The idea of Baron Play Day is a good one, but I don’t think it’s executed perfectly. What’s the point of doing a play day if it’s not even mandatory? I’ve had tests on Baron Play Day before, so the entire time I was supposed to be “playing,” I was frantically reading the chemistry textbook and had my head in my hands, surrounded by my other stressed-out-of-their-mind friends. 

Also, the things we do, I don’t think at least, are very enjoyable. Sure, blowing a bubble is fun, but you can do it only for a few minutes before you’re bored or inevitably get the soap in your mouth. And okay, yoga’s fun until you realize you’re so inflexible you can’t even touch your toes or you start thinking about your chemistry test in the middle of a down dog. 

We need things more interactive and things that heavily take our attention away from the stress of school. And we need all teachers to actually follow the intentions of the day, otherwise there’s no point. Instead of occupying the cafeteria with yoga, why don’t we have a movie playing in there? Or better yet, put the movie in the gym! With the popcorn ASB already sells during Play Day, it’d be like a movie theater. Instead of promising us a bunch of animals, like ponies, goats, cats, dogs, and only giving us one of those crusty white dogs, give us the animals you told us! Who wouldn’t want to see basically a petting zoo at school? I don’t know if people are that into karaoke, but give us it anyway! 

We should be trying to improve Play Day each year by trying out different activities each time. One time, give us a schoolwide hide and seek or a teachers versus student kickball or softball game. If no one likes it, then organize another game, like one huge duck-duck-goose game. We should be trying to incorporate all the things we enjoyed as kids and bring it into our high school in order to fully live the nostalgia of our childhood and release the stress and anxiety brought by school. I think the act of actually enjoying things on campus will make people way more comfortable here, too. Think of a time where you were in a new environment. From my memory, it only started becoming enjoyable after I had fun with others. More group-enhanced activities will help you meet different people and make new friends.

Overall, I think that Baron Play Day needs a good amount of work to actually benefit the students of our school, and everyone needs to pitch in to do it. ASB can take student recommendations and send out Google Forms to ask what we want in future Play Days, and take that into consideration. Teachers can realize that this is for the greater good of their students, or ASB needs to just make it mandatory because if I have to take my study guide out next to people drawing with chalk on the concrete one more time, I think I’ll cry. We as a school need to take these chances in order to make this tradition valuable for everyone and to improve our school environment and students.