Results of Senior Survey on Stress

Results of Anonymous survey of seniors on student stress at Buckley May 2011

This anonymous, informal survey was given to 43 graduating seniors. Answers show student perceptions and self-reporting. Not all categories total to 100% for various reasons.

1.      How would you describe yourself as a reader?  

11% Rarely read         14% Reluctant reader  48% Average 16% Above average  9% Read a lot 

2.      How many unassigned books do read per year? 

28% None       46% 1-2          12%  3-4          14% read 5 or more unassigned books 

3.      How many assigned books do you read?

2% read hardly any     25% read parts            63% read most          5% read all assigned books 

4.      During your senior year how many hours of homework did you average per night?       

28% 1 hr.         42% 2 hrs.      16% 3 hrs.       14% 4-6 hrs.

5.       How many minutes on average in one night of homework did you do for English (4 times a week)?

19% 15 min.    37% 20 min.   30% 30 min.   9% 45 min.      5% 60 min. or more  

6.      For Math?

11% none   20% 15 min.  4% 20 min.   21% 30 min. 14% 45 min.    18% 60 min. 9% more  

7.      For History/Social Science?

16% none   11% 15 min.         20% 20 min.   23% 30 min.   14% 45 min.  9% 60 min. or more  

8.      For Foreign Language?

50% none   20% 15 min.      12% 20 min.    7% 30 min.      7% 45 min.      2% 60 min. or more  

9.      For Science?

31% none   21% 15 min.      7% 20 min.      16% 30 min.    12% 45 min.    9% 60 min. or more  

10.  For other courses?

41% none  19% 15 min.       16% 20 min.    13% 30 min.    7% 45 min. or more  

11.  How many hours a day did you play sports?

21% none        16% 1 hr          33% 2 hr        19% 3 hr          10% 4 or more hrs.

12.  Performing arts?

61% none       16% 1 hr          4% 2    7% 3    11% 4 or more hrs

    

13.  Other outside activities?

13% none        29% 1 hr        29% 2 hr        15% 3 hr          13% 4 or more hrs.

14.  How late did you stay up on average during your senior year?

0% 9:00      5% 10:00              33% 11:00         25% 12:00  15% 1:00 a.m.  

15.  How often did you stay up late to do homework?

16% Never      35% occasionally       24% before deadlines           24% often  

  

16.  Which was more stressful? 

0% Freshman year                   7% Sophomore year    45% Junior year  47% Senior year

17.  How much stress did you feel completing college applications?

12% None                   30% some                    46% a lot                    12% unbearable

18.  How much stress did you feel keeping your grades up during senior year?

5% None                     38% some                    48% a lot                     10% unbearable

19.  How many free periods did you have this year?

14% None       21% 1  45% 2            14% 3 free period   4% more than 3 free periods

20.  What time did you leave campus (on average) this year?

Answers range from 11:45 to 8:30 p.m.

21.  What time did you start homework (on average) this year?

Answers range from 4:30 to 9:00 p.m.

22.  What time did you finish homework (on average) this year?

Answers range from 5:20 to midnight

23.  Rank the causes of stress (1= highest)

#1 for five people_Homework     

#1 for 16 people__tests   

#1 for 3 people__extra-curriculars           

#1 for 7 people__AP’s 

#1 for 11 people__No sleep  

__other college apps, college, teenage life!

24.  Restrictions on time commitments in what areas would relieve the most stress?

56% Homework  27% Weekend-work  5% Holiday-work   2% Sports    0% Performing Arts 

      Other: tests, balancing homework and sports

25.  Grade weighted, Honors, and AP courses should be limited to what extent?

40% No limits   19% Maximum 4         36% Maximum 3     4% Maximum 2

26.  How useful would you find it if you were given time in school first semester to work on college apps?

6% Not useful     26% Somewhat useful        40% Useful                26% Extremely useful  

27.  How do you think the stress at Buckley compares to other private schools?

16% Don’t know   4% Less    20% Same         36% More                24% Much worse

              

28.  How do you think the stress at Buckley compares to college?

30% Don’t know    21% Less    24% Same     24% More                12% Much worse

              

29.  How much did the pressure for grades contribute to your stress?

20% Very little            45% significantly       34% enormously       

30.  How much did the pressure for college admissions contribute to your stress?

17% Very little            46% significantly       37% enormously       

31.  How much stress came from the Fourfold Plan and the expectation to be well rounded?

82% None to Very little        8% significant             8% enormous

Student comments about relieving student stress at Buckley:

·         Avoid Math

·         Schedule time to relax twice a week

·         Don’t take Calculus

·         Stop complaining! We’re not that stressed.

·         Too much competition among students makes it a pressure cooker

·         So many stresses outside of school

·         Students aren’t machines, though their parents push them to be

·         Very competitive students

·         I love Buckley

·         Get rid of APs

·         Need less pressure on students

·         Less punishment for tardies

·         Buckley is very demanding

·         No homework on weekends

·         Unbearable stress: each teacher assigns homework without regard to others

Ideas for Next Year

Ideas for Next Year's English!

I'm having lots of ideas for next year's English IV class right now.
--Can we have a class facebook page and post about the status of our characters and literature?
--Student will tweet as a character. These can be posted from cell phones directly to their blogs
--Two students can role play characters (such as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Collins) and start a dialogue, perhaps in class and continuing at home, with one person's blog with comments as the medium. (The other can just post a link to the other blog site.)
--Take the last five minutes of class to brainstorm (on paper or on a laptop) the next blog for that night.
--Use the theme of MASKS: online personas on Facebook, Prufrocks's face to meet the faces that you meet,
--Imagine characters like Liz dealing with the pressure of college and apps
--In-class clicker quizzes on parts of speech, MLA, comma splices, fragments, plagiarism, etc.
--students research colleges they've never heard of and blog about them, with profiles, alumni, etc. find video on youtube about less known colleges: post to blog, maybe share in class.
--more photos of teacher and student on blogs, more stock photos from getty image and google image, and more video blogs (let's make it visual!)
--students interview one another during AP's for exit interviews about the school, academics, constructive criticism, etc.
--Poetry is about time running and time running out (both theme and the reading of a poem). Make this connection and investigate the passage of time in your own lives through both the personal and the poetry
--Literature is the universal in the particular. Use two examples from works we've read to show this.
--All year long, keep a series of running blogs about decision-making. Create your own (thoughtful) categories of styles of decision making. Adjust the categories as you think it through further.
--Consider the following kinds of decision making: emotional, principaled, reasoned, risky vs risk averse, fear-based. Now test and explain each category with examples and analysis: Consider:
1. Your own decision-making process as you decide what classes to take, what colleges to apply to, and (projecting) how you will choose your final college to attend. 2. interview a grandparent (or someone older) about their own decision-making style and process with an important representative anecdote that illustrates it, 3. Elizabeth, Hamlet, Marlow, Gregor, Prufrock, Marvell, Gregor, Meursault, Nick, Winston, Willie/Biff, etc. 4. Create a scene in which any two or more of these characters help you decide which colleges to apply to (or make another important decision in your life). 
--Keep your theory running all year long on your blog, culminating in a research paper.
--Also, keep track of identity formation (with some readings from Psychology and Freud) and how these characters define themselves.
--high school knowledge vs. college knowledge: which is factual, disputed, theoretical, informed conversational, scholarly? Keep this blog theme all year long. Find examples of college essays vs. high school essays.
MORE IDEAS:
-experience non-clock time and write about it
-more pictures on blogs
-One powerpoint slide every day for a report on authors, time periods, genres, lit terms, etc. Rotates around class so every 15 days, student does another one. Can email it AND post it to site
-Possible blog topic: choose one fine art picture and pair it with a poem. Each student does a blog like this every quarter on a rotating basis.
-Confinement as a theme.
-Challenge yourself somehow every semester. What's outside your comfort zone that you want to push yourself to do. Then blog about it.
-Use statistical data in at least one essay! Required. You may generate the data from counting words or a survey, etc.
-Create a book from photos with text. on Blurb.com one for you, one for the school. About literature, with photos, your best writing, about you!
Even more ideas:
-habituation, readings, a theme for the Bennets, seniors, Gregor Samsa. Have a theory about it.
- Face to meet the faces that you meet.
-

Goodbye! Thanks for a Great Year!

Wave Goodbye to Buckley and English!

Goodbye! You've been a great class to teach and I'll miss you.

Please remember to email or blog from college.

Yours,

Dr Forman

Write Good Bye on your hand!

P.S. Anyone that would like to give an exit interview about English, reading, and writing and classes in general during your final years at Buckley, please send me an email.

"I can't believe Dr. Forman's english class is over when after all the blogs and after all the pain and struggles trying to write a perfect essay for Dr. Forman, the class has ended. I didn't really see it coming." -AS
"I especially want to thank you Dr.Forman, usually I just push my way through english and not really care about it." -RM
"this is a very bittersweet blog." -AS
"Thank you Dr. Forman for providing a great, intellectual yet calm environment in English." -LG
"Life will choose moments in which we discover where our true passion lies." -Dim Sum blog
"Time was slow and I thought to myself: "GOD! I JUST WANT TO LEAVE ALREADY!" -GK
"Senior year was everything I dreamed of and more." -MC
"If there is one thing i want to make clear in this blog, its that, well, i love you guys.  Teachers, classmates, Buckley." -RL
"Things like this don't have nice, simple answers. I don't even know how to say goodbye." -JB
"Goodbye for now. College, here I come." -EM
"It's actually a bit scary." -MA
 

And for he who shall remain forever young

Our lives will be the chorus to your song

And though your future is gone

Your love of life lives on...

...through us

 AA for The Class of 2011

  

Reading Triage: Read, Skim Read, or Not Read?

When should you skim read?

You have too much material to read in college. How do you decide what to read, what to skim read, and what NOT to read?

Practice skim reading for five minutes.

Manage your attention: Notice how you can be at two places at once in your brain: you're both reading and deciding what’s important to read.

You're going back and forth between skimming and reading, changing your pace.

Notice the split between the big ideas vs. the details. Which should you try to retain?

LAST Days in English

Thursday 5/12 4th blog due, In class: How to Skim Read
Friday 5/13: College Transition Workshop
Monday 5/16: Last class, last blog due
Wednesday 5/18: Final exam
By December: Your email from college (about reading, writing, etc.)

College Catalogue PowerPoint

PowerPoint due Mon May 9: email to teacher jforman@buckleyla.org before class
1. Title
2. Freshman Courses, fall v. spring
3. Sophomore Courses, fall v. spring
4. Explanation of GE requirements and major requirements
5. Alumni response to question (about reading load or other question)
6. Plagiarism Policy
7. Advice (from self-help books or websites)
You will be presenting to the class Monday or the next class day
Learn the ins and outs of your catalogue well.

Monday: presentations  (PowerPoint due)
Tue: AP Gov
Wed: more presentations
Thu: How to Skim Read  (4th blog due)
Fri: Wrap Up
Mon (Last Class): (final blog due)

Reminder: Last Five Blogs

Reminder: you had creative blogs due Friday and Monday, April 29 and May 2.  Going forward, you have creative blogs due Thu. May 5, Thu. May 12, and for before our last class meeting, Monday, May 16. 

Your PowerPoint about your college catalogue and classes is due by email Monday, May 9.

And don’t forget your final, final blog or email from college sometime next year! 

Sincerely,   Dr James Forman

P.S. Anyone willing to keep their blog going—even occasionally—at college can waive the request to send a writing assignment. We’d love to hear about your experiences next year!