A typical salesman drives to his job at 8:30 a.m, works at his local paper company, maybe has an hour-long lunch break then works even more until 5 p.m. All told, he probably works 45 hours a week, if we’re counting the occasional email check.
There were over 60 East students in the play Hairspray. Let’s model a typical day for them: They take the bus to school at 8 a.m, take four of their seven classes until a 45-minute long lunch break, then take three of their seven classes until 4 p.m. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m they have play practice, then they eat dinner for an hour, procrastinate on Instagram for half an hour, then study until 11 p.m. All told, that student probably works around 65 hours a week, not counting weekend homework. Our overworked math students will be able to tell you that there is a 20-hour difference there. A typical salesman would have to work on Saturday and Sunday, and also put in six hours of overtime to match that amount.
You do not need an overworked math student to say that this number is ridiculous. Honors and AP students are constantly under immense pressure, regardless of the extracurriculars they are taking. School may be a job, but we are not getting paid.
“There is a big focus on academic success, which is great. We want our students to be successful,” said Laura Dellicker, mental health specialist. “We also want our students to be well-rounded and healthy and well emotionally and in all aspects of their lives.” What you want isn’t always what you get. In a poll done by the ECHO, 80 out of 93 East students said that they felt “burnt out.” East principal Kenneth Proulx defines burnout as “a loss of motivation due to stress,” but it also leads to depression, anxiety and even deteriorates health conditions.
“I never feel like I have enough time to complete tasks given to me at school,” said junior Margaret Briggs. “I don’t feel like the workload is fair. I always feel tired, I’ve had to stay up past 3 a.m doing homework before, things like that.”
The problem with this problem is that there is no clear solution. There is no single person at fault for student burnout. Student burnout is the product of a system, that all of us perpetuate and nobody knows how to solve. It is not just East’s system but also the college admissions system.
“I see a mismatch between what we’re trying to do for students… and what students think they need versus what they actually need,” said Nick Fitzgerald, head of East’s math department.
It is no secret that East students often overcommit themselves by taking too many APs and take their grades too seriously, but to many, there does not seem to be another option. If everybody else is taking such rigorous courses, then the bar is raised. Suddenly, the only way to compete with others is to take more and more difficult classes and to add more and more things to the resume.
Solutions to this problem have been proposed by many people: students, teachers and administration. These solutions have all been very different, and as humans do, we all have been pointing fingers. It is time for us to stop pointing fingers and collaborate on this issue.
Such a way to collaborate could be as simple as a round table discussion. Students and staff sitting down and talking about burnout from their own perspectives would be a great way to start this conversation. We need to talk about burnout together and about what needs to change for this problem to be fixed. Maybe this problem is at a deeper level and our school cannot solve it alone, but we won’t know until we try; we definitely won’t know if we don’t.
