By Audrey Lovell, Social Media Editor
It’s 7 a.m. You crawl out of bed and struggle to get ready for school. Your breakfast consists of Snickers, Skittles and a Twix that you pulled out of a pillowcase. Lunch will be the same. Before leaving the house, you take a quick look in the mirror and do a double-take: You forgot to take off your clown makeup from Halloween the previous night.
Many students consider Halloween to be the best holiday. You get to stay out late, get a whole bunch of free candy and dress up however you like. This is all fun and games – until Nov. 1 rolls around and it’s back to reality: You have to go to school.
Although Halloween is not considered a national holiday, it is an event that takes place every Oct. 31 that is celebrated by children and adults worldwide. We are not given Halloween or the following day off from school, though. Instead, we get days off like Presidents’ Day and Labor Day. These days are important, but they are not as heavily celebrated as Halloween.
As children get older, the importance of trick-or-treating is minimized. Teenagers are more focused on going to Halloween parties to celebrate with friends. Halloween parties are a way to still celebrate without the embarrassment of doing “little kid stuff.” Either way, students of all ages are still out late on a school night.
Lacking a good amount of sleep and having an insane candy hangover, students will not be able to perform their best in school on Nov. 1. Some may not be present in school at all. A day to catch up on sleep and recuperate from the prior night’s activities would be best.
This would not only be beneficial to students, but teachers as well. Many teachers have younger children they take trick-or-treating, or they may be handing out candy themselves. So, in addition to students not being 100 percent, teachers won’t be either.
Not only would having the day off following Halloween be crucial, but taking off on Oct. 31 itself would be important as well. Most students’ minds are somewhere else, thinking about their big Halloween plans or working out last-minute costume kinks. It’s not an easy task to focus on school work when all you are thinking about is how much fun you will be having later on in the night.
How about a couple of teacher work days on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 instead of the Wednesdays we’ve had off for parent-teacher conferences and other teacher training so far this year? Or at least some remote learning days that allow us to do some work at home? Hopefully in the future, students – and teachers – will be able to focus on the fun and take a day off. Until then, I wish everyone the best of luck while running on zero sleep and a candy buzz.
Senior Audrey Lovell can be reached at 23lovellau71@daretolearn.org.
