Happy New Year! Now Here's Your Finals!

[Ben Luke]

Every kid in Fremd hates it. Well probably mostly everyone. We get a nice two week vacation to take a break from learning and when we get back from that break we are hit straight in the face with Finals.

 

I for one believe that our Finals should be the week leading up to Winter Break, so that over that break, us students can really use that time to relax and get away from school. Let's be honest here, how many people really remember what you did in school the week before break? I know the first day back, most of my classes were just spent reviewing what we had learned the Friday before break because everyone had forgotten it.

In my opinion if Finals were over and done with, kids would be better off when they return from Winter Break. Teachers could use that first day to actually teach some new stuff instead of having to reteach what was taught before break started. Sure, teachers can say that we can spend the entire break to study and prepare, but what kid is actually going to do that? I didn't even do any of my homework til the Sunday before school started!

 

Personally, I like what my brother's and sister's colleges do. They have Finals the week before their break starts and then they get a long rest. I think that Fremd should switch to that system instead of the one we have now.

But that's just me.What do you think? Do you like that we get back from break and get Finals thrown at us? Or do you have a different system that you think would work better?

[Concepcion Ruiz]

Having Finals the week before winter break would be much better. Like you said, then we can actually relax during winter break and not be thinking that in a few weeks we have to remember all we learned and take our  finals. There might be a reason that Fremd doesn't work that way but i guess we will have to keep coming back from winter break to take our finals. :)

[Kyle Albro]

Finals would definitely be less strssful if they were before break. I can barely remember what I learned last week, and now they put two weeks between school and finals. There are statistics on this and the kids who took the finals before break scored significantly higher when they took the final before break. Aren't schools trying to increase test scores? Then why would they put winter break before finals?

[David Madden]

By the time break is over I've almost always forgotten stuff that we've learned. Especially stuff at the beginning of the year. It is rediculous that people think they can give us a long break where we forget the stress of school only to turn around and give us finals almost right as we get back. Finals would be so much less stressful if it was before break.

[Bobby Mihov]

If finals were given before break my life would not have been nearly as stressful in the past couple of weeks. I mean when you have AP classes stacked on each other, period after period, the last thing you need is to forget what you've learned before the 2 week break then get a 200 question test on it. Its horrible! I really hope they realize this at Fremd and make our lives just a tiny bit easier....I mean we already lose like a month of sleep over the school year if not more. Why make us study even on the one REAL break we get off of school. That's just cruel.

[Kelly Breen]

Finals should definitly be before break. That is when finals are in college and everyone i talk to says they like it a lot more. Teachers use to say that finals are after break so we can study those two weeks but none of the teachers even give us packets. Also, the whole week before finals should be review. I barely get any review time in my classes. In most classes we are learning new things and taking tests this week, which doesnt make sense. Are you trying to stress us out?

[Lauren Hurst]

I completely agree that we should take our finals before winter break.  It would be so much easier on the students because everyone forgets everything that they learned over break, and we are forced to re-learn all of it within two weeks.  I also think that the whole week before finals should be spent on review.  And even if we didn't have finals before break, teachers should at least give us our review packets before break so we have more time to work on them.

[Alex Ladzinski]

I agree. I hate thinking about finals and worrying during my break. I would much rather get the finals over with and THEN go on break. The stress goes away and you're able to enjoy the off of school. Sure it might mean that we would all have to learn more things in a shorter amount of time but it would all be worth it in the end. Like Ben Luke said in his blog,  most of the classes on the monday we got back were just spent reviewing what we had learned the Friday before break because everyone had forgotten it. It's a big waist of time in my eyes so, yes, I agree with you Ben. A different system would work out better in the long run. Anything other than what we have right now.

[Carly Sutherland]

I agree that having finals after break stinks, but the alternative doesn't sound that great to me either.  If we had finals before break, I don't think I could really enjoy the "Christmas Season" as much as I do now.  I would not enjoy all of the things that the holidays bring (shopping, baking,church activities, concerts,etc.) because of the nagging feeling that I should be studying.  Also, in order to have the same amount of school days that we have now, it would mean that school would have to start as early as August 1st--and end in May.  With Chicago weather, I wouldn't really like that as my summer break. So, no matter what you do the end result will always be the same-finals suck!

[Tyler Murphy]

Fremd is supposed to prepare us for college...

In college we take our finals and then go on break. It is the perfect and most effective way to retain the knowledge also because your studying extremely hard and it would retain longer over break because of how much you focused on it during the last few days of class. Also If we had finals on the last week of break, we would have better grades and studying would be less stressful since there wouldn't be an enormous gap between what we learned and what we remember. Winterbreak really has a toll on our minds and the ability to retain everything we learned.

[Abby Muller]

Having finals after break sucksss. I really don't like it. so yes i agree with you saying that we should do them before break. Then i could just relax on break without having anything to worry about... but no istead i'm still thinking about the one thing i'm supposed to be getting a break from.