![WSPN staff reporter Marisa Mendoza sits down with Dr. Peggy McIntosh to discuss her work regarding white privilege and how she hopes her work will be influential for years to come.
The purpose of [my published] papers was to say that the public roles we are asked to play are filled with fraudulence, McIntosh said. People in high places, even the president, are fraudulent. We must not let other people make us feel like frauds. Let us continue to spot fraudulence in the public roles we are asked to play.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_7403-scaled-e1714358061368.jpg)
![WSPN’s Annika Martins and Maddie Zajac explore the athletic life of senior Annabelle Zhang through her badminton career. “This [photo] is me and my former partner after we won the 2022 junior nationals mixed doubles category,” Zhang said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_6629-1200x900.jpg)
Tests, concerts, sports games, and projects all in one week? Sounds like end of third term to me: An overwhelming five days of due dates and late night study sessions, which brings to mind the question, aren’t there assigned testing days for each subject? The testing day schedule is designed to prevent us from having too many tests, quizzes, or papers on one day. It is hardly effective, however, because it seems that everything is due on one day that week.
As I walked to my classes, I didn’t see the usual laughing and smiling people conversing. Instead, I saw worried and concerned faces; students were asking each other questions about their tests, telling of their long nights, and complaining of their exhaustion. The Media Center was packed with studying zombies and last minute paper writers.
The continuous build up of work only presented everyone with a continuous build up of stress. Apparently, as students, we are allowed to have a maximum of three tests on one day. That is potentially three hours of testing after what is most likely a deficit of sleep, not to mention the fact that it is very hard to study thoroughly for three major tests in one night. This creates exhaustion, empty minds, and glazed over eyes the next day. Consequently, this prevents students from performing at their best. There is no room for argument; this process is absolutely too difficult for students to handle more than once. But this seems to be a reoccurring theme at the end of every term.
Imagine this average day of a high school student: Wake up at 6 AM, go to school for nearly 7 hours, attend some after school activity (sports, singing or acting groups, clubs, etc.), finally head home, already exhausted. But this isn’t even the end of it. The student still needs to eat dinner and do his or her homework, which puts them to bed late on a normal night. Now add in a concert, maybe a late sports game, and half a dozen tests, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. It is amazing that students don’t go insane!
Having a long and important concert the last week of a term is just an example of scheduling adversity. However, many of the tests or papers we had could have been spread out more efficiently. This poor example of scheduling does not necessarily teach kids how to prioritize, but demonstrates a great example of how sometimes our teachers are just as capable of procrastinating and falling behind as their students are. I understand that some tests are meant for the end of the term, but others could have been planned better so that we took them a week or even a couple days earlier. The end of the term is such a rush to get everything done that it shatters people’s hopes of improving their grades.
So is it too much? Is there too much pressure on students at the end of term? I think yes, and this is why as a school we need to work harder to change some due dates and test days so that students have a better chance of succeeding, and so they aren’t always running on empty.
![Seniors Garrett Batt, Tom White, Emmanuel Nzaramba and Jack Calverley work together in preparation for the Spring Fling. “We decided to host this because March is kind of a slow month [in which] there’s not really that much happening, so I just thought it would be fun to put pep back into everyone so people could look forward to something this month,” senior Delcie Peter said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-20-at-10.28.14-PM-1200x832.png)
Chris • May 5, 2008 at 7:44 AM
This is from a speech given by Bill Gates to a group of high school students.
RULE 1
Life is not fair – get used to it.
RULE 2
The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3
You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with
car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a
boss. He doesn’t have tenure.
RULE 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
grandparents had a different word for burger flipping
they called it Opportunity.
RULE 6
If you mess up,it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t
whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7
Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get
summers off and very few employers are interested in
helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people
actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Chris • May 5, 2008 at 7:41 AM
A lot of people just procrastinate one projects. I’m a senior and yes, it can be stressful, but that’s life sometimes. You just have to suck it up and go. It’s not that difficult as long as you don’t put you projects and papers off to the last minute, although I am guilty of doing so.
john doe • Apr 17, 2008 at 1:41 PM
excellent article!
Laine • Apr 17, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Testing days have never worked out for me, I think it’s a system that needs to be changed. During the regular school year when I have a lot of tests on the same day, teachers are usually pretty flexible and shifting some things around so students aren’t as overwhelmed. But testing days make that impossible.
anonymous • Apr 17, 2008 at 9:14 AM
i agree……it’s hard to do well and not have you grades completely crushed when there is no time to do anything because there are 4 tests on one day. Just this term I had one day where 2 projects were due and the next day i 4 tests
anonymous lover • Apr 17, 2008 at 9:13 AM
great article LIZ!!! you are my favorite writer ever!!!! i have a massive shrine on my wall dedicated to you !!!!!!
Marta LeFevre-Levy • Apr 17, 2008 at 6:59 AM
I agree that the end of term can be difficult, and that teachers should try to be flexible. However, it is also the student’s responsibility to communicate with those teachers early if they have a scheduling problem. Similarly, a student that know she has many tests on one day should manage her time and begin studying earlier than the night before the tests.
anonymous • Apr 16, 2008 at 11:49 AM
good article
Anonymous • Apr 16, 2008 at 6:36 AM
I agree completely. What makes it worse is when you are sick right near the end of term, and you miss days. It becomes impossible to make up work, and many teachers are incredibly inflexible and hinder the process of trying to get back into the swing of things. They evidently don’t understand that you have 4-5 other classes when they all give you 2-3 hours of make-up work due the next day.
When you’ve pulled 3 all nighters, been sick all week, and have hours upon hours of work it’s no longer education. It’s impossible to learn anything under those conditions.