February is known as the “month of love.” But to high school students, February is known to be the most boring month of the year. As the excitement of the new year winds down, students get jam-packed with tests, and the weather cannot decide if it wants to be warm or freezing. There is a daily struggle of trying to stay awake during class. However students have found a way to make it over the drowsy hump by doing anything but what they are supposed to be doing.
First on the list of exposing students is senior Molly Bradach, who loves to play “solitaire and does puzzles in every class.” Solitaire and puzzles are brain stimulators that are good past-times when you are losing focus in class. Bradach also said, “Once I was doing a puzzle and my teacher saw me, so my whole class stopped to encourage me to finish my puzzle.”
As Wesleyan, a.k.a., “Stress-leyan,” students get very busy with school work, studying and after school activities, there is very little time to get all your work done. By the time you get home, have dinner and take a shower it is already 9 p.m. and you still have hours of work to complete. This means you stay up late to get everything done. By doing this, you become so tired the next day, and it is almost impossible to stay awake. Even though not paying attention in class is frowned upon, sometimes it can be the only thing that keeps you from falling asleep.
Going back to middle school, the iconic website, Coolmath, was a fan favorite, until it was blocked for being too distracting. Junior George Doane said, “Coolmath’s ‘Run’ game was my go-to game because it was challenging and very gratifying when you made it to the next level.” Students think that they are always so sneaky when playing games, but little do they know that teachers can tell when you are playing a game because of the hand movement on the bottom right of your keyboard, the arrows. Doane said, “I would always get caught playing games because teachers realized that when a student stares into their screen and only presses the arrows, they are 100 percent playing a game.”
A more recent past-time among high school boys is watching Fortnite videos on YouTube. “Finding a treasure chest, a blue bolt-action or building up a tower makes high school boys more excited than it should,” said Bradach. Junior Stone Ramsey, who is passionate about Fortnite said, “watching videos can help you strategize for future games that I play with my squad.”
Freshman Maddie Parsonnet said, “Whenever I am bored in class, I go on Pinterest and look through summer pictures, but then it makes me sad because it’s only February.” Pinterest is not a game, so it is nothing that is too distracting from class, but it helps students not fall asleep.
AP Government teacher Chris Yoder said, “If people are able to keep on the work in the class and still be playing a game that isn’t distracting, then I won’t say anything to them. When it becomes a problem being distracting, rude and struggling in the class, then I will talk to them about them doing something other than classwork.” High school students need to learn how to manage their time before they go onto college and adulthood. Yoder said, “I always hear a couple giggles now and then, so it is obvious when people are playing games.”
A majority of websites are blocked during school hours, but there are a few still remaining that students find to entertain themselves during class. The long, “boring” month ends with Winter Break and the Winter Dance, so students desire to get through the struggle of class and persevere.
