Many adults like to say that school years were the best years in their lives. But I suspect that most of them have just forgotten the details, and kept only pleasant recollection in their minds. As for me, I study at school now, and I can see many aspects of school life from inside. And I want to express my point of view on the problems, which most pupils have to face sooner or later. Maybe you’ll be surprised, but schoolchildren’s life often turns out to be not much easier and even harder than their parents’ life.

The first problem in my personal rating is absence of freedom of choice. What does it mean? For example, if an adult person doesn’t want to work as a teacher, he can try hand in something else. If he doesn’t like working in this particular company, nobody will make him do that Исправлено: nobody will make him to. Yes, sometimes adult people have to do boring and unpleasant work, but, firstly, it’s their own choice, and, secondly, they get money for this. As for pupils at school, they cannot choose what subjects to study. They cannot choose teachers as well. They just have to do what everyone does. And that is not fair. For instance, I know for sure that I will never need Geometry in my life. I am going to be an interpreter or a tour guide, and dedicate my life to travelling and communicating with people. I don’t consider myself to be stupid, but I really can’t cope with all these figures, theorems and integrals – I just have no gift for Mathematics. And I don’t understand why on earth I should waste time and efforts on this useless stuff! It is commonly believed that schoolchildren are too small to choose, because they don’t know what subjects they will need in future. Yes, I agree that they are too small in primary school, but we, tenth-graders are old enough to make a choice. However, I will have to pass a Unified State Exam on Math, which is a compulsory subject, and it’s more than likely that I will spoil my school-leaving certificate with a bad mark.

The second big problem for me is a constant lack of time because of excessive homework Исправлено: due to excessive homework. Every teacher thinks that his subject is the most important one, and tries to give us a full load of homework. On the average, I need an hour to do the tasks for one subject Исправлено: to do the lessons on one subject. And we have at least five or six lessons a day. Just imagine: after school I have to learn by heart two poems on Literature, do several sums on Math, fill a chart on Biology, get prepared for a test on English, and learn several pages on History. All in all, it takes me about five hours. So, I study six hours at school and five hours at home, having, as a result, an eleven-hour working day. Do you know many adults, who are involved in intellectual activity for eleven hours a day? I think, no. Most adults, when they come home from their work, either have a rest, or just change the type of activity. And we have to study all day long, from morning till night. Don’t think that I am lazy, but I think that secondary school pupils today are really overloaded. It’s no surprise that many of them have poor health, suffer from obesity, scoliosis and weak sight.

The third problem for me is an attitude of some teachers to their pupils. For example, my English teacher is really great. Apart from being a born teacher, she is very gentle, polite and intelligent. She respects every pupil regardless of his academic progress and achievements. And we respect her too. Unfortunately, there are other teachers, who can be very rude towards us. For example, our teacher of Biology can easily humiliate a pupil who is not ready for the lesson. Once I said something wrong, and she turned me into ridicule publicly, driving me to tears. After that I even didn’t want to go to school. However, we cannot choose teachers.