High school students should be allowed breaks from class, more specifically, outdoor breaks. We go to school for  almost 8 hours everyday. Our only break between classes is lunch, or passing period which is only 5 minutes. We have to sit in class for 1 hour and 30 minutes each block. We believe a form of 5-10 minute breaks during each class is necessary for us students to be able to reach our full potential in school.

According to Eduptopia, for every 30 minutes of continuous study, a high school student should be receiving a 3-5 minute break. A brain break can improve our cognitive abilities such as divergent thinking and reading comprehension. We should be getting these breaks so that our brains have a chance to stay healthy. Specifically, outdoor breaks would have even more benefits. Exposure to natural light can help regulate sleeping cycles – which is very important for high schoolers to get on a good sleep schedule. Even just breaks in general will help greatly with brain function. During our resting periods between learning, our brain is compressing and consolidating memories of the information we just learned. Students benefit academically from just taking a short break. Additionally, breaks give us a time to reflect and connect with the packed day of school. This can prevent students from feeling overwhelmed. 

If we continue to not get breaks in school, our brains won’t be retaining information as efficiently as they could with breaks. Long instruction for hours only leads to students focusing less and less. Our energy will keep draining and our productivity won’t be getting any better. Many hours of continuous study can increase anxiety and build up stress. That is a problem we do not want our fellow peers to develop.

Of course, learning time is very important and some classes are content heavy. They may require lots of learning time due to the amount of information a student has to gather. It would be in our best interest to have at least one class period everyday to offer a break time that lasts 5-10 minutes, whether that be outdoors, which has the most advantages, or just a brain break in general. This doesn’t mean for inside brain breaks to just consist of students being on their phones, but doing fun activities that will still engage our brains while also giving them a time to process all of our learned information. This can include either playing cards, building tower challenges, or even just making paper airplanes. These activities are simple, fun breaks that students can participate in.  For these reasons, we believe that breaks in our classes should be implemented.