Editor’s note: While School News Network always prioritizes student voice in our articles, we know there is so much more to tell. We believe to truly tell the stories that need to be told, we should first and foremost elevate students’ ideas, opinions and experiences. We want to know: What is school really like for them? What do they enjoy? What needs to change? What are issues that need to be addressed?
All districts — We spoke with 10 students from 10 high schools — urban, suburban and rural — to get their thoughts on what their everyday experiences are like. This is the introductory installment of several parts of our conversation with them.
During the 90-minute conversation that could have run much longer if time had allowed, several themes emerged. Students are exhausted trying to get everything done and still get a good night’s sleep. They learn best when they connect with the teacher. They’ve normalized the threat of school violence, but don’t necessarily feel it locally. They don’t fear Artificial Intelligence and, in a tense political environment, they want everyone to get along.
We began with a question to get to know them a little better.
The conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
SNN: What do you like best about school? What do you like least?
Ellison, senior: “How familiar people get. You see your peers every single day, and you get to enjoy activities with them. Sometimes you find more commonalities with some than others. There’s a sense of community built.
“My least favorite part of school is when there’s too much focus on that community. It’s weird when they try to force unnatural things. My school does a lot of activities … to get us all to unite. We meet every Wednesday and they put random groups of people on a team. We’re all just supposed to commingle and do scavenger hunts.”
Anari, senior: “My favorite thing is just seeing my friends and stuff every day, because, especially being a senior, it’s the last few moments before we all grow up and do our own thing.
“My least favorite is sometimes people just have, like, a lot of drama going on. And I just don’t really like drama.”
Ella, senior: “I would say my favorite part is getting to see your friends and doing stuff in group work settings when I get to interact with my peers and other people around me. I don’t like just sitting in silence and like doing work on my own.
“I would say my least favorite part of school is, honestly, getting up early.”
Erin, senior: “I think my favorite part of school is sports and the sports community. … My best friends run cross(-country) and track with me, and it’s just so fun. So I’m very grateful for that.
“My least favorite part is, yeah, probably waking up early. I like to sleep.”
Jadon, junior: “I really enjoy the technical education aspect. I love my technical classes that I’m taking. It’s easy to enjoy those hands-on activities, knowing that that will directly impact my career. Probably my least favorite thing is the standardized tests.”
SNN: What don’t you like about standardized tests?
Jadon, junior: “None of it applies. I’ve connected with the head of the math department at my school, and we get to use Desmos. You know how to use Desmos? Now you can get every answer you need on the SAT. So really, just watch a quick YouTube video on how to use Desmos. Boom, there you go.
“It’s just the importance that that’s put on (standardized tests). It doesn’t correlate to anything. You can be really smart, technically, and not book smart.”
Cody, junior: “My favorite part is definitely hanging out with friends and making jokes and stuff. Those seven or eight hours wouldn’t be bearable without anyone to talk to.
“My least favorite is just the lack of sleep you get five of the seven days a week.The workload can be a lot sometimes, too.”
Zoe, junior: “My favorite part is the community that I’ve built. I do theater, so I love my theater friends, and just getting to do that after school is amazing.
“My least favorite part is bringing home the work. You’re at school, and it feels like you should do all your work at school, but then you bring it home every day, and then you spend hours still working, even though you’re really tired. So then, also, you lose sleep.”
Andrew, senior: “I’d say my favorite part about school is the chances it provides me. You can do anything you want at school, to some degree. Like, you can go to do all these different clubs, or you can get into all these different sports and it provides you with so much. I’ve probably tried about every club that you can try at a school, I feel like. I had to see what I like and don’t like, and that’s just that’s really nice to know.
“I gotta be real. I work for my school as a lifeguard, so I just get to be there and work and then I get to see my friends. So I don’t really have any issues with school.
“(My least favorite thing is) I don’t like the bathrooms. Going to the bathrooms is just a scary experience. I never know if I’m gonna, like, walk in on a fire or drug deal happening.”
Chay’ce, junior: “My favorite part about going to school is, since I go to a smaller school, I’ve kind of (grown) up with every single person that’s in my grade and in my school, because our school has, like, 900 people in it.
“My least favorite part is definitely having to go home and do work and feel like I need to do it and stay up late, and then lose sleep.”
Jackson, junior: “My favorite part is sports, especially (my school) has had a good year of sports this year, and it brings everybody together in our community. So I feel like that is our good part about school.
“What I don’t like is the work you bring home. With waking up early, the work I bring home makes me stay up later and lose sleep.”
SNN: It sounds like sleep is a major issue for all of you. Do you wish school started later?
Anari, senior: “I honestly don’t think so, because that means I gotta be there later in the day.”
Andrew, senior: “I don’t think that’s solving the key issue. We would just get the work later in the day and everything would just be shifted.”
Erin, senior: “I feel like less homework would solve that.”
Ellison, senior: “Or if we are going to be at school early, then (we should have) a guaranteed, built-in study hall.”
Jadon, junior: “The school I used to go to had … like, 30 minutes, and you could just do whatever you need to do. You go to a different class, or get help, or sleep. I saw a lot of kids sleep.”
Jackson, junior: “Every Tuesday and Thursday, we ‘flex’. All our classes are cut down by five minutes, and then, after fifth hour, we have 40 minutes when we can do whatever we want.”
Jadon, junior: “My school does block schedules, so I have eight classes every two days. Today was a B day, so I have my fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth hour. Every student has to take … a homework study hour. So I get all my homework done in that class. I didn’t have that in middle school, and I think that’s really nice.
Ella, senior: “We have something called ‘Focus’ at the end of every day. We have 50 minutes when you can go to other classes and stuff, but people do not utilize it. They just, like, go on their phones.”
Anari, senior: “My school just started with it, so every Tuesday and Thursday we, like, sign up to go to some teacher’s class, and it’s like 50 minutes we’re just there, doing whatever we need to. And at first it was really helpful, but then I noticed that people either like, skip or just go home or just stay on their phones and just do nothing.”
Thank you to The New York Times for inspiring the format for this panel, which we used to elevate the voices of students.
