Time is Every High school Student's enemy by Trinity

Time is Every High school Student's enemy by Trinity - November 2021 Scholarship Essay

Time is a human-constructed phenomenon to measure the passage of events in chronological order so our subconscious doesn’t fall into madness and insanity. Our minds use the concept of time to make some sense of the abstract and ever-changing world around us. We crave to have control. If not over our own lives, then on other people and the objects around us. This idea first appeared in factory work, but some genius decided to implement this into schools. And as a high school student myself I have to wonder…

Where is my time? Where is my time to rest? Where is my time to think? Where is my time to worry? Where is my time? I don’t have any time. I have no time to rest, to think, to process my days, or even plan my future days. Writer David Foster Wallace in his college speech This is Water, described this phenomenon as, “how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.” I find this definition impactful as school forces me into this natural braindead state. What if I had a class period during school where I could work on assignments, think about my future, or get a few gracious minutes to focus on life instead of the unconscious pattern I’ve grown into. And that’s why the class that deserves the most emphasis in school is study hall because it gives students more time.

Allow me to use my own life as an example for this problem. I wake up at seven am in the morning and get home at eight o’clock at night. I used to wake up at six-thirty but my cat has realized before my parents that I am losing sleep, sanity, and am nearing the ends of my rope. And therefore refuses to get off of me until seven. Every day I submit to the bell and work in my classes for an hour and thirty minutes at a time with a short time allotted for lunch, which I usually spend in the library working on college applications.

Every school is structured by a bell schedule. The students are controlled by the bell, everything they do, every thought they have, every action of the day is done because of the bell. For high school students, time is everything. Many kids are forced to devour as much academic material as possible, regurgitate it for a final, then dump it out in the trash and do it all over again. Schools often encourage creativity and self-realization but barely give students the time to be creative or even offer classes that encourage creative thinking, life planning, or giving students the chance to realize what they are interested in other than academic material. And as an artist, I understand the importance of having a class that doesn't focus on academic material or just gives you free time to work on what you please. Therefore, having one class where students can have free time to either learn more about an academic study or venture out and look over other materials they have an interest in is incredibly impactful.

Many administrators will say that the time allotted after school hours is when kids can work on extracurricular activities. On a regular day, I will not get home until eight at night as I have to work for four hours after school. By then, the highways are empty, my only companions are the planes I mistake as stars over my head, and I’m terribly hungry. Once I have eaten and showered it's almost nine, and I've become increasingly aware of the black gauze drifting over my eyes. Unfortunately, I can not rest now, I still have roughly an hour of homework to do. This causes me to ask, what can change in school to give busy students like me more time?

For so many students, study hall is that time to venture out from that unconscious day in and day out mindset school puts us into. It’s an opportunity for us to catch up on any missing work, study for future assessments, or plan our next adventure in life. It’s a chance for students to no longer be a slave to the system, break out and focus on their aspirations. Heck if we have no work to do, it’s a moment to rest. It’s a moment where time is non-existent. A small blissful second where kids becoming adults can become kids again. Go back to that hobby we wanted to continue, finish reading that book, maybe even watch that content creator you used to love so much, dreaming that one day you could be as happy and carefree as them. Especially in the wake of quarantine and an increase in importance regarding students’ mental health; study hall is the much-needed break from the day in and day out where students can catch up on studies, get ahead in classes, plan for their future, focus on extracurricular activities, or even just take a break from it all. Study hall gives what every high school student needs to combat this human-constructed phenomenon. Time.