3rd Quarter Slump is REAL

Grades fall, blog posts are yet to be written, hours are spent half doing half dreading your homework, and studying becomes nearly impossible. It's third quarter slump; the time of the year that everyone seems to struggle with most. The months go by quickly, buried in the work load that seems to be piled on, and before you know it grade printouts are on their way and I am still five blogposts short, stressed beyond belief, and lacking infinite hours of sleep. To make things worse, siblings start coming home from college on break and envy builds up as I watch them sit around doing absolutely....nothing.

Third Quarter Slump is a term that I started hearing back in freshman year but I was not expecting the drastic jump of my grades. By third quarter, students should be used to the homework load and how to deal with it but this is not the reality of the average highschool student. Yet as I am up late every night doing the hours of homework that are not showing the affects that I want on my grades, I have to wonder whether it is the teachers loading on harder and larger quantities of work, or the students lacking motivation. Has my work ethic really changed since the start of the year?

The pattern of my motivation throughout a school year has become clear to me. I start the year of ready to go and organized in all of my classes. First quarter and second quarter are strong and steady and somehow, my motivation and work ehtic is not put at risk to my daydreams of summer and being somewhere, anywhere warm. Third quarter is when this starts to change; the weather starts to change. Even a hint of sun, a change from the fierce cold days, changes the way I work. Realizing this, I have found that the main perpatrator behind the fearsome Third Quarter Slump is the motivation of the students.

Although I admit to a change of my own work ethic, I cannot believe that the change of grades is a result of the motivation of students alone. In addition to the change of mindset in the students, there is also the factor of expectations. By third quarter, the bar is set and students are expected to keep improving to be able to keep up with the class even as the level is raised. Although students should also have intellectually grown enough to meet these new standards, the new challenges seem to be much more difficult then the previous semester.

As we stumble through the finish line of third quarter into spring break, the significantly lower grades beg the question; what is the cause of Third Quarter Slump, the teachers or the students? As we go into fourth quarter, why are students able to get back on track after being in the grasp of the Slump?