A day in their lives

Waking before daylight, hitting the pillow after midnight.

If some aspects of high school life are timeless – like worrying about fitting in or getting good grades – there is so much that’s new. Students are taking on more responsibility, more classes and more volunteer work, mostly because more is expected of them when they apply to colleges and universities. There also are more distractions, like e-mail, MySpace and text messaging.

So how exactly does a day look for the more than 30,000 high school students in Spokane and Kootenai counties?

On Oct. 2, about three-dozen student journalists from the Vox – a teen-produced newspaper published by The Spokesman-Review – set out to create a snapshot.

The students from about 30 high schools, including one who is home-schooled, were asked to chronicle moments – during extracurricular activities, with friends, on the bus ride home, during lunch …

Some students took pictures, while others wrote.

“The point was for it to be a real journal of their day – the same day – for everyone,” said Erin Daniels, full-time Vox adviser, who previously taught journalism at Sandpoint High School.

The project resulted in more than 80 photos and 100 pages of journal entries from the students, whittled down by editors at The Spokesman-Review into a readable package that starts with an alarm clock at 5 a.m. and ends when the last student finally puts aside her homework at 3:30 a.m.

What the students went through is typical of all teens, Daniels said. “They are busy – they take on a lot. They are learning to juggle responsibilities.”

Read about their day, and see their photos, on pages A8-A10.