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The Generation of Burden
Look around in a high school. Though other factors among the students may very well differ, each of them has a backpack, purse, or other type of pouch in which to carry their school materials.
Speaking from personal experience, that backpack is extremely heavy- both metaphorically and literally. The amount of binders, paper, textbooks, and other assorted tools students must lug around is startlingly high. The amount of work, however, that is upon the plate of each student converts them almost into a beast of burden.
Projects, papers, exams and quizzes heavy the mind of someone still deemed too young to leave a classroom without a hall pass. Depending on a student's specific circumstances, they may also be troubled by thoughts of their job(s)- or lack thereof- college, and struggles which generally plague the teenage years.
This is not to say that a certain level of challenge isn't beneficial- it is. Students should absolutely be encountered with new, trying material. It will expand the potential and mind of each individual, pushing them to consider and understand new, real things in the world around them.
However, when students are having anxious breakdowns, developing depression, or acquiring mental disorders due to (or amplified by) their academic life, the system is failing.
We are not beasts of burden. We are a generation wrought with potential, being dealt a hand with which it is more than improbable to win. This has been a WorldCheck.
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My comrades in the war of high school education are, for the vast majority of the time, sleep walking through the congested hallways. The library is filled with students on computers, less than ten books being checked out daily in our population of 2.7k. One of those activities requires brain activity, and it's not the one with a screen basking a passive face in artificial light.
Do not ask us to participate in sports, jobs, and highly stressful academia whilst expecting a mindset open to learning 100% of the time. Learning has lost its whimsy in lieu of structure and grade point averages. That is my inspiration.