#whether it's a bus or a parent or a carpool sitch

[miscriont]

I worked harder and for way less appreciable benefit in high school than I do as an adult with a whole ass other human to take care of.

Senior year. 17. Wake up at 5-530 to take a Rx that had to be taken on an empty stomach. Wait an hour, maybe finish whatever homework I didn't get done the night before but maybe take that hour to read something for fun, do something small and quiet for myself before I couldn't.

6-630. Coffee and toast, maybe. Shower. Get dressed. Pack up my backpack. Navigate around parent and sibling also getting ready for their day. Do I have extracurriculars that day? Make sure I'm packed for after school. Do I have to work after? What time does my shift start? Will I have time to stop at home and change? Make sure I have my uniform, if not. Leave by 715 to reach school by 8, it's a bit of a hike when you factor in rush hour traffic. (I am fortunate in that a vehicle I don't have to share is at my disposal and my parents supplement the cost of keeping it running, this would be even more to keep track of when you factor in different bus schedules for high school and middle school, or different drop off windows, or the fact that the middle school was at one end of town and the high school was 30 minutes in the opposite direction with no traffic, or parents' work schedules that dictated the start of THEOR days at a certain time...)

715-8. Commute. If I'm lucky it's a light traffic day and maybe I can sit in the library or the cafeteria for a bit before having to go to class.

8-415. Classes, each roughly 50 minutes long w a seven minute passing period between each one and a 40 minute lunch, split up into 4 staggered periods. Backpacks went in and out of vogue as the reason for kids' health problems my entire adolescence, senior year we were back to demonizing the weight on kids' spines as the reason for emerging issues so in that seven minutes you had to detour to your locker, drop off materials for ine class, and get your stuff for the next class. Depending on where your locker was relative to your classrooms you DEFINITELY would not have time to also go to the bathroom, which could be a problem if your teacher was a dick. Depending on which lunch period you had, lunch was anywhere from about 1030a (too early) to 2p (too late), and you had to operate on the assumption that teachers wouldn't let you snack during lecture.

At long last, the end of the day. Only, not really, because depending on your course load you could have anywhere from one to four hours' worth of homework, all different levels of challenging, that you had to budget time for. Did I have to go to work? That's an extra 2-4 hours, depending on the day of the week and if/when my manager cuts me. Did I have to go to extracurriculars? 2 hours minimum, for an hour-long activity and an average 30min commute each way.

So on a GOOD day, home at 5. On a BAD day, anywhere from 7p-10p. Shoehorn in an hour or two to spend time with family (read, help mom make dinner, help clean up after eating it). Free time starts anywhere from 6-8p on a good day, and I'm fortunate enough to be excused from duty on bad days. Factor in anywhere from 2-4 hours of homework and my day doesn't END end until anywhere from 10p-2am.

That is a SEVENTEEN HOUR DAY, MINIMUM. And this is with teachers I would consider competent, teaching with familiar tools in a structured classroom setting (not helpful for a lot of people, I know the system I grew up with had fucking PROBLEMS). Kids these days had to contend with the pandemic disrupting not only their education but their teachers' methods, the high levels of stress every single adult in their lives was trying to manage, having to learn a whole new way of learning as families insulated themselves for way too short a time.... I'm probably not even cognizant of a FRACTION of all the ways The Kids Are Not All Right.

This got away from me but yeah no, anyone who tries to pull this patronizing "you don't know how good you have it" shit is brazenly ignorant of the ACTUAL pressures on kids and I wish them a very pleasant get pushed off a cliff.

adults are always talking about how “kids will do anything to get out of school” and okay, first of all that’s not true, but I think we really need to ask why that idea holds so much sway.

children’s brains are hard-wired to take in new information and acquire new skills. consider, for a moment, just how thoroughly our society had to fuck up the concept of education for it to be a normal thing to assume kids are universally desperate to avoid learning.