A Time for Work and Leisure

Study halls –the overworked student’s best friend. A time where a student can get some of their work done before leaving school at the end of the day for work or to lessen the load after participating in an extracurricular activity. Or, for the average Tumblr user or Netflix binge watcher, a way to spend more time on the important things in life.
These beacons of opportunity serve as the best way to get things done in the school day, and eradicate the need to fill up your schedule with extraneous classes that you do not need and do not want to take. Some would presume, however, that these periods do nothing but spur the inherent laziness that seemingly possesses the teenage mind –simply because they put their head down during the period or don’t appear to be “doing anything productive.”
Admittedly, procrastination could be a key part of this in certain circumstances, but can you blame a child who faces the pressures of school work, a job, or social interaction, for putting their head down for 42 minutes? Instead of assuming fault lies within the student, perhaps a look should be taken at the system that mentally abuses a person as such.
For Americans ages 15-24, suicide serves as the third leading cause of death –which, incidentally, is the general time for high school and college; two of the most stressful periods in an average student’s life. These institutions cannot take all of the blame, but there can be no doubt that they play a significant role. These pressure-filled places drive some students to their breaking point because people underestimate the importance of taking a break or just dedicating a part of their day to work on something that they may not be able to later, and instead they look at the entire workload all at once. As a society, we tend to put too much stock into the title of “workaholic,” and do not always cut ourselves the slack we so deserve. The value of a study hall cannot be understated for the stressed out student.