Commentary: Students should not feel alone under the pressure

Adults plan students’ entire work schedules around their ideal, from the hours at school each day, five days a week, to the extra work at home.

Students are pressured into nearly killing themselves to get that “A” or varsity spot and not drown in work.

From the first day of ninth-grade, the idea is pounded into our heads that if we ever want a chance of getting into the college of our dreams, it is absolutely necessary to take every advanced class, perform in every extracurricular activity and play every sport we can.

Sure, colleges like those advanced classes and all that extra work, but not at the price of having your spirit broken by age 17. Our lives consist of working to keep our heads above water and our parents happy — yes, the same ones who expect no less than a 4.0 GPA and are chastising us for not trying hard enough or putting in extra time.

It’s ironic, really, that for years our lives have been made a web of papers, equations, numbers and words, all made out to define who we are and what we’ll be. These papers, equations, numbers and words will project us into the next (and even more challenging) state of our lives and then, finally, into a more intense and more important set of numbers.

Now tell me, why is it that it’s so important for the adults in our lives to make sure these four years of high school are so strenuous, when strenuous is all we will know later on? It is setting the stage for us to snap under the pressure and possibly fail.

We are pressure cookers unable to hold the pressure any longer.

Home used to be where people could unwind and relax after a hard day at school or work. Now we get home and are bombarded with, “Work harder!” “You’re a failure!” “Put more time and effort into it!”

Our spirits are crushed, our minds worn thin from the day’s work, yet we are expected to put in the effort of a brilliant scholar. The truth is, every answer scribbled down may be nothing but a mindless rush through the daily routine, and nothing more than graphite on paper.

We have the hardest job in the world, and no job has more on the line: a life — a life that adults inconsiderately bury under a coffin of papers. While the education system needs to be fixed — and we demand it be so — every student must know that he or she is not alone.

We all have a potential study partner, a potential friend or a peer sitting next to us in class in this hot mess that is called school. Yes, we may have plenty of obstacles in life, but at least we don’t have to tackle this one alone.

MATTHEW MORTON is a junior at Newport Harbor High School.