Look back and ask yourself, how many times have you been on a field trip and missed half a day of school? How many times have you gone off for sports and missed another half? How many times have you only ever been at school for your sixth and seventh periods? In the moment it seems great, skipping school, not having to go to that one teacher’s class, and while you are out there there are friends all around you. However, these trips will always come at a cost. When you start missing so many days at what point does it get in the way of school? While you were at that away game at BHS you missed a test. While you were on that field trip for science you got behind on a project. Should students really be missing all of this school? Are all of these extracurriculars worth it? The easy answer is yes.
However, when you have multiple field trips or sports matches in a week, in some cases you can end up losing a week of instructional time, and for those teachers and students with tight schedules and important things to do it’s not hard to see how this can stack into something that can wind up harming your educational experience overall. You might miss an important series of notes one day, and when you come into class for the exam you essentially have no idea what you are supposed to be doing, and this logic can apply to a thousand other things. You could get behind on projects, studying for finals, quizzes, notes, essays, etcetera. It’s also not uncommon for extracurriculars to have extremely long hours. You might not be getting home till eight o’clock and by the motivation one might’ve to work hard on their homework, or that essay your history teacher assigned might just be gone. At that rate, it is not uncommon for people to just eat, shower, and go to bed. However, you are also the one signing up for these activities, and you should know if your schedule can handle them. If you know that you might miss a test because you wanted to go on a field trip blaming the teachers, or the timing really isn’t feasible. A high school student should be able to manage their own time frames, and if they cannot, these extracurriculars can take on a new role of teaching responsibility to those who need to manage their schedule. I believe that sports, clubs, and field trips can teach a student responsibility, while also improving their high school experience. As much as education is important, breaking that monotony and doing something different that you enjoy can be just as valuable.
When it comes to extracurriculars I honestly believe it depends on the student. Some people can definitely be trusted to balance time out of class, and their education. For others they can learn and have fun, while staying mostly balanced, and improving their ability to schedule things out for themselves, but naturally there will still be those who won’t do either.
