Calling out contradictions as a concerned student

 Being a high school student comes with many contradictions, leaving me and many others experiencing burnout. Nutrition, sleep, and mental health are all acclaimed priorities of teachers and staff, but their actions suggest otherwise. 

To begin with, nutrition. Not just health teachers preach about the importance of a healthy and balanced meal to boost the mind. But as students line up for the school lunch everyday, they are greeted with mysterious green patches on their pizza, and cold, chunky, mac and cheese. 

The school lunches are unappetizing at best, and some students will skip lunch entirely if there is nothing that looks edible. This leaves them hungry and unattentive for their fifth and sixth period classes.

While sleep is also deemed important by teachers and staff, students like me might have hours of homework waiting for us after our eight hour school day starting early in the morning. 

Sleep is incredibly important for developing brains, and to be denied this right by the very ones who argue its importance is both frustrating and aggravating. 

When confronted, teachers point out that we have signed up to take these classes, so we should not complain about their workload. 

However, many students sign up for honor classes out of fear of not being eligible for competitive colleges, and will end up failing after long, sleepless nights of studying. Others realize the impossibility sooner, and give up trying to be accomplished. 

These students are called in to see overworked councilors who can no longer afford to care about the mental health and future goals of all their students. 

Students who acknowledge their own struggle will request to see a counselor or go to the Wellness Center, but are often denied by teachers who are unwilling to teach these students the content they will be missing at another time. Once they can finally go see a counselor, students are forced to be waitlisted before they have the opportunity to salvage their future. 

Yet several times a year, we hold closed Trojan Times where students are lectured about mental health by the same teachers who ignore their cries for help. 

Furthermore, competitive colleges look for students involved in clubs or sports. This takes time away from our studies, something unforgivable in the eyes of many teachers. 

When students complain about the stress of juggling school and passion projects, educators laugh and tell us they are just preparing us for the real world.

As if the first 18 years of our lives are a free trial. 

Students live with the double standard of being expected to act like adults and being treated like kids. If they still see us as kids, can we at least be allowed the time to have hobbies and figure out who we are as people?

Teachers should keep the lives of students in mind when assigning homework or after school studies. Please recognize that we have five to six other classes and extracurriculars eating away at our time as well as our mental health, and try to keep homework to a maximum of 30 minutes. If every teacher gives only 30 minutes, that is still at least 3 hours of homework a night. 

Being a student forces many opposing values, but health can once again be made the priority with the support of teachers and staff.