News Staff Writer
At Choate, a competition is waged among students over “who has it worse off.” It is starting to scare me. I walk around campus and hear one student complain about how few hours of sleep they got the night before and how much work they have to do. Immediately, another student will counter and claim that they got fewer hours and have more work. Make no mistake: these students are not complaining, they are boasting.
I understand that we Choate students are under a ridiculous amount of pressure to get work in on time and earn good grades. It is understood that every student will try his or her best. Having to meet such demands while wanting more than to hang out with friends undoubtedly will incite frustration. Being adolescents, of course we are going to voice our grievances. However, how do we justify constantly trying to outdo another’s adversity? I am sure not all students, especially seniors, spend the entire night devoted to their studies. Are we up late because we have “so much work” or are we up late because we procrastinated the entire night? If the latter is true, where do we get off competing with each other over who has a more unfortunate life?
In one of my classes, I sit next to someone who never gets to bed before one o’clock. Every single day, she explains the tragic story of how she couldn’t get to bed and how she will have to stay up the following night as well. It’s as if she’s daring me to stay up later or to claim I have more work than she does. There appears to be an underlying bidding war as to who will have the worst night at Choate. One student will initiate the debate with an account of her own misfortunes and every student within earshot will chime in; each with a sorrier story. Well, I know I’ll never win.
Sometimes, I feel guilty that I get a full night’s rest while my peers seem desperate for one. I often keep my mouth shut when my lunch table begins lamenting over the stresses and excessive work loads Choate begets. What is necessity for me is luxury for others and I’m led to feel that I over-indulge.
It is rare that a student feels guilty for getting too much sleep. Many students binge on sleep; sleeping few hours during the school week and then sleeping 12 or more each night of the weekend. This is just as unhealthy as getting 4 hours of sleep every night of the week. So, why do the majority of us find it so hard to get the sleep we necessitate?
On average, teenagers need 9-10 hours a night, but ask any junior or senior about the last time they got that many hours and they’ll all say, “Freshman year.” The stress to get into college and be successful has usurped the desire to get a good night’s sleep. After all, what teacher would accept an excuse like, “I think success is happiness and I can’t be happy unless I get sleep, so therefore I did not do the reading.” Nevertheless, what’s the use of staying up all night doing the reading if you are too tired to participate in class the next day? Teachers should begin acknowledging that sometimes it is just too late and you were too tired to do your best work.
How many times have you heard students complain about their excessive stress and work loads and, in the same breath, say that they spent 3 hours watching great episodes of “Sex and the City?” I recognize the importance of “study breaks”, but a three hour Carrie Bradshaw marathon does not constitute a break, but a vacation.
Procrastination seems to be the pursuit students have mastered, but unfortunately also the thing that gets them into the most trouble. I procrastinate -- everybody does -- but there’s a difference between evading your English paper to finish Math homework and evading the paper to play Halo. Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and write the damn thing. After all, who wants to listen to you complain about work when really you are inept at time management?
I do believe that not everybody who stays up late does so as a result of procrastination. I also believe that Choate demands too much of us. How realistic is it that we are expected to go to classes, then sports or rehearsals, then evening activities and then have enough energy and brain power to focus on homework without falling asleep at our desks? It doesn’t help that two days a week we lose 45 minutes (once an hour-long free period) to do what is required of us so that we might sleep just a little longer at night.
There is clearly a problem, but is there truly a realistic solution? Either students need to partake in fewer extra-curricular activities, never leave their desk chairs, or teachers need to assign less work. A reasonable compromise might be an understanding between students and teachers that if it is too late and you have not started your homework, you can ask for and receive an extension. You will not do your best work when you have had 3 Red Bulls and have stared at your computer screen for 6 hours thinking about a thesis statement. In turn, on the students’ parts, we need to agree to ask for extensions only when we need them, not when we want them so we can create photo albums on Facebook all night. In order to make life less stressful for Choate students, something needs to be done. Only then will I feel confident that I won’t ever have to listen to another argument over who’s life sucks more.
