Two page essay in 30 minutes
Today’s average teen is forced to struggle valiantly against numerous evils plaguing the adolescent universe. While it is very true that superficial pressures like drugs, alcohol and sex prove to be a distracting and challenging test of will, the battles waged in the mind of today’s youth, especially in America, are much more complex, and possibly, more disastrous. Motivation, direction, and confidence are just a small sample of the nearly infinite diversion that the psyche of a teenager impairs with.
When faced with seemingly countless days of the same droll, repetitive tasks and assignments commonly given to teenage students today, it is no wonder that by the twelfth (thirteenth, if you count preschool) year of education, many are infected with the ghastly disease charmingly labeled “Senioritis”. Common symptoms include failure to complete assignments, increase in tardiness, and decrease in overall performance. All of this is due to the lack of motivation, which is unsurprisingly caused by the excessively mundane schedules and assignments given to high school students. While no cure has yet been found, it is common opinion that simple variety is treatment enough to subside at least some of the dreadful side-effects resulting from so called “motivation depravation”.
Perhaps though, some of this variety should be added in course selection. After all, many students are forced to choose a secondary school based on their future goals, of which many teenagers are dumbfounded by. There can be no denying the overwhelming amount of choice one has in careers and aspirations, yet so little is done to cultivate these ideas planted so painstakingly in the minds of children. Surprisingly, teenagers are given very little guidance on what possibilities lie in their future, much less what one should do to reach these prospects. With so many choices and so little assistance, many students flounder at the culmination of their high school years, searching desperately for a direction to pursue, but finding only confusing and often discouraging results. Instead of some of the required, or at least suggested classes (higher level, specialized math and science courses, for example), perhaps a class period could be dedicated to finding a career path, and researching the best way to attain such goals.
However much potential a teenager has though, is only as valuable as the confidence that drives him or her forward to act on it. In the increasingly competitive realm teenagers live in, it is all too common to see the attitude of “not quite good enough”, which is in no case correct. So many times at every high school in America have the underdog risen up to overcome the “sure thing”. If not, there would be no need for sports, class elections, or prom kings and queens. Every year though, posters fly off the copy machine trays advertising the next big game, class president nominees, and Homecoming courts. Under nearly all circumstances, the winner is the most confident, the one who is sure enough that they can win. This concept is carried over to academics as well, which negatively manifests itself in the form of apathy. One often acknowledges that, “If so-and-so will do better, what is the point in trying at all?” A solution to a problem like this is difficult to muster, due to the fact that confidence is completely internal. Even some of the most successful people in the world lack confidence, and others can only do so much in effort to boost such reserve.
Compiling the difficulties poised for teens today is no easy task, and would inevitably be a text longer and more difficult than even the most studious of students would be willing to read. Hopefully, some issues will be addressed, for it is in the youth of today that spawns the prosperity of tomorrow.
I win.
P.S. Finch broke up....
When faced with seemingly countless days of the same droll, repetitive tasks and assignments commonly given to teenage students today, it is no wonder that by the twelfth (thirteenth, if you count preschool) year of education, many are infected with the ghastly disease charmingly labeled “Senioritis”. Common symptoms include failure to complete assignments, increase in tardiness, and decrease in overall performance. All of this is due to the lack of motivation, which is unsurprisingly caused by the excessively mundane schedules and assignments given to high school students. While no cure has yet been found, it is common opinion that simple variety is treatment enough to subside at least some of the dreadful side-effects resulting from so called “motivation depravation”.
Perhaps though, some of this variety should be added in course selection. After all, many students are forced to choose a secondary school based on their future goals, of which many teenagers are dumbfounded by. There can be no denying the overwhelming amount of choice one has in careers and aspirations, yet so little is done to cultivate these ideas planted so painstakingly in the minds of children. Surprisingly, teenagers are given very little guidance on what possibilities lie in their future, much less what one should do to reach these prospects. With so many choices and so little assistance, many students flounder at the culmination of their high school years, searching desperately for a direction to pursue, but finding only confusing and often discouraging results. Instead of some of the required, or at least suggested classes (higher level, specialized math and science courses, for example), perhaps a class period could be dedicated to finding a career path, and researching the best way to attain such goals.
However much potential a teenager has though, is only as valuable as the confidence that drives him or her forward to act on it. In the increasingly competitive realm teenagers live in, it is all too common to see the attitude of “not quite good enough”, which is in no case correct. So many times at every high school in America have the underdog risen up to overcome the “sure thing”. If not, there would be no need for sports, class elections, or prom kings and queens. Every year though, posters fly off the copy machine trays advertising the next big game, class president nominees, and Homecoming courts. Under nearly all circumstances, the winner is the most confident, the one who is sure enough that they can win. This concept is carried over to academics as well, which negatively manifests itself in the form of apathy. One often acknowledges that, “If so-and-so will do better, what is the point in trying at all?” A solution to a problem like this is difficult to muster, due to the fact that confidence is completely internal. Even some of the most successful people in the world lack confidence, and others can only do so much in effort to boost such reserve.
Compiling the difficulties poised for teens today is no easy task, and would inevitably be a text longer and more difficult than even the most studious of students would be willing to read. Hopefully, some issues will be addressed, for it is in the youth of today that spawns the prosperity of tomorrow.
I win.
P.S. Finch broke up....