High School Students or Zombies?
Who doesn’t love the annoying sound of their alarm clock going off at the crack of dawn monday through friday? Or how about that big, sweet stack of homework that we get to take home everyday? Welcome to high school kids; all no fun, or games- just tons and tons of stress. Elementary students have no clue what they’re in for but it shouldn’t have to be such a drag. We didn’t have this stress weighing us down in elementary school so why should we have to have it now? The early bird catches the worm, or the early bird gets the bad grade? Deficient grades are only one of the many side effects of not obtaining enough sleep.The American Academy of Pediatrics says; “The first bell should ring at eight thirty in the morning or later-which is the case at only fifteen percent of the U.S high schools.
This is a legit proposition because teenagers release melatonin later in the day than adults do. (Melatonin is a hormone inducing evening drowsiness and it also helps to maintain the sleep-wake cycle). Our school bell, like most others, rings at seven-forty in the morning…yay.
The best part is, when we miss this absurd deadline, we get penalized for being late! Sleep deprivation gives teens a disadvantage when it comes to everyday life. Studies have proven that many teenagers make poor choices when they are sleep deprived. Adults always call us out on our “poor choices” but in reality, they’re the ones to blame for all the errors of our ways- they’re the sleep deprivers. The rational solution to this problem would be to simply hit the snooze button on school starting times. Instead, the tables turn back on us and we are lectured about how we need to go to bed earlier. This suggestion clearly doesn’t work because of biological reasons stating that the average teen can’t go to sleep much before eleven p.
m. Another thought would be to take an afternoon nap but honestly with all the assignments we get from school, who has time for that? The amount of homework we get is just ridiculous. Monday through Friday we are expected to join our other fellow, miserable, baggy-eyed peers in a classroom which we must stay in and “learn” for an hour and a half. I believe that an hour and a half of learning per class is enough and we should not have to drag that class home with us on pieces of paper to consume even more of our precious time. We are only young for so long and instead of breathing fresh air and running around while we can- we’re finding out the square root of “Z” and all the other useless equations that we’ll never need to know in real life.
Teachers need to realize we have a life outside of school that doesn’t include education twenty-four-seven. Back in middle schools, they are much lighter on the assignments and patronize rewards for all our contributions. Do you remember all those field trips we used to take in elementary school? The adventures we’d have camping, hiking, exploring our nation’s capital…Do you remember any field trips from high school? No? That’s because we’re too busy still trying to figure out the equation of “Z”.
We used to incorporate much more games in the classroom; and not the kind of games involving a rat running across the screen as you anxiously try to stop it from escaping by yelling out some spanish vocab word. “Around the world” and “Jeopardy” were favored games from my old school that I remember my class enjoying. When learning is presented in a more pleasant and less dull way, students take in more information which leads to us learning more. If we could only bring some of that lightness into high school then we’d be less cheerless. In order for the high school to be successful, it needs a makeover. This makeover includes: new time arrangements, homework reduction, and more pizzazz to our school day.
It’s also a concern that not only do students have to share the building with teachers, but also with rats. These rats have been squirming around up in the moldy ceilings for who knows how long. Honestly i’m not sure why they even like our school because we also don’t have heat; but thats off topic so forget that I mentioned it. All students must require treatments and/or treats to unwind during those long hours in school. Cupcakes and massages anyone?
