Here is my perspective: In today's society, teenagers constantly complain about school. This is nothing new, as most teenagers for generations have complained about school. However, there are some truly atrocious stories out there about school. For instance how much homework high school students have, and the enormous amount of extra curricular activities, athletics, and overall difficulty of balancing these, not to mention the difficulty of the lessons. Here are some sayings I have heard around my school: "I have to practice tonight AND do an essay!" "Omg I will literally have no time to sleep tonight. I have like 3 worksheets to do and I have to go to quiz bowl tonight." If you look hard enough (not very) you will find many teenage complaints about the obscene amount of homework they get. Another constant complaint that is voiced is the amount of sleep teenagers get. They bemoan the less and less hours they get due to homework and athletics. However, I have texted friends at all hours of the night, at not once have they mentioned that they are awake to do homework. ( I have insomnia sometimes and I'll text people randomly and ask if they are awake and why.) I however, I hold that most don't get enough sleep due to the fact that they mess around. I highly doubt that anyone has 2-3 hours of homework EVERY night and that it truly takes 3 hours to do if they really focus in on it. I also find it hard to entertain the notion that in between the hours of 3-9 p.m. they are extremely busy with the litany of activities every single night. (Exceptions would of course be those with jobs, such as myself, who do indeed work 4-10 some nights. ) I will remain ambiguous in this subject of stress due in part to my ability to do obscene amounts of homework in relatively little time and my general non stress attitude. ( I rarely get stressed about things, generally if I have a deadline to make and I do not think I can make it.) My question posed to the forum is: Do you think today's teenagers are overly stressed? Please use any real life experiences such as personal, relatives, friends, etc. Do you think that high school is really that bad of a deal, in comparison to the real world? Is today's generation ignorant of the real stress of the world? Or are their complaints completely valid?
As my high school aged sons say--the people stressed about homework are the ones that are texting until two or three in the morning with their friends....
Yes I realize that but in true honesty if a person cannot handle the "stress" of homework, are they ill equipped to deal with the realities of the world, where a bad test grade is a trifle compared to what adults have to deal with.
Well, there are things like the war on boys and the over prescription of drugs like Ritalin to keep them in check. This was not happening when I was in school.
again, it depends what you mean by "stress" does the heart quicken, the pupils dilate, do they sweat? Or, do you simply mean that they would rather be doing something else It's just an immaturity thing and the BEST thing a parent can do is get their kids to work and at least 16 hours per week. Discipline and conditioning are not bad words and just like athletes need discipline, so does everyone. Realizing that you must balance school, work and social time does prepare kids and disciplines them for reality (unless they become govt employees)
I'm going to sound insane for saying this because it sounds irrelevant but it makes sense to me: I blame social media. It is the cause of the stress.
The problem is that year-round school requires teachers year-round. Forget it. Teachers like the way it is, but with more money, and schools exist for the teachers and the teachers' unions.
IMO: If you think 'life' will be easier than high school, you're doomed to disappointment, unless you have rich parents and a trust fund. Granted, high school has it's own set of stresses, as you mention, but once you are solely responsible to provide yourself with food, shelter, clothing, transportation, entertainment, and all the other necessities of life, you will learn what stress really is. People handle stress differently. Some use stress to motivate them, others become consumed by it. Be the former, not the latter.
When I was in school we smoked a little weed to alleviate that stress before we group studied at the library. We were all 16-18 and everyone in my group except one person now has a job that earns them over $100K a year and the other guy is in prison for Manslaughter (Someone raped and murdered his sister and when he walked out of the court house he shot him in the chest with a 44 mag at basically point blank range.) Get friends that want to succeed and they will most likely motivate you to succeed. Find your own ways to deal with stress, we smoked weed, I'm not saying you should but find something that will help.
School is easy if you get the right electives and really hard if you get the difficult ones. It depends on the student. The ones who stress are the ones who care and are also likely the ones who get better grades and take the harder classes. Kids who don't give a(*)(*)(*)(*) are the ones who don't stress and take PE and Clayworks types of classes all day. EDIT: Dude I can (*)(*)(*)(*)ing cuss and it will (*)(*)(*)(*)ing has tag it for me?... (*)(*)(*)(*)ing cool now I don't (*)(*)(*)(*)ing have to watch my own (*)(*)(*)(*)ty mouth.
The problem is there are so many east asian students in usa. they are good at exam, but they are NOT smarter then others. example, in china and hongkong students spend double/triple time to learn high school math. it is stupid, but they get high marks. when they move to USA, they are "better" then the local students. they do NOT have the gift, but the university have to choose them.
