Laziness--Sydney Joyner

We all know that teenagers today are lazier than ever. And Merit Academy has not been immune to this plague. Students who actually turned in work or studied for tests were harder to find than a non-Taylor Swift song on Mr. Hatfield’s ipod. Their excuse was ‘I forgot,” or “I didn’t want to.”
Yearbook conducted a survey on excuses for not having homework. The overwhelming excuse was “I didn’t feel like doing it.”
Just walk around our campus at Merit Academy and you’ll see signs of laziness. Our student store was closed for two weeks because of all the trash on the school grounds. One whole mentoring class was devoted to cleaning up the campus, because students wouldn’t take the initiative to do it themselves.
Hand in hand with being lazy, students have also struggled with being rude and inconsiderate. Miss Meyerson and Ms. Cox were a couple of teachers at the receiving end of the disrespect. Students were inconsiderate of the teacher’s feelings. They talked back, stole things, and didn’t do the work that teachers assigned. It got to the point where Miss Myerson had every single one of her students write a letter of apology to a teacher and make a promise to do better in the future.
Sure enough students did just that. They got better.
The campus is cleaner, but still has a lot of work to do. Sophomore, Mahonri Tukuafu said, “It makes our school look so much worse to students from other schools.” Sarah Ashcraft, junior, agreed, “It doesn’t reflect how great Merit really is. It gives off a bad vibe.”
Students are starting to show teachers the respect they deserve, but again, we still need to keep working at it. Rather than doing pranks to teachers that students like, they’re writing kind notes, bringing in small tokens of appreciation, and paying more attention in class. Miss Meyerson said, “I realize that when kids pull pranks, they’re doing it to be funny not malicious, so I try not to take it personally. But it brightens my day so much more when I get notes, pictures, and even baked goods. That’s a much nicer way to show appreciation!”
Additionally, teachers have ‘cracked the whip’ on late work. Some teachers responded to the laziness of the first semester by expecting MORE not less. Miss Cox no longer accepted late work during the second semester. She commented, “Last semester, I was so lenient. I accepted all late work, anytime. Now, I take it all on a case-by-case basis. Unless you come talk to me—no late work.” She was happy to see that students turned in their work more than they did before the late work policy went into effect. She added, “When they don’t turn in their work, their grades are reflecting their poor work ethic, not their lack of knowledge. It’s sad.”
Merit students, like all teenagers, may have started out a little rough, with issues being lazy and rude. With the help of caring teachers and higher expectations, we have improved so much. Hopefully next year, we’ll build upon what we’ve started building this year.