Should a school week consist of four days and an asynchronous Wednesday?

You wake up on a Wednesday morning. Your alarm clock is blaring and you realize the week’s not even halfway over yet, even though you’re already exhausted and stressed from Monday and Tuesday. Sound familiar? It probably does. Wednesday may very well be the hardest day of the week, especially with quarantines mixed in. I think a day of at-home learning every week for rest and at-home assignments would be massively beneficial to many students, especially those at Blaine. 

Back during distance learning *gag*, students experienced a major upheaval of everything they always knew. The school systems knew this, thus, “asynchronous” days were born. I’m not even saying they need to be catch-up days, but they should be at least a day where assignments are fewer. According to an article by Saratogafalcon “by keeping Wednesdays unstructured, students could make use of an opportunity to step back from school stress and mentally revive themselves in preparation for the next couple days of intense work. In fact, Wednesdays have been so essential that students may not fully comprehend their impact until they are taken away, specifically during three-day weekends.” The article was written before they were taken away, and many people want them back due to the benefits.

Back when I was able to enjoy my Wednesdays, I got to sleep later, and not worry about getting school work done. However, our Wednesdays during distance learning were catch-up days, which is more than what I’m asking. I think a day off from waking up early and all that stuff is really important and needs to be brought back. During the last school year, they made Fridays asynchronous instead, and that was pretty good, but I wanted Wednesdays back since that’s when a break is most desired by a lot of people. And again, work can be given to us, but the break from waking up early would make that work a little easier.

Another factor to keep in mind is the fact that quarantines still happen. If someone gets quarantined, each day is essentially an asynchronous day anyway. Each day they sit out is a day they fall further behind their classmates. Getting one of those days back would be largely beneficial for a student who is missing out on class time. I went through this just over a month ago. I had to miss out on class time for a few days and struggle to find out exactly what I missed. That wasn’t fun. I remember hoping that one day of the week would become a snow day but to no avail. I had to miss out on things, and quickly do the things I couldn’t do at home right when I got back. Having one of those days as a time where I wasn’t missing anything during school hours would have been a better situation for me.

A few Blaine students agree with me about this. One of them, Junior Theodore Neitzel, believes that it’s a solid idea. He thinks it’s “perfect.” He said, “It makes the week feel more like a mountain, with a peak on Wednesday, instead of a peak on Saturday.”

As with many great ideas, some people don’t see them the same way. BHS teacher Mr. Banse said, “I don’t love it, to be honest.” He doesn’t see an asynchronous Wednesday as an effective way for students to do things. “Nothing gets done, students don’t do anything… maybe a third of students do the work.” While this tends to be a recurring theme for some, others actually get the work done. For those people, this day would be much more rewarding. As long as the assignments are worth their weight, the problem shouldn’t persist, so long as people are not given a ridiculous amount of class time for make-up work. 

To encapsulate, a four-day in-school week would be a lot better for students for a lot of reasons, such as time to stay on top of things and sleep. A lot of people would support the idea of getting schoolwork at home, and it would help people who are behind.