You just have to work it out

by Margarita Forbes

You get out of school at 1:51 in the afternoon.  You have activities and sports, making you arrive at home at about 5.  After taking a shower and eating dinner, you are finally starting homework at 6 in the evening.  It’s stressful that your seven years of homework needs to be completed before bedtime, and when this happens almost every night, it becomes a problem.

            With all of the tests to be studied for and all of the essays and work due before the end of the week, all students are bound to complain, and will blame their demanding teachers for their heavy work load.  Sophomore Nam Nguyen shares her thoughts on the work load of her teachers. 

“Being one of many students who take difficult classes, it’s common to have hours of homework a night.  But sometimes it seems a little unfair and unreasonable.  Teachers seem to not understand that we high schoolers have lives outside of the classroom, always piling us with much time-consuming work,” said Nguyen. 

Like Nguyen stated, teachers ought to have a little more consideration for students, especially for the striving kids taking a number of honors and AP classes.  Giving a more decent amount of homework that provides students with enough knowledge would be preferred, rather than the usual, unreasonable quantity of work received.  But if the work load is getting to you, try a method of getting it done faster or better yet, drop down one class level to eliminate your stress.

            Others however, believe that teachers are not to blame at all, but rather the procrastination brought upon themselves.  Junior Cynthia Tnuinnu believes that her procrastination is one of the main causes of her stress level.

“Being a high school student for a while now, I have a better understanding of how homework, teachers, and time management goes.  I do admit, my teachers are strict and do give much homework, but a big reason of why it may take longer than usual to finish, is because of procrastination.  I’ve learned that if I discipline myself and do work wisely, I finish at a fair time and find myself to be less stressed,” stated Tnuinnu. 

As Cynthia said, sometimes it’s all about finding ways to handle and use your time more efficiently.  Putting off work or multitasking it with something else might be the cause of many people’s stress, and it may just be ways needed to be corrected in order to finish homework at a reasonable time each day.  When discussing this subject with history teacher Ben Bridgeo, he seemed to agree with what Tnuinnu had said.

“I feel that students do not want to take responsibility for their own actions and therefore condemn the teachers for their work-related stress. As a teacher for three of the four grades at Woburn High School, I see that the work load gets heavier each year for the kids.  I know that that in itself makes them all uneasy, but they should still take authority for the difficult work they agreed to put themselves under when settling on taking that specific class,” said Bridgeo. 

As Bridgeo stated, students shouldn’t complain about work they agreed to do for a class they wanted to take in the first place.  If peers are stressed out, then that stress shouldn’t be blamed on the teacher, but on their own time management or postponement of the endeavor.

Other Woburn High teachers, like special education teacher Rob Gibbs, were surprisingly supportive of what Bridgeo had to say about students’ work related anxiousness.

“I completely understand the fact that kids nowadays have so much going on once the school day is over.  It is so easy to be stressed when you’re busy with many things at once, but I do not see why students can’t just arrange to do work slightly different throughout the day if it causes so much trouble.  I think that a solution to people’s problems would be that if teachers give too much homework , which most do, then just try not to procrastinate and instead try doing it whenever the chance is given,” stated Gibbs.

Like fellow teacher Bridgeo, Gibbs believes that to alleviate the high levels of stress, simply find new methods of studying and working for a specific class, even if the teacher is demanding, which is common.  Even though almost every student does some sort of extra-curricular activity, teachers like Mr. Gibbs find that working little bits at a time will help even the slightest bit.

            Everyone in high school goes about their school stress, but it is up to you to figure out what to do about it.  Procrastination is never the answer, even if that psychotic teacher gives you excessive amounts of homework each night. Just try your best to work around your schedule for school, because you can do anything you set your mind to.