably be better served actually going to a class and learning something. Even on days when I don’t work, I usually sleep in till early afternoon. Summer school is from 7:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., so the time I would normally be using to sleep is served in a more constructive manner. The early day classes would leave the rest of the day open for doing whatever I want.
Unlike a course during the normal school year, a summer school course only lasts three weeks. This is also a plus considering I plan to take quite a few trips this summer.
From the students I’ve talked to who have taken summer school classes, I can see that the general consensus is a positive one. Senior Katrina Ramirez has taken Algebra, Computer Science Honors, and Trig through the summer school program.
“I loved taking the classes just to keep my brain working over the summer,” she said.
I regret not taking a summer school course sooner. It would have alleviated a lot of the pressure I felt my junior year, which happens to be one of the hardest and most important in one’s high school career. This summer will be my first experience with summer school, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.
photo by T. Wanbaugh