The American education system is my life—five out of the
seven days of the week I am in school from 7 AM to 2 PM or later.
It’s funny how the American education system is also the
death of me.
I learned in seventh grade health class (a required course
might I add) that teenagers need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, as they
are in their prime time of growth. However, the National Sleep foundation
reports that only 15% of teens get at least 8.5 hours of sleep per night.
Colleges want kids that do everything. They look for someone who can take heavy
courses in school, then juggle extracurricular programs after school including
clubs, sports, community service, competitions, and a social life to make
connections. However, this is obviously too wordy for the millions of
letters and emails colleges send out every day so instead they euphemize it to “time
management.”
Time management is no longer a term of how quickly you can
finish your activities because there are just some events in scheduling that
the student cannot control. However, teens are able to manipulate their sleep
schedules, so time management is just “who can function the best on the
littlest amount of sleep?”
A lot of homework tonight? Sports right after school, and
band concert in the evening? No problem, we can just sleep tomorrow during class
and pull an all-nighter tonight.
This is the mind of the youth nowadays. But it’s okay, the
bags under my eyes are designer.
