Juliet Scallon

Sophomores Charlotte Stegner and Yelena High stress about their loads of homework.

The school year is underway, and the fall season is in full swing. Along with this excitement comes one massive drawback: homework. How can you fully embrace homecoming preparation when you have a massive deadline coming up? How can you go apple-picking and carve pumpkins without feeling guilty about your incomplete Knight Errant article? Some students are more stressed than ever, while others are adjusting to the workload with ease.

For some students, homework is debilitating and bleeds into every aspect of their lives. Sophomore Fiona Lealos describes how she has three hours of homework every night due to an inability to focus after her relaxing three-month break. This interferes with her sleep schedule. “I’m really tired; I have to stay up really late. After doing my homework, I have trouble falling asleep because I can’t get my brain to calm down,” Lealos said.

For freshmen, the transition from junior high to senior high comes with many changes, workload being one of them. Freshman Laken Barott explains that this year, he has significantly more homework compared to years prior. Last year, Barott’s only homework was the assignments that he didn’t get to finish during class. This year, his teachers are assigning additional assignments on top of classwork. Because of this, Barott spends two hours doing homework every night. The pressure to perform well in school has also increased for him this year. “I think [my] teachers and my parents expect more from me as a student,” Barott said.

The majority of BSM students are involved in extracurricular activities. From clubs to sports to organizations to part-time jobs, many students stay busy outside of the classroom. Extracurricular activities take up a significant amount of students’ days and cause students to have less time to finish their homework. “I do a lot of activities. [Three nights a week] I have sailing, and that goes from four to seven. So most of the time [I] get home at seven thirty so I have to spend a lot of my time after that doing homework,” Barott said.

Junior Kristen Gilmer has a theory as to why students are given so much homework from day one. According to Gilmer, teachers feel the need to finish long lessons every day during class. There simply isn’t enough time in the school year to take a breath. She explains that if a teacher doesn’t finish a lesson in class, the rest of the assignment is homework. Suddenly, the responsibility is on the students to teach themselves the content and come in before or after school with anything they might need help with. This is especially hard for students who miss class or take a sick day. “If you miss a singular class period, some of the things that [the teacher] talk[s] about aren’t in reading or the slides. You kind of fall behind,” Gilmer said.

Despite the extreme burden homework puts on some students, not everyone is affected equally. A recent Knight Errant survey found that only 56% of BSM students find that they have an intense workload at the moment. It is clear that the student body is divided on this topic. Junior Harper Stevenson-Shimek does not believe that her schoolwork is particularly straining. “I don’t think it’s that intense…the workload in general is really not bad,” Stevenson-Shimek said.

Overall, homework is an important aspect of the lives of every BSM student, whether they are stressed or have adjusted quickly. There is no clear answer defining the intensity of the workloads students are assigned, as everyone has their own perspective.