As the end of the year draws nearer and nearer, students are losing interest in coming to school and completing assignments. A lot of students feel that their lack of longing to learn is because they’re finding it hard to focus and really dive into their learning experiences. Since it is very near the end of the year, not only students, but quite a lot of teachers here at Lake Shore, are experiencing burnout. 

The purpose of this article is to help any teachers experiencing burnout, in order to make things interesting in class for students and themselves, by hearing it right from the voices of some of their very own students. 

Manny Johnson, a sophomore, talked about how it may be easier for students to connect with learning if they had more designated time to work on missing or late work. He talked about possibly adding more frequent amnesty days, instead of one near the end of the marking period or semester, that way students can have less stress on make-up work days and not have a lot of assignments from the beginning of the period/semester all due on one day. 

This would also prove beneficial for teachers, instead of having students turn in a lot of amnesties on the last few days grades are due, they can get the amnesty to work graded ahead of time and reduce a lot of stress when entering final grades. 

Johnson explained, “If they had more days for just doing like missing or makeup work, that way everyone isn’t cramming work in right around deadlines and so teachers don’t get as stressed in grading student assignments.” 

Frida Morha, junior, talked about fun interactive activities some of her teachers already do; in hopes of sharing with other teachers how helpful these activities are in reinforcing the information being taught, so students can have a greater understanding of topics. 

“Incorporating mind games, interactive learning games, like Kahoot, Blooket, Quizziz, etc! I have some teachers that do this already, and they have been pretty helpful for me and a lot of other kids in the classes!” 

Julian Smith, a sophomore, expressed the importance of communication and good relationships between teachers and students. He said it can be really helpful if students feel the atmosphere of their classes is positive and friendly can truly influence them to want to come to school and have the motivation to complete assignments. 

Changing up the class daily routine can be really good for teachers as well because it can get them out of the daily grind and make days at work more interesting and newly enjoyable. 

Smith said, “Doing games/activities to make their work more hands-on, getting the students to get up and out to expand learning techniques is something I think would be amazing for helping with burnout amongst students and teachers.”

Braydon Wanniger, junior, said it could be good for kids to have more downtime and breaks during classes, so they can reach out in person to teachers to get help with work, or just to confide in teachers when they feel they need to. 

Wanniger said, “Having breaks and downtime for asking questions, and just overall time for students and teachers to recover from stress and taking time to get organized.”

Adelia Nasir, a sophomore, talked a lot about how listening and understanding students could be a big help in improving class attendance and participation. 

She explains, “I think listening to students is a really big deal and understanding why we have such suggestions. Instead of having an hour-long video with questions, why not have students act out the movie in a play style or show the important clips of the movie and discuss it? It’s mainly those long attention learning techniques that lose students. Heavy restriction on phone usage/earbud usage can lose a student immediately because the inability to see their phones can make them anxious and watch the clock.”

Ashley Cercy, a sophomore, also brought up the importance of teacher-student interaction. If students are not communicating with anyone at school, especially teachers, it will make their lives harder and their teachers’ jobs harder because they are unaware if students are not receiving the right guidance or are just choosing to ignore assistance. 

She continued, “Making the work environment more interactive and more options for the students who need help would truly help a lot of people out, staff and students.” 

With that being said, it is safe to say that every student wants to be heard and be put under as little stress as possible. These are just some of the ideas amongst a handful of students, which goes to say it can be presumed everyone wants some kind of change.