Students should get paid to go to school
Don't teachers love to remind you that "being a student is your job"? Let's take things out of context and put two and two together. So the big idea of working and putting effort to work is getting paid, right? Therefore, if we get paid to do work in school, we'll work even harder and put even more effort into school. Ignoring the fact that our hard work goes un-awarded by sweet cash, isn't that what educators want? Hard working students start at a paycheck every week!
Hold on a moment. How much should you be paid for doing work that benefits nobody other than yourself? Who's going to pay your paycheck? The same people that pay for your education? So how much higher should the national and state taxes be? Considering the fact that the Department of Education already has a 972 billion dollar budget and is still struggling to make ends meet, can the D.O.E afford to pay 153 million students minimum wage or more yearly? Even at minimum wage, that's almost another billion dollars down the drain every hour the schools are open.
Would you rather have a high school diploma or this handful of cash?
Considering that in other countries, only the rich can afford education, who are we to demand money ourselves, to be taught? How ignorant would it be to take something we take for granted and demand literal money to be thrown at you. It's like demanding money on a weekly basis from your parents, the sole provider of shelter, food, warmth, a sense of individualism, and protection because you feel that you deserved it? Oh wait.
If you wish to continue feeding and bathing me, you must pay me ten dollars every week for the next 18 years.
Disregarding the financial aspect for a moment, would it even work in the first place? Would physical cash reinforce hard work, good behavior and better grades? Is throwing money at kids and teens in hopes that they do better in school really a wise way to spend money and raise the generation of tomorrow?
School days should be shorter
At the end of a average school day, you can expect to go home exhausted and tired. You may even find yourself passed out in your bed before your mom yells at you to take a shower. Wouldn't it be simply splendid if school was a little shorter? If it was shorter, we would have more time to re-compose ourselves, do our homework, and go to school with a fresh clear mind after a good night's rest.
Back in reality, shorter school days would only end with negative results. On a true weekend, how often do you sleep at 10 PM, how often do you sleep at 1 AM? If you had even more time to do work and sleep, would you really take advantage of it? Most people don't now, so what would be different if we shorten entire weekdays?
Pictured: You?
Not only would kids continuously go to school half-awake, but their education would be further dimished thanks to the shorten lessons. Teachers can't simply teach you physics or Spanish in ten minutes, it takes time. But I know what you're thinking, school sucks! It would be great to have short dumbed down lessons, right?
Actually, to make-up the time missed on the shorter days, the entire term would probably have to be extended up to 11/2 to 2 years per term. Would you rather get it all over with in a year's time, or spend two extra years of your life in school per grade? You would be in your late 20s to early 30s by the time you finish highschool if the system worked this way.
By middle school you'll be able to drink and drive! How cool is that?
So if you wanted to be dismissed around 12 PM, they would have to convert three missed hours of school everyday to three extra months of school in the term. But if we ignored the longer school term dilemma, your education would still be at compromise. If we removed 15 minutes from every period, everyday, teachers would have to re-adjust their lesson plans to fit the schedule. The result would be quick, "shoot information into your head" lessons, with little to no time to explain or practice the ideas learned in class.
With our gradual downward slope as a world superpower, is it really time to shorten school days to make our educational system even weaker? This isn't a time where you can literally throw your youthful days around like patty cakes and expect everything to be jolly and well by the time you're too poor or too old to work.
If you had a real-life big boy job, would you prefer a standard or shorten work day? Shorten? Let me rephrase the question for a moment, if you needed to build a ship by Friday, would you rather have 5 hours to build it, or 15 hours to build it? Also, if you don't build the ship by Friday, you will be dismembered and tossed into a river full of poisonous toads. Just a heads up.