Everyone already knows about the recent addition to our school’s long list of group activities, but this one is by far the most widely encompassing. Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir by American author Mitch Albom, detailing a series of visits made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz. This book will be the focus of our entire school for the next few months, as there will be mandatory 30-minute time frames built into certain periods once every few days.

But are students taking the new “optional” addition to the curriculum well?

“I think it’s like a waste of a time,” says senior Ava Sudano.

“It’s just annoying to read,” Diana Tamayo, a sophomore at Emerson, adds, “It interrupts the period completely.”

Although the book brings positive messages of devoting yourself to the love of others around you and your community, it seems that it only brings a new level of stress to students at Emerson, who now have to worry about what they were told was “not required” being forced into their already-packed school day.

It’s no secret that the average student wouldn’t consider themselves an avid reader, and, even if they did, they likely prefer books of their own choosing that they aren’t being told to read for an assignment.

It’s hard to say whether or not this new mandatory reading period is really helping students feel more connected as a school. Perhaps the only connectedness they feel is a joint feeling of distaste for this new addition to their week.

A potential solution to this issue would be perhaps giving students a small range of books to choose from, coming from different genres and authors. This would provide them with a chance to peruse and choose a book that they think they will enjoy the most out of the bunch, and gives them an opportunity to branch out only if comfortable. That way, students may actually look forward to the chunks of time dedicated to reading a novel that they actually chose themselves.

Sarah Craft, staff writer for The Cavalier Chronicle (ironic, Cavaliers!), writes, “The purpose of mandated reading is to encourage students to read literature that holds significance to today’s society or helped shape the past. However, instead, it causes people to hesitate picking up books later in life because of the resulting negative experiences.”

This statement rings true, as it is inevitable that people will associate reading books with the miserable idea of being forced to pick up and read a book that they didn’t even choose just for a class assignment. Instead of brewing a love for reading, required reading periods will only brew resentment towards reading in Emerson students.

Either way, Tuesdays with Morrie isn’t going away, and students will be given the required time to read it whether they like it or not. The most we can try to do is at least attempt to understand the lessons that the book teaches, so that students can at least say they learned something from it, even if they didn’t enjoy it.