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It doesn�t come from kissing. Mosquitoes and stowaway African monkeys don�t spread it. It affects good people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. It renders the leading hand sanitizers ineffective and man�s most advanced vaccines powerless. Don�t even bother sealing every door, window, and air vent in your house with duct tape; though duct tape, like The Force, has a dark side, has a light side, and binds the universe together, even duct tape cannot prevent the onset of the most debilitating disease known to humankind- SENIORITIS.
An ambiguous social disease, senioritis seems to affect practically no one outside the American public school system. Nonetheless, disregarding the symptoms of senioritis leads to dire consequences for its numerous unsuspecting victims. In worst-case scenarios, senioritis victims fail to graduate high school. Their lives after that point effectively end. This benefits no one (save his or her potential future offspring, who demographically would probably not amount to anything valuable, either).
Society generally recognizes that an identification of any problem will lead to the steps necessary to combat it. Senior Bryce Gillespie defined senioritis as:
The point at which the three regions of being- mind, body, and soul- are in complete and perfect harmony and resonate within their surroundings in a manner that generates jealousy in underclassmen.
Translated from English to Farsi to English again, Bryce�s statement implies that some high school seniors adopt a rather relaxed attitude (toward their academic studies and sometimes life in general) that few people, especially the younger, comprehend.
Senior Sarah Duncan observed that students who contract senioritis consistently neglect to turn in their homework and settle for lower grades. Alan Sosa, struggling bravely through his particularly disgusting case of senioritis, said,
�I have discontinued studying, and now I do my homework before school and in the morning.�
Alan wants to be a teacher when he grows up.
Parents, teachers, employers, and clergy members alike need to learn to recognize these symptoms and to isolate all suspected cases immediately. Senioritis� �bandwagon appeal�, as Senior Kyle Silverstein called it, makes senioritis all the more dangerous to senior students who grow steadily more apathetic as May 23rd draws nearer. Many students, especially during the second semester, grow lax in their class attendance and study habits. This behavior, consequently, raises the �why� question.
Drew Smith said, �After the first semester, you just stop.� But why, oh, why, would anyone want to stop learning? The answer lies in the attitudes most students hold toward the purpose of public education. Students consistently view their school environment as a place to �work� rather than to learn. Grade point averages and class rank become what matters most, and the people whose lives do not revolve around these two points usually during their senior year abandon any slight concern for them they might ever have had.
Drew also noted,
�If you keep working and turning stuff in, then you move past all the people who stopped trying.�
From Drew�s statement one can avoid senioritis merely by remaining competitive. He demonstrates, then, that students often place emphasis, not on the absorption of material, but on its production.
Some people, such as Kyle Silverstein, seem to possess a natural immunity to senioritis and continue their daily routine, while their friends� systems suffer from complete collapse. Other students survive the final months of high school by setting goals for themselves from which they refuse to be deterred. Zach Stephenson, as a case in point, desires to conquer the world before he reaches fifty years of age. However, Zach feels he will not hold any credibility unless he graduates in the top ten percent of his class this year; thus, he continues his academic diligence. Sometimes, the means justifies the end.
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