Journal #14

This is the Declaration of Freedom. I am a citizen, so I should be able to say whatever I want in school. Why is it that teachers put so much pressure on students by giving them so much homework and so many tests. No one likes tests or quizes because, for the most part, they are entirely about memorizing something the night before just to forget again as soon as the test has been taken. It seems I should be able to pick and choose what I want to do, and that includes skipping school whenever I want. Actually, going to school all year long would basically solve the problem because it would give me more evenly spaced breaks that are not just three days here and there. Those kinds of breaks are really just slightly elongated weekends. Students are not quite able to catch up on sleep, but they still have to think about doing homework with only one extra day to do it. We should be free to say what we want in school. We should be able to miss classes or talk a little bit in class. A lot of teachers now are so hung up on the class being completely silent, and it really makes the class much more boring. That is the real reason students fail classes; they are unable to pay attention for the whole period because it is so monotonous. If teachers would change up their teaching styles every oncde in a while, I think more children would be happier in school and more motivated in class. We need to be free to think what we want about the other people in school. For example, there are obviously many teachers whom students do not exactly respect because they are not good teachers. But, the people in charge of discipline are not as easy about these thoughts because they are apparently "mean and rude," even though they are actually entirely true. There are really a lot more stupid people in a school than one might think.