BY JODI MILLER
Like other epidemics, senioritis has a mild winter but a very dangerous spring. As the days grow longer and the temperature rises, seniors lose their motivation, or what is left of it, to work. By the second week in May after the completion of AP exams, few seniors remain unaffected. Common side effects of the epidemic include decreased motivation, frequent absences and fewer completed assignments. Teachers who have AP classes that finish in May are left with a very hard decision: what to do with the suffering seniors?
Some teachers decide the best way to combat the widespread disease is to add more work. They hand out projects on obscure biology topics or assign research papers. However, their efforts to somehow snap the seniors out of their condition often fail. The projects teachers hand out prove ineffective because they are the very causes of the pandemic. While most seniors fight through their desires to be with friends instead of in a library, the end results of such projects usually pale compared with the work handed in by these students only a few months earlier.
The best option for teachers who must deal with the victims of such a disease is to find less rigorous and more productive use of the class time. Such examples include community service, internships or other opportunities for application of material studied in class. The AP French students tutored elementary school students once a week after finishing their exam in May. Each student was assigned to a classroom, and with classmates, taught the younger kids French. Not only does this project allow the seniors to apply what they have learned in French on a much more basic scale, but teachers and students alike appreciate the experience. For the elementary school students, the seniors are the “cool” kids who serve as positive role models and teachers at the same time. The seniors also enjoy the excuse to venture off school grounds and do something for their community.
While sending students to teach some topics such as chemistry to elementary school students doesn’t make much sense, there are other ways to entertain the senioritis-ridden students while educating them. Community service projects are productive uses of students’ time. If the 350 or so members of the graduating class took one or two class periods a week to clean up a park, help with recycling, visit hospitals or perform other equally benevolent tasks, a lot could be accomplished. The epidemic tends to also diminish the victim’s desire to work in the community, but rebuilding houses and refurbishing old buildings never killed anybody with senioritis before.
Lastly, teachers should also find new ways for students to apply what they have studied before the AP. Many schools offer seniors who have completed their AP exams opportunities to get real work experience. The programs are similar to internships but instead of spanning a whole summer or few months, they are condensed. Students can choose an area of interest to them and assist professionals in that field. Organizing mini internship programs for the senior class is admittedly a difficult undertaking. However, if the school were to team up with members of the community, the results would prove beneficial to the seniors, teachers and local professionals as well.
Senioritis is an incurable epidemic that affects students significantly in the spring. The warm weather, end of AP exams and sunnier days excite students, especially seniors. As they prepare for graduation, and later, their departure for college, seniors want to spend as much time with their friends as possible. After four years of algebra, calculus, reading, writing and history, they have developed senioritis and are drained of any motivation to continue their studies at the same intensity as before. While this epidemic can prove to be tough for teachers to fight, it does not leave students incapacitated. Seniors can, despite the onset of symptoms, give back to the community, apply what the skills they have acquired in real life situations and assist those in younger grades. A little bit of charity work never hurt anyone, especially a student with senioritis.
