Brooke Hirsch

After his entire class has skipped, the teacher is the only one remaining, too tired to care.

The dreaded walls of high school tire even the most diligent and intelligent students at some point in their final year.
And that moment of carelessness is when it strikes – senioritis is here.
A monstrous force in this realm, many have fallen victim in their senior year to simply not caring anymore. This is great for students as they get to have fun in their final year, as long as they pass all their classes.
But for teachers, where the job is to teach all year, having students who do not want to be taught can be a problem.
“Senioritis is as real as the ocean,” English teacher Anatoly Alexeeff said.“Twelve years of public education leaves students in an intellectual dehydration.”
Many seniors agree.
Following Alexeeff’s simile, it can be said that the salty tides of college applications and junior year are the cause of this dehydration.
“You work really hard junior year, and then you kind of have the thought that senior year will be easy,” senior Trenton Von Sosen said. “Once you get into a college you’re like, ‘OK, it’s fine,’ because there’s not really any consequences unless you completely fail.”
In a fight for survival against senioritis, it’s this moment of “OK, it’s fine” that brings seniors to their knees. The tally of one more casualty is added to that of hundreds who feel as if their cries for help aren’t being heard.
“Our school sucks for not recognizing the real disorder that is senioritis, that we seniors suffer through everyday,” senior Wais Kandahari said.
And many of the victims who aren’t being heard are the same students that excelled in their first three and a half years with blood, sweat and tears.
“It is without a doubt clear to see that students who force themselves to excel in the early years of high school, tend to lose such drive when entering their senior year,” AP Calculus AB teacher Surbhi Jain said.
This is a genuine point to make, especially when students tend to grind out their first three-plus years of high school, just so that when the college admission process opens up they can have more to show for their success.
So when students put too much pressure on themselves during their sophomore and junior years, the end of their senior year inevitably becomes their rest period as students start to take less classes, with a lack of attention to boot.
“As someone who doesn’t have a first period, it becomes a hassle to force myself to leave my house at 10 a.m. just to attend two classes of school,” senior Zayd Haque said.
In the case of seniors like Haque, the ability to take fewer classes becomes a double edged sword, as the benefit of taking only a couple classes allows students to have more free time. On the other hand, it inadvertently leads them to turn senile as their will to attend classes fades.
“I have to say things in an increasingly emotional and exaggerated tone until I am laughing and crying,” Alexeeff said.
But there still is hope. Commanding the attention of a teenager who’d rather watch an armadillo watch paint dry instead of sit in class might be challenging, but nothing is impossible for a massively underpaid teacher.
In utter exasperation, Alexeeff said teachers must turn on the school’s sprinklers in 15 minute intervals to recapture the attentions of senioritis-ravaged students.
Another solution, which is strangely popular among students, is to cure this disease by doing absolutely nothing.
“Best solution to combat senioritis is having teachers hand out less work for us,” senior Alp Akkoyun said.
Or, more reasonably, Von Sosen said in his experience, teachers who make their classes interesting can motivate seniors and give them an advantage in the fight against senioritis.
Because at its core, senioritis stems from a lack of motivation, a feeling of just being completely done with school that applies to all victims of the public school system.
Although they’re paid to teach and motivate students, teachers are victims of this system as well.
This is the reason why Alexeeff said he advocates for a Senioritis Teacher Support System (STSS).
But after taking into consideration all the suffering that this beastly force has wrought upon the realm of Cal students, maybe it’s not just the teachers who need support to fight against senioritis. Students must support each other to keep fighting during these trying times.
Because as a community-wide calamity, senioritis must be fought by the whole community. With the help of parents, students and teachers working in unison for maybe the first time in district history, the vicious monster of senioritis might just be possible to defeat.