THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501120071
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
IT HAPPENS occasionally when Brooke Coley is walking down the hall at Oscar Smith High. A friend pushes his finger into her shoulder muscle.
``If it's tight,'' Brook said, ``he says, `You're stressed out.' ''
And chances are, the 14-year-old basketball-playing, straight A-making, violin-playing freshman is under pressure.
Stress. It's defined as physical or mental tension and all six students at this week's Teenspeak at Oscar Smith say they experience it in varying degrees. It's a part of high school. Basically, stress starts to build freshman year. It reaches a crushing crescendo during junior and senior year.
``It's college that stresses me out,'' said senior Josh Hobbs, 17, who is working his way through applications for scholarships, grants, loans and admissions. ``I can find the time, but when you sit down to write your (admissions) essays, it stresses you because there is so much depending on that. If you mess up on that, you can just forget college right then.''
Heap atop that burden the everyday pressures of teenage existence - working to pay car insurance, homework, extracurriculars - and stress is inevitable.
Take 17-year-old senior Lamont White for example. He estimates that he faces three to four tests each week. In a single week, or even a single day, he might be required to know the properties of atoms for chemistry class, have mathematical functions memorized for trigonometry, know about a couple of presidents for U.S. government class, and memorize test-taking techniques for SAT prep class.
Much of the stress, students revealed, is due to loads of extracurricular activities.
TeLaza Arrington, 16, a junior, gets stressed out by yearbook deadlines that can keep her at school past 9 p.m. Then there's the advanced placement history test where they have a quiz every day.
Cheerleading takes a chunk of sophomore Bonni Frick's schedule. As captain of the junior varsity squad, she cheers two nights a week and practices after school one or two days a week. That's especially taxing since she has to be at school at 7:45, an hour before most students, for ``zero bell, a special class period for those who want to take an extra class.
``It's just too much, I have too much to do,'' the 15-year-old said.
None of the students thought that extracurriculars should be limited, however. Some said that they actually improve academics.
Extracurricular activities ``help me because if I don't do well in class, I can't play basketball,'' Lamont, a forward on the varsity basketball team, said. ``If I don't do as well as I should, my parents would take me off anyway, even if I could still play.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
I try to stay busy and keep my grade-point average up and be on the
basketball team and act and all that other stuff. It's kind of
hard.
Brooke Coley, 14, freshman
We have a research paper due next Tuesday. All my college
applications are due on the first of February. . . . Then there is
having a social life.
Josh Hobbs, 17, senior
by CNB