No Time to Shine: Teachers Who Think their Class is your Entire Life

No Time to Shine: Teachers Who Think their Class is your Entire Life

 

 

The clock strikes eleven. Sleep swirls around my heavy eyes, and my mind has long since stopped functioning. My body begs for my comfy, inviting bed, which mocks my body with its endless slumber. No. I must finish this assignment and study for that big test tomorrow. I must, I must…

Unfortunately, this is a typical weeknight for me and many other high school students. Being honors students who challenge ourselves with higher level classes, we have many teachers who think their class is “The Almighty Class” and bestow us with generous amounts of work. Yes, we may be over-achievers, but we are not lifeless individuals. I understand that some of these classes are college credit classes that we are given the opportunity to take in high school, however that does not mean that we are in college right now. Teachers give homework with the mindset that we have plenty of time to complete it. In college, the classes don’t meet every day, as they do in high school. On top of that, we are expected to study the subject for a few hours each night. This is supposedly done to prepare us for college, and the kind of work the teachers give and expect us to do does provide an appropriate taste of college. Too bad we don’t have the time to complete it.

A multitude of the students who have these kinds of teachers are taking higher level college classes to challenge themselves and become academically strong. However, these students are also greatly involved in other activities to prove themselves as well-rounded individuals. In my instance, I go from seven hours of school straight to NHS, from which I must run to the bus that will take me to my tennis match, and I won’t arrive home from the match until 7:00. After spending a couple minutes taking a shower and scarfing down some dinner, it’s not until after 7:45 in the evening that I get to even touch my homework—that is the case when I am not as nearly as involved as other students. Giving an abundance of homework ensures that we do, in fact, spend so much time working on this class, which may not be as effective as earlier thought according to this article. Homework is not easily and quickly completed when teachers who think their class is life expect us to spend about two hours on it every night. And it isn’t just one class; we honors students take multiple ones. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. The thought of sleep mocks us, and our alarm clocks are our greatest enemy—that is, if we do ever get to sleep. What saddens me the most is I don’t even have time to talk to my parents and siblings anymore. Our lives are slowly being consumed by these teachers and their classes, eating up the last bit of time we had for non-school related events.

As numerous students know, those teachers who believe in such ways about their class are also usually the teachers who don’t “teach” either because they are trying to emulate college professors. I understand that tactic may help us a little bit in the future, but if we don’t know how to do anything in the class, what is the use of even taking it? We learn the subject, complete the homework, study for tests, and repeat for other classes until our eyes cannot refuse sleep any more. It is truly burdensome and highly time-consuming to teach ourselves. I must admit, I have evolved into a skillful studier, yet the negative aspects, such as limited mastery over the subject, lack of sufficient sleep, and sacrificed family time, leave me wondering, “Is this really worth it?” The author of this article also expresses his/her concern about the amount of time and effort as well as other pros and cons of college courses in high school. Although this is preparing us for college, it isn’t particularly helping us get there when our grades will drop in our other classes, for too much time is spent on one class. We students are already buried in homework and stretched for time; not being able to complete it because we don’t know how to do it just adds to the stress and frustration level.

Teachers who think their class is our entire lives just make me wonder if their intention is to really help us for college. We did choose these classes because we believed that we were capable of the college level, but we still aren’t in college and lack its perks. Furthermore, we cannot solely focus on one class whose teacher believes should be all you concentrate on, for we have other teachers who believe the same, many activities, and some sort of social life. We expected that taking college level classes in high school was going to be a lot of work and time, not all our time. These classes completely diminish the definition of extra time that could be spent otherwise. Instead, any time that remains is spent in teaching ourselves the subject since the teachers themselves aren’t always the best at teaching. The class no longer seems educational; it becomes a “just get it done” ordeal. We become more efficient studiers, prepare ourselves for the workload in college, and grow accustomed to the pacing yet become exhausted, frustrated, and stressed. Our lives do not solely consist of reading for this class, doing homework for this class, and studying for this class. Our life is not this class. Our life is full of learning experiences, relationships, and activities, and a teacher who strives to make his/her class our entire life isn’t going to take that from us.