One of the things I hate the most about school is that it actively discourages people having actual hobbies that don’t revolve around their life at school. Like yes, if you look at the time we spend in school and the time we spent outside of it, students should have enough time to pursue their own interests. But that isn’t entirely true. First of all, you have homework. This means that after you get home from 7-8 hours of sitting in a classroom, you have to sit back down and do more work. And this is such bullshit. School is all about providing you with the materials to succeed in the adult world, right? Are people generally required to take work home from their workplace and do it in their off time? No. In addition to that, homework, hence the name, has to be completed at home where you can’t easily ask your teacher questions that you could do if it was completed inside the classroom. Back to my original point. Maybe your teachers are kind enough to give you minimal homework. Even then, the majority of students participate in some form of extracurricular. This takes away even more time out of your day and basically is your “free time” for the day. But what if you have other hobbies that aren’t school activities that you want to do? Well, if you can find time among all your other commitments, such as school, extracurricular, homework, chores, a job, religious commitments, or literally anything else you want to do, sometimes once you find that time, you don’t want to do your hobby of choice. Why? Because school is fucking hard. If you’ve ever gone to school you know what I’m talking about. It’s ridiculously draining, from emotional drama, sitting in classes you don’t care about all day, being forced to focus with little to no breaks, shitty cafeteria food, dealing with people you want, friend or relationship problems, and other energy draining activities such as sports or academics. You’ve just dealt with all of that, and you’re ready for a fucking break. An excuse to take a nap, mindlessly watch a TV show or scroll through social media. The last thing on your mind is starting another activity that’s going to take up all your energy, no matter how much you love it. Schools actively discourage hobbies that are unrelated to your school, and do you know why that’s a problem? Let me explain it to you. People figure out what they want to do with their life by experimenting. Trying stuff out. Pursuing new hobbies and activities. And, news flash, a good portion of these are outside of school. But we don’t have time to pursue this hobbies that can teach us life skills and help us discover passions that can develop into careers. Schools discourage these sorts of things with the way their entire system is set up, yet turn around and ask children to make 10 years plans, know what they want to do with their lives and what college they want to go to. Well how are we supposed to know all that if you don’t give us the opportunity to explore, experience the world, discover new things and new interests that can help us develop as people and answer all the questions our counselors ask us that we halfheartedly respond to and pick an option that sounds the least like nails on a chalkboard for the rest of our lives to us. But no, schools would rather our entire lives revolve around their curriculum and we do nothing of interest while we’re under their control. And I think that’s a lot of bullshit.
