The Difficulty of High School

Today in class we started with getting our assigned phone spots. Only one kid didn't send the right blog link so we waited for him to do that before we started. We talked about how difficult high school is compared to others school levels because of time management and back-to-back classes. In high school student athlete normally spend 14 1/2 hours doing high school related things which is from morning to night. I specifically said student athlete because 80% of the kids that go to John Carroll play a sport and have less time for work and studying than regular students. We all agreed that high school is more individualistic than middle school and for high school you need to be organized with classes, sports, books, and free time. Success in high school is based on time management because if you spend your free mod unwisely or go on your phone after a practice you will probably be doing work even later at night. Its also harder because you only have 5 minutes in between classes and you learn back-to-back-to-back. Time is something that high school kids have to stress about, but also are given rigorous classes and loads of home work. As we get farther into high school everyone is focused on the SAT's and their GPA's to get into the college of choice, so that's another thing kids have to worry about in high school. At a college your classes would not be back-to-back and you would have more time to study and do homework. Those are some reasons the class agreed high school is so hard.

After that discussion we started the beginning of A message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. In the beginning it is shown that we are in the Spanish - American War where Cuba is trying to become independent. The US President wants to speak to the head of insurgents named Garcia, but no one could reach him or find him to deliver the presidents message. A guy named Rowan was sent to find Garcia because someone told the president he was the only one who could deliver the presidents letter to Garcia. With no instructions or hints about where Garcia was, Rowan strapped the letter to his heart and was dropped off on the coast of Cuba. Three weeks later he was on the other side of the coast and delivered the message. Elbert Hubbard relates this to workers these days and how the greatest workers who work very hard to get to the top and do whatever they can for their job are not recognized one bit, but the people not working are. He tells us that a worker should not ask unnecessary questions but instead just do the job like Rowan did. He tells us that the people who thrive and are needed in this world are people who can do anything they set their minds too with no excuses or questions. This is like high school because the people who do well in high school don't make excuses about what their supposed to do or complain about it, but instead they work very hard to do their work right without making excuses. These students are like Rowan because even if they complete a challenging task that some people can't achieve they are not recognized for their work. That is what I learned from A message to Garcia; that the people who survive this world are people who can.