Seventh grade was just one huge homework of worksheets. Each school day was a question with 8 parts-(a), (b), (c), (d), and so on, each representing each period and each day was one worksheet. And within that huge metaphor? I’m failing.

Think of each subject like a weight. Extra-curricular/after school are, say, six lbs per thing, and subjects plus homework plus tests and quizzes are seven. Then I would have twelve pounds of after school and fifty-six pounds of in-school/homework to do. 56+12=68 pounds of stress on my small and innocent back…everyday.

I think school can best be represented as one of those games where you have a farm or a zoo or whatever. And you have money that you earn from the animals or plants and then you have jewels or golden tickets or some other sort of hard-to-get item that you can use money for to purchase, and you want to buy it because otherwise everything would take hours to complete in the game. Well with that comparison, the time was my work and the jewels was my off-taskness. I can’t spend money to purchase the jewels-because my parents wouldn’t let me flunk any subjects-and the jewels are limited before I really start failing. So every week I buy my animals and breed them and wait eight hours for each process. And then I feed them and get more and all the while my mind keeps drifting toward those jewels, just waiting for me to use them to speed them up. The iPad begging for me to play on it, if only for a little while.
And so the conclusion of my dramatic, devastating year is a good thing. A very good thing. And I’m very glad summer is just 17 school days away…

School in a nutshell-work. Homework, schoolwork, class work, physical work, sleepless work, extra-curricular work. School is about the extent to which you can work. For some, mental abilities are stretched to achieve the best grades. However these are meaningless numbers that add and average out to scores. What is the meaning of this madness? It seems there isn’t any at all except ourselves.
Long ago, an article was published about our curiosity. The average adult person is always curious-for places, for ideas, for experiments. We build planes and cars and rockets to explore. We strap ourselves in to roller coasters to feel-feel the exciting feeling without causing pain or even death. For the pleasure without the danger.
And curiosity. What idea can you think of that Man has not explored to his extent of? We are so curious, so hungry to know that whatever we don’t know becomes a source of danger…such as ourselves. Man’s willing to know is so strong that he demands his children to learn. And so we decide that our children must learn the core knowledge that let’s us survive and then those children-our dearest seeds of survival and our future-would in turn learn from what they already learned and plunge into even more complicated regions of that knowledge.
And so, the school is formed to teach students so that they could learn more and more. Because what we don’t know about we are afraid of. And what we are afraid of we yearn to control.
Bizarre as it sounds, we really are afraid of ourselves. Not each Man and himself but each Man and another Man. Each and every creature on the planet is capable of hundreds of emotions and thousands of reactions. Why is it that your best friend is your best friend? Because you are alike, perhaps is part of it. And trust, and kindness. But a major reason you could tell her your darkest secrets and your deepest crushes is because you know that person. You know she likes pizza, you know she has English first period, you know she’s ticklish under her chin and that she electrified herself when she was four and that her favorite food is chocolate. And those you don’t know…why do you think your parents told you to beware of strangers?
Classmates, remember that without knowledge we wouldn’t survive. In every war did we not spare women and children? Women, to produce the children, and children to be the future. We are the future…and therefore, those older must give us the knowledge to survive what time brings us.
I do agree that the obsession to teach students is slightly too much. However every subject has a purpose. English to hone our skills of communication to each other, to have the ability to express the wonderful ideas we have for generations to come. Math and Science to explore the foundations of knowledge, the roots that would sprout more and more ideas to show. History, to honor those who contributed a lot, and to learn from our mistakes of war and pain and misery, so that we can build from those errors new times of intense pleasure and joy and peace for everyone.
Think about it this way: by surviving the brain-melting torture school brings us, we can use the knowledge and come up with wise, painless ways other than school, and homework, and tests to keep generations to come successful. By thinking of school as a tool instead of a weight, we could bring it to an end for the future-our future.