Overcrowded, Overenrolled and Over It
By Davina Srioudom
Throughout my public school experience, I increasingly became aware of the problems my school faced. For starters, many of my classes were overfilled with students. There would be over forty of us in a classroom meant to hold 25 students at maximum. And this equally affected both students and teachers. For us students, it became more difficult to participate as often and receive individual help. For teachers, they had less time to provide thorough feedback on our work, as they had to finish grading our papers by strict grading deadlines. Overall, it was difficult to build personal relationships with both our peers and teachers.
Our teachers made their frustrations regarding class size clear, but they never took it out upon us students. They recognized that this issue was a matter of insufficient funding, rather than the fault of the students who took their courses. I continually saw how this also impacted the mental health of our classmates and teachers, and how it reflected in our quality of education. Students had very few options to rely on when seeking help, and often they were dismissed for their concerns. I’m still hopeful that one day these funding issues will finally be addressed and students and teachers will receive the resources they need.