The Term Paper Killed the Highschooler
My entire high school carrer I have spent fighting homework. I would be assigned argumentative essays. I would argue on how homework is detrimental to students. I would laugh at the irony of it all and then throw in a cheeky bit of sass at the end chastising my teachers. Back then I would make fun of the fact of how it must just seem like teenage angst to all of my teachers. Now though I know that it really was and I had no idea the chunk of my life that would be taken up and crushed by homework. I want to start by saying I am a 16 year old Junior, I am ranked 6th in my class, I am the youngest in my class, and I could easily have been in the grade below me. Despite the fact that I am the same age if not younger than many of students in the grade bellow me, every single one of my classes are either a year above me if not two. This means that of my classes are either senior or college courses and at the moment I am enrolled in 2 different colleges. I don’t think that many teachers quite realize the amount of their students are taking so many advanced courses. I also don’t think they realize the stark differences between me a 16 year old junior struggling with what the word thematic means and a college student (when I’m a college student I probably still wont know what it means). This year I was assigned my first ever term paper, as a “college” student I was excpected to write one for my history class. I was okay with this obligation I understood that I needed to do it. That is when I myself became aware of the giant wall that split me from a student in college. First of all college students take far less classes a day than the eight classes I am required to go to. Therefore even though college students might get larger more complex assignments they have more ability to focus on that one subject. Not to mention college students have tons of free time that high school students can’t even dream about having. Not only do I not get the luxury of having half the time in classes, but while attending these college classes I am also expected to be doing things to make my application extraordinary so I can be excepted into college. My day is full without homework. I wake up at 6:30 get ready for school and leave at 7:20. I do the school morning news and have to be there to get ready at 7:40. I have school until 3. Piano until 5. Dinner from 5–6 (which is a terrible time for dinner by the way). Drama rehearsal until 9. Home at 9:30 and then pass out in bed. Mixed in with all that as well are multiple clubs, lifeguarding jobs, babysitting, ect. And the weekends don’t look much better. Not to mention I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) so many times when I have a day off of after school activities I end up going home after school and end up nodding off and accidentally taking a 5 hour nap, so when I wake up I have just enough time to get ready for bed and go back to sleep again.
Another large difference between me and your average college student is that I have never written a five page essay in my life. When I write essays I rarely make it over one page. I was never taught to write more, I was never taught how to quote things, I was never taught how to properly research, I was never taught how to do a bibliography. I had never even imagined writing something of this caliber before. The biggest difference though, the difference that made my life a living hell was the fact that a college students semester ends before Christmas Break mine does not. I was finally given a break from the stresses of school, but the paper was due the week after break, and even I had to admit this was the opportune time to work on it. However, I had been having trouble with just researching the topic let alone having enough sources and knoledge to start writing. Day 1 of break I had Christmas Eve with my family and helped clean the house for guests (no time for term paper). Day 2 Christmas (what can I say no time for term paper). Day 3 & Day 4 I’m going to be perfectly honest I was in so much pain from cramps I was practically bed rid (unable to bring myself do even think about term paper). Day 5 I got on a plane to Florida to have Christmas with my grandma who had just had hip surgery so she couldn’t see any of her family during Christmas. Now what really got to me about my term paper was the fact that I stayed inside in Florida the entire week I was there. I had to ignore my grandmother practically the entire time I was there. I spent almost the entire time locked in a room doing research for my term paper along with also a project for a different college class, AND reading a book for my college english class. The week it is due I stay up until the wee hours of the night writing. The teacher that assigned the paper decided to have an entire chapter reading with notes due the same day the term paper was due. When one of my classmates (who is actually first in my class) asked if we could push the reading back a day my teacher flipped out. She told us that if that means we had been procrastinating our papers that it should extremely easy for us to do both. She told us that it was extremely offensive if our paper wern’t printed out or stapled (I don’t own a stapler) the moment we get to class. She told us that “procastination” was the most offensive thing we could do because that meant we didn’t care about the class. We are the smartest kids in my grade the only reason we were there was because we care. We all do tons of extracurriculars because we want to further our chances of getting into a good college and doing something good with our lifes and education. Some of us don’t own printers. Some of us don’t have staplers. We all don’t have time. I spent my entire vacation locked away and anti-social in stressed out tears don’t tell me that I don’t care. I care to much. I am doing to many things. I am not a college student. I am a high school student. Not only that but I’m one the likes school, likes to learn, wants to get into a good college. Don’t stifle the people that want to be there. We can only handle so much.
