Balance It Out!
I believe in an evenly balanced day of school and non-school related activities. Recently I came to a decision to try to do all of my homework and maintain a healthy life style. Which meant I was going to work out at least four days a week, hang out with my friends more (which I have not really done since this past summer), have decent grades, and still work at my job three to four days a week.
Doesn’t sound like it should be that hard right? Well, let’s consider a schedule for a high school student that has a part-time job. My day begins around 6:15 every morning and ends around 11 at night. During that time I spend an average total of twelve and one-half hours of work and school a day. During America’s Industrial Revolution, day laborers fought for an evenly split day of eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for personal affairs. I spend my entire day doing mostly school things, even when I’m at work (when possible) I do my homework. When I can’t define my work time from my school time, it means my day is definitely not evenhanded. Now, my conditions are no where near as bad as those workers who argued for evenly split work days. They DID fight for them and a hundred years later what they wanted is still not in effect, then I believe that the least I can do is express my opinion about it. I absolutely agree that education is imperative to children in society, but I also believe that is important to understand that school is only one important aspect of your life, and that you have other responsibilities to take care of. It’s vital to your health that you eat well and exercise to maintain a healthy body and it’s mentally and socially important to have human interaction every now and then, and if it were not for my job, I would not have time to talk to my friends outside of school. I barely see my family; in fact I didn’t speak to my little sister at all yesterday, let alone see her!
Yes, school is important, but I think much of our time is wasted in little things during the school day that could have been placed on more important things. Such as hour and half classes when the attention span only last for half the block. Most teachers can see the focus fade in and out as the last forty-five minutes slowly passes by. I also think that if you have a free period, with the permission from your parents, and you can drive: you should be able to leave school and take care of things like projects and homework at home instead of a crowded class room. Education is vital, but wasted time is annoying and exhausting.
I believe in a balance of school and real-life, and right now, students do not have it.