It’s no secret any student would love the opportunity to miss school for a vacation.
Whether it be a road trip across the country, a flight to a new country or a fishing trip, students are quick to snatch the opportunity.
But with this seeming to be great opportunity, this can also cause academic damage.
Missing several days of school often creates a drop in grades, as well as students being confused with the information they are given once they return.
Micah Minix, a senior at LHS, recently traveled to Malaysia for two weeks, which resulted in him missing ten days of school.
With not much of a choice, Minix had to prepare himself to miss a majority of his senior year.
Minix had no service in Malaysia, so he waited until he came back to school to get his missing work.
“My grades were the worst they have ever been, and it took me over three weeks before I was able to get them back up again,” Minix said.
It can create a struggle for students if they do not plan accordingly for their trip.
In order to catch up, Minix had to take each class day by day until he was able to get back in track.
“Jet lag was terrible for the first few days, so going back to school the very next day was really hard, and it was hard to be awake and pay attention even though I was there,” he said.
Even with planning accordingly for the trip, students can often feel stranded due to not having somebody available for help.
Self-teaching can be very hard for students, especially when they are not accustomed to it.
There is also the problem of procrastination and not wanting to do the work missed. When on vacation, it is so easy to push assigned work to the side and make a self-promise to do it at another time.
“It was definitely hard to understand the information and teach it to myself, but once I finally learned it all, it was able to stick,” Minix said.
Doing so usually creates a pileup of homework for students to do once they return, or suffering grades that would not normally be as low.
Although there are breaks built in the school year, some trips are set in date or cannot be moved around, and falling behind can be inevitable.
Ella Haug recently missed five days of school during a trip to Salmon, Idaho.
Due to missing assignments and tests, Haug’s grades had dropped, and she faced harsh test results.
“It was very hard to come back in government,” she said. “Self-teaching was not effective, and I did badly on tests.”
Fortunately, with the use of flashcards, Haug was able to catch up on her schoolwork.
“It takes a lot of extra work to come back after a long trip, but most of the time, it’s worth it,” Haug said.
Personally, coming back from a five-day trip has been a struggle to retain the information teaching myself.
Although the vacation was a highlight of my year, coming back to school has been quite stressful. By missing four days of school, I had to plan ahead and do all of my work before my trip.
Learning all the information on my own was a struggle. Even with the notes and videos given, teaching information to myself with no guidance felt impossible.
Information that should have been simple became complicated. However, as I get back into rhythm, things are starting to get easier, and my grades are slowly coming back up.
