As the year comes to a close, and the sun shines brighter on Akin Common, you would expect to see the fields fill up with students outside, off their electronics and hanging out with their peers. And yes, this has been a massive change on campus, contrary to the winter season where the cold and silence filled the hallways, and the only sign of people outside was people going from CCAT back to the high school.
But as we near the end of the year, even though we have been seeing activity outside, there is still that percentage of people who are drowning in the end of year workload, struggling to find those moments where they can spend time outside.
Teachers love to make the point, that putting your electronics down for a while to go outside and be social is fundamental in your daily life. This is kind of ironic, considering the fact that as the year begins to close up, the workload teachers have been piling up is a lot.
Will Dolan, a 9th grade student at Hackley, also expressed his grievances with this matter. “Although each class individually is giving work that is manageable, because all classes are piling up at the same time, it becomes impossible keep up. I’m tired and drained,” he stated. The issue isn’t that we are being given work. The biggest problem is that each class adds a bunch of work all at the same time.
Similarly, Owen Hardart, another 9th grader at Hackley, stated “As someone who loves spending time outside, it has been pretty disappointing that I’ve been forced to spend most my time indoors, trying to stay organized and productive.” He also goes on to say, “I expect this amount of work normally during the year. It’s kind of a bummer, considering the year is ending we have so much stuff to balance out”.
In my opinion, I think that this work schedule needs to be a little more stretched out. Rather than having to write a 5 page essay and do a oral presentation all in one week, maybe split them up differently, and add smaller point assignments during the times where work is overloading.
Overall, I think that the end of year workload is a way to finally burn out kids at the end of the year. Yes, the summer is a time for rest and recovery, but also kids should not have to go into it, horrified and disappointed with their end of year grades due to the overload.
