Second quarter is infamous for being one of the worst quarters out of the school year for both students and teachers. It’s become known as the “second quarter slump” because it is one of the most stressful times of the year. Once first quarter ends teachers begin pushing the students further because they’ve already given them a small glimpse into the concepts they’re going to learn over the year. The workload becomes even broader for both students and teachers. Teachers go through an abundance of meetings and have to create a boatload of lesson plans while still managing to ensure the students are able to grasp the concepts that they are teaching. For students the workload begins to become immense and causes them to lack motivation to complete the work or even just to attend school. This takes a great toll on their academic performance and can often slaughter someone’s GPA.

Second quarter is full of cramming from both sides because teachers are cramming in all material that they need to teach and assess by the end of the semester whereas students are trying to cram and learn everything they can before exams while still trying to complete all the work they’ve been assigned for the quarter. Some students are struggling and stressing over whether or not they’re even going to pass all their classes. Everything can feel as if it is moving way too fast and can cause people to get discouraged from trying which leads to them stressing and procrastinating. Thanksgiving break and winter break can bring about euphoria among students and teachers but in reality it can be detrimental because it causes students to fall behind. Second quarter and third quarter tend to be the “worst” and are both known to suffer the “slump”. The best way to take on next quarter is to assess what went well and what went bad for you second quarter in order to learn how and what you need to do in order to improve this following quarter.