Who has time for homework or classes anymore?
Robert Layback is a sophomore at Brewer High School in Maine and he’s tired of going to eight hours of school and getting two hours of homework. Robert often finds himself pondering, “Should I skip today?” Robert is one of six billion students asking himself that question every day. "Teachers just need to see that we spend forty hours a week at school and only have fifty-eight hours at home; seeing the fact that we sleep for ten hours on a regular basis. That’s not enough time for a teenager to have to himself. We need to have five hours of school with no homework and ninety-three hours to “chill"."
Robert states that he needs more time for himself, so he tells other students to send him the homework. With that time, Robert is on Snapchat taking photos of his dog and adding he has nothing to do and is bored of his life. Robert is on his phone for ninety hours in and out of school weekly and also has a 294-day streak on Snapchat. Not finding enough time to do homework, Robert often never turns anything in. “Teachers have to cut the work out; there is no time for students to do the homework", said Layback.
When asked why he doesn't participate in class, he replied, “Class work is ruining the environment; paper comes from trees and the trees give is air, and without air we can’t live so stop killing trees. We need them more then you think. Also, how is class work going to help us; it’s not even going to get me a job. I only get six hours to myself and that’s ridiculous. So I skip when I think the teacher is going to make us do work. When I get home, I have to at least take a two-hour nap and then for another hour I have to be on my phone seeing what I missed out on, leaving me with 3 hours. Dinner is another hour leaving me with only two. After dinner, I get on my phone posting photos of my dog and messaging my friends for another hour. Then its shower time and by then time I get out it's 10:00 PM. I have no time to finish or even start on my homework so I just ask people for it.”
However, not all people don't do the homework given. It's proven that 99% of students have the time to do homework on a daily basis. “That’s not the number it should be”, states Layback. “Teachers have to work with us. Time is very crucial; we need less time for school and more time to ourselves. I mean, who has the time to go to class? I’d rather get more sleep, wake up, and do nothing. That’s how you get motivated to go to school. Tomorrow I’m taking the day off, but first I have to find someone that did last night’s homework. I didn’t have the time to do it yesterday.”
SENIORITIS STRIKES AGAIN
Senioritis is an identity ruining, grade degrading, and deathly disease that strikes millions of students ever year. This disease puts students in a trance, distracting them from their responsibilities towards school. Students state that they hear little voices in their head telling them that they deserve to nap and binge watch Netflix instead of doing anything related with school. The scariest thing of all is that it only happens when students think even one bit about school.
Poor 17-year-old Kortney Levine started having symptoms of senioritis ever since she even started high school. Levine claims that it all started with something in her head telling her to skip math and go to the restroom and take selfies for her Instagram page instead. “At first I thought it was just me being lazy and stupid, but I never imagined it to be a disease”, states Levine. After years of skipping and acting sick to have an excuse not to go to school, things got worse for the 17-year-old. Kortney began to notice the disease strike anytime she received any type of assignment that was out of school. She claimed she knew she had homework, but her body would just shut down and refuse to do anything related to it. “I would full on know I had homework and I would try to do it, but it was like I was in a trance I couldn’t do anything other than nap, re-tweet funny stuff on twitter, snapchat, and watch Netflix. I had no control over what I did”.
Devastating stories like these bring up a lot of skepticism about senioritis. Although the disease hasn’t quite been identified as true, millions of students everyday claim to suffer from it. “Students have the power to do their school work, but they personally choose not to and half-ass everything they do”, claims Mrs. Smyth, one of Kortney’s teachers. Multiple other teachers are also bringing up the question why students are really half-assing their work and choosing to not do it themselves.
To this day, Kortney is failing three classes and has re-watched Gossip Girl three times in the making. When we asked Kortney how she felt about Mrs. Smyth’s claim, the poor girl began to cry and said, “That lady just sets me up for failure”.
Girl Loses Focus After losing Snapchat Streak
Meghan Rogers is a junior at Arkansas High School. She is a very intelligent student and usually receives all A's in her classes. She is also a member of her high school's varsity soccer team. However, on Monday night something changed.
Rogers had been keeping a Snapchat streak with her best friend from school and they were at 299 days. Then on Monday night she lost it because of her math homework. "I couldn't believe it happened. I didn't know what to do. I just broke down and started crying". Rogers stayed up all night not knowing what to do. Her parents then became very scared because she usually was in bed by 11:00. They hoped it would just ware off, but it didn't.
The next day, Rogers went to school as usual but couldn't focus. Her teachers noticed a difference in her overall attitude. "Rogers is usually a very consistent student. She is never like this," claimed Ms. Lopez. She was seen around the campus walking aimlessly throughout the halls during class. "All I wanted was to reach 300 days". Her grades started dropping to low C's and she continually missed soccer practice. "That streak meant everything to me. Everything else was secondary. I had even scheduled my day around that streak." However, Rogers isn't the only teenager going through this hard time. Multiple other teenagers throughout the country are reacting the same way. Her parents decided to act upon this. They were extremely angered that her academics were preventing her from keeping for streaks. They filed a lawsuit and sued the school. Sadly, the judge didn't see it as more important than the murder case after. Teenagers are being robbed of their rights to keep their streaks everyday. It is a continuous struggle that all teenagers must face.