Senioritis, or the demotivation of students in their senior year of either high school or college, has plagued people for decades. It is usually caused by students getting overworked throughout high school and then not having enough motivation in the end to continue to push themselves as much. Because these causes are seemingly avoidable, there should be measures put in place to try and prevent senioritis in the future.
One thing that schools could do to avoid senioritis is allow students to take a break. According to nshu.edu, taking a break is one of the most important steps to overcoming senioritis. This is because whenever students put a lot of effort into school in the beginning or middle of the year without pacing themselves, they often burn out by the end. It’s like running a 5K: if someone uses all of their energy at the start of the race, it is much harder for them to finish it out strong. Schools should, therefore, give students a certain number of free mental health days to make sure that they do not get too overwhelmed with school at the start or middle of the year.
Students are often overwhelmed with the amount of stuff they have to do in school, especially students who are involved in honors or AP courses or extracurricular activities. For students like this, it can feel like they are constantly getting one assignment after another, or that they continuously have a new event to think about after their last one ends. And while it is often the students’ choice to take those harder classes or those extracurriculars, that does not mean that they should not get breaks. Yes, they should only involve themselves in things that they can handle, but sometimes it is hard to judge how hard a course will be or how time-consuming an extracurricular will be without first being in it. Being overworked like this can thus cause those students to feel burned out and tired constantly, which often comes to a climax with senioritis in their senior year.
Mental health days for all students, or days students get off from school with no work where they can rest and recharge, would be a great fix for this. According to business.talkspace.com, mental health days not only prevent burnout and reduce stress and anxiety, but they also promote healthy life habits. This is because they often help set the stage for how students will handle stress in their futures: by taking a break.
USD231 should, therefore, look into the possibility of having mental health days for students in high school and try their best to implement them for them. While there are a lot of factors that have to be considered while making this decision, it is worth considering them and thinking about what would really help students in the long run. The mental health day process could be done in the form of a paper that children have to fill out and get signed by their parents if they want to use one of their mental health days, or it could be done another way. Regardless of how it is executed, however, the result will likely be happier, less stressed-out students who are less likely to deal with the exhaustion of senioritis in their last year of high school.
