School Year In A Nutshell

Proms postponed. Parties and get-togethers canceled. Cherished traditions skipped. Sports tournaments and competitions canceled. Long-promised milestones, often including trips and celebrations, are erased. Graduation ceremonies altered and postponed. Some have anxieties about certain colleges or perhaps even rescinding admissions due to incomplete transcripts. It has been a year of missed opportunities and activities for all. Especially for graduating seniors, so many important opportunities to bond with classmates and memories and connections that could have been made were taken away. However, It should be remembered that high school is only a partial part of one's life and there are great adventures ahead.
It has been a difficult year for all of us, and an even tougher year for students both in high school and college. Our teachers may have said that they are understanding of the challenges students may face attending online school during COVID-19 however, the pile of missing assignments marked in red in Aries says otherwise. It was during this year while quarantining and thinking about the world (during moments where I dozed off doing homework) where I realized, I have learned nothing, and I am not talking about just this year, but the 3 years of my high school career. It was at this point where I realized that I am nothing but a lump of unmotivated, potential wasted, sad kid and it was all in the name of going to school so I don't end up homeless or looked down upon by society if I don't have a high school diploma.
This was a year in which we as students were deprived of friendships and moments that will never return. Although our lives changed and we had to get assimilated to life with minimal face-to-face interaction, these precious moments alone, sent most (including me) deep into spirituality and a rabbit hole of learning about our world and society more than school ever tried to teach me. While I could become a passionate activist, artist, debater, engineer, designer and actually pursue my interests that help me find my identity and create innovations, I am forced to wake in the morning and learn a complex formula in calculus. The same routine for a whole year; wake up, go to class, don't speak, do your assignments, and sleep because you don't have any more energy to do something productive that interests you. This is no school schedule, it one made for prisoners.
Overall, I have realized that school teaches you how to become a good factory worker; everything is broken down into time segments in which you need to be on time, don't ask questions and follow instructions, and so on with all the fun and lovely things that we are made to do. The so-called people who state “I care about the students’ mental health”, are the ones sleeping soundly at night whilst knowing that the work they assigned to their student was just a compilation of busy work and the students will not retain the information after whatever test they will have to take. This was a year of many realizations.