A relaxing and boring life

The Free Press sponsored an essay contest for high school students and received hundreds of submissions. The winner is a home-schooled seventeen year-old. It is titled "A Constitution for Teenage Happiness." From the essay:

When people ask me why I sacrificed the sociable, slightly surreal daily life at my local school for the solitary life of a home-schooled student in 2021, I almost never reveal the reason: an absence of books.

For many students, books are irrelevant. They “take too long to read.” Even teachers have argued for the benefits of shorter, digital resources. Last April, the National Council of Teachers of English declared it was time “to decenter book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.”

But what is an English education without reading and learning to write about books?

Many of our English teachers instead encouraged extemporaneous discussions of our feelings and socioeconomic status, viewings of dance videos, and endless TED Talks. So five days into my sophomore year, I convinced my mother to homeschool me. ....

Students and teachers are more exhausted and fragile than they used to be. But reducing homework or gutting it of substance, taking away structure and accountability, and creating boundless space for “student voices” feels more patronizing than supportive. The taut cable of high expectations has been slackened, and the result is the current mood: listlessness.

Like human happiness, teenage happiness does not flourish when everyone has the freedom to live just as they please. Where there is neither order nor necessity in life—no constraints, no inhibitions, no discomfort—life becomes both relaxing and boring....

So, here is my counterintuitive guide for teenage happiness: (the essay)

Ruby LaRocca, "A Constitution for Teenage Happiness," The Free Press, August 31, 2023.