A Student's Point Of View On Stress, School And Lots Of Homework

This article is written by Morgan School student Katie Elliot, a senior, who is also a member of the Peer Advocates group at the school.  One of her jobs as a peer advocate is to inform the community of issues that teens are having and to help with the problems.

In Health class we are taught to reduce our stress through meditation, breathing techniques, self-talk, and multiple other ways. Students like me know that when you are stressed there is not TIME to meditate and just breathe.

When I have nothing to do, there are the future, long term assignments looming over my head, making it so I can never not be busy.  I know that I am not the only student that has been brain-washed by school work.  It should not be that way, we should find ways to not be stressed but it is not that easy.  Is it worth it?

If you have ever seen the documentary, “Race to Nowhere,” you would know how the small things are what bother us stressed students the most. Parents asking about homework when we get home from school usually just stresses us out more, “Do you have a lot of homework? Are you going to be up late?” When we get home after school or sports we should have relaxation time and lots of sleep, --we do not want to talk about how much homework we have and how much we are not going to be sleeping that night.

Should we blame the teachers?   The school system?  The students? We do not need to blame anyone. However, we do need to recognize that the stress is a problem and everyone deals with their stress differently.

I do not intend to lecture about stress, rather, help people understand what it’s like to be a student in high school, since some parents seem to have forgotten.

We sit for at least six hours in classrooms and write, read, talk, and listen. Every minute of the class we are being graded. We must think about class participation, homework and getting all the notes down for the next test, plus understanding all the concepts.

There is also the worry about college and social life. Our stress causes us to act up towards friends, which leads to conflict and just more stress.

As if the school day is not hard enough, we then go home to more work and sometimes getting a decent amount of sleep is impossible. My friends and I joke about how we wish the school day went from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. as long as we didn’t have homework.

Is it not true that school is homework? In some classes all we do is go over homework and then get assigned new homework. I am not trying to insinuate that we should not get homework or that school is an absolutely horrible place to be every day, but after a while its overwhelming and we get worn out.

So parents, teachers, and any other adults or friends, please do not take it personally if students like me act in a way that is surprisingly rude, or crabby.

We just need a break, some time to take a breather, a change in the often tedious daily routine. Yes, it helps if we help ourselves with our stress by stopping for a second to breath, amidst the chaos.

I do not know about other people, but for me it is not that easy and because we are so used to one way of doing things, it’s hard to change our lifestyle, even if it will make us less stressed in the end. Balance is the key word.

Therefore, I have learned to work hard during the week and whenever I get stressed, I look forward to the weekend when I can create the balance between work and play. I recognize that life should not be that way and we should have a positive attitude and appreciate everyday of our lives, weekday or weekend, but when homework makes that hard it is good to find a happy medium.

Even though we are not at a job every day, like our parents and teachers, school is just as tiring and draining, and let’s not forget that!

---- Katie Elliot