Why Deerfield Is in a Sleep Epidemic

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a group of my friends about our sophomore year experiences so far. We talked about our extracurriculars, our social experiences, and compared our sophomore and freshman schedules. However, as we began to talk about our classes, one thing became clear: all of us felt like we enjoyed the courses we were taking, but none of us felt like we’re getting enough sleep

This experience is not unique. In 2021, a survey conducted on the junior class with 95 respondents found that 91.6% of juniors would sleep more if they had less work. Additionally, 90% of respondents reported that they were feeling “super stressed.” These statistics show widespread overworking. Specifically, they illustrate how large portions of the student body have to sacrifice sleep, which Deerfield emphasizes, in order to keep up with work.

I believe that this overworking is a huge problem for two main reasons. First, it is unhealthy. Consistently missing sleep impairs physical recovery as well as cognitive function. This is especially detrimental for high school teenagers who are in the most crucial stage of their biological development. Second, it decreases students’ curiosity and passion for the subjects they learn about. I believe that no matter how much a student loves a subject, if they have to consistently miss sleep to keep up with the curriculum, they will begin to associate it with stress and fatigue. As a result, they will begin to love it less. These impacts go against what Deerfield stands for, against cultivating a healthy environment for young people to discover and pursue their passions.

I believe that classes can become more rigorous in two main ways: by requiring an increased volume of work or by involving more diffcult and intellectually stimulating work. Increasing volume may look like requiring forty pages of reading instead of twenty, while increasing diffculty looks like taking a deeper dive into a subject or exploring more complex ideas; the two are not mutually exclusive.

I agree that volume is important. There is great value in reading a variety of texts with different styles, doing practice problems on a certain mathematical concept, and investing time into learning. However, I also believe that at a certain point, when keeping up with the curriculum of a class requires significant sacrifices in other areas of students’ lives, this volume has a diminishing return. Deerfield has clearly reached this point.

Before I proceed further, I would like to recognize a concern Deerfield might have about decreasing volume. Decreasing volume too much can have harmful effects on literacy skills; with literacy proficiency already declining in this current generation of students, I can see why Deerfield would be wary of lessening workloads.

However, I also believe that there are ways Deerfield can ameliorate this issue of overworking without sacrificing their commitment towards producing well-read and proficient students. I don’t believe that teachers should remove challenging texts or important primary sources from class curricula—reading those texts is important to developing crucial literacy skills. However, I believe they can experiment with ways to more effciently teach background information that is important for contextualizing those texts but isn't the main focus. For example, if this type of tertiary knowledge can be conveyed in a ten minute video instead of a thirty minute reading, teachers should assign the video rather than the reading.

I also believe that Academic Affairs needs to standardize expectations on the amount of time students should spend on homework. I understand that if a student wants to do exceptionally well and get an exceptional grade in a course, they must invest more time and effort than the course requires. However, if they spend allotted time—50 minutes for regular classes and 70 minutes for honors classes—on homework, what grade can they expect to receive? Should they expect to get the class average? Should they expect to receive a grade of 90%? I believe that Academic Affairs should decide on a standard, and make it clear to the student body so that they can make informed decisions on how to allocate their time.

Teachers should also more consistently collect student input. Periodic surveys on the pace of a class, the method in which it is taught, and general feedback can illuminate issues with the curriculum and places where it can improve. For example, if the vast majority of students claim that they are consistently spending more than two hours a night on homework, this may indicate the need to find more effcient ways to teach the material.

In addition to Deerfield’s model of rigor, I also believe that our chronic overworking is exacerbated by a hypercompetitive workaholic culture. In my experience, the student body places a huge emphasis on taking the hardest classes possible and finishing work regardless of circumstance; it has created a culture of “toughing it out,” even when doing so is not the most healthy nor the most productive path forward. I believe that the student body has glorified getting insuffcient sleep and pulling all-nighters. I frequently have conversations with friends that wear sleep deprivation like a badge of honor, and many of my older peers mention that having a healthy sleep schedule is impossible during junior year. I’ve been told that losing sleep is just “the way it’s going to be.”

I recognize that Deerfield is a prep school meant to prepare students for college and that college admissions have a significant influence on many of the students here. However, I don’t believe that being a successful student should be synonymous with working oneself into the ground. I believe that students overwork themselves because of a misconception that in order to get accepted into a good college, they must take the hardest possible courses in every subject, receive fives on multiple AP exams, and prove that they are qualified and worthy of acceptance. In the process of doing so, the student body has twisted the meaning of being a successful student. I believe that Deerfield student body should work towards cultivating a healthier work atmosphere, one where students don’t feel the need to take honors or accelerated courses in subjects they lack passion, where students feel comfortable talking to their teachers if the homework is consistently taking longer than it’s supposed to, and where one without a harmful competition to be the least healthy Deerfield student.

In addition to students driving this unhealthy phenomenon, I believe that teachers, largely unintentionally, are also taking advantage of this toxic work culture. In my own experience, I have found that the work I receive in my classes often exceeds the maximum allotted time. I believe that this behavior exploits Deerfield students’ destructive work culture, which emphasizes finishing the work regardless of circumstance, and effectively perpetuates it. Students only find themselves in a position where they have to choose between their health and finishing their homework because teachers assign extremely burdensome volumes of work to begin with.

While I believe that students play a role in perpetuating workaholic culture, I also believe that the Academy, which is responsible for students during the most formative years of their lives, has a responsibility to make changes and encourage healthier lifestyles; both students and faculty need to spearhead this effort. No one actually enjoys being sleep deprived. Let’s not accept this as “the way it’s going to be.”