Dead week: Saratoga’s myth

During dead week, the week prior to finals week, students are not given any homework or tests so that they can dedicate their time to study for finals.

Or so we’d like to believe. For the most part, dead week here is nonexistent and is merely another week when students still have tests and, only if they are extremely lucky, a little less work.

By contrast, at other schools, like Lynbrook, students are given the entire week to review and prepare for finals without homework. As a result, students enjoy a large advantage going into their tests, while also facing comparatively less stress.

Having a true dead week would provide many benefits for students, which includes easing the high amounts of stress students already endure.

Last year, most teachers continued to assign homework during dead week, claiming that these assignments were a way to review for the final. Although the work did contain material that would be included in the final, it seemed to do more harm than good, since these assignments sometimes amounted to mere busywork that took time away from focusing on the difficult concepts that students still needed to practice.

While some teachers may have no choice but to assign work and tests during dead week to meet curriculum requirements, those who consistently assign homework during dead week could benefit from better lesson planning.

Additionally, by the time dead week comes around, grades will not have been fully updated due to the additional work given, serving as a disadvantage for students who want to know how well they must do on the final to acquire a certain grade.

Since countless other schools provide a true dead week for their students and its effects are greatly beneficial, there should be a greater effort to implement an actual dead week here to bring it back from the dead.