Central's common core

We all know how long the weeks just drag on in high school, whether it’s your first day of freshman year, or the end of our journey walking across that stage senior year. We all have similar struggles of our parents telling us to study harder, or get a job so we can quit bugging them for $5 for Friday night’s game.

It takes a lot of things to get into college. SAT scores, good grades and, of course, plenty of money. Teachers follow curriculum and give us guidelines to help us achieve our future goals. We listen to people tell us we aren’t good enough. Maybe it’s to tear us down. Maybe it’s to build us up.

The Common Core is the established guidelines for our educational path of what we should master academically. It is designed so that each subject is taught to help students be prepared for the future. But there is one thing the Common Core cannot teach us: is how to be better people.

It takes a lot to ignore the negatives and search for optimism in the halls of school. The core is a great education system, but getting a 94 percent in Calculus will not make us better people. Sorry.

This is for everyone, all of the people that struggle and even the people that just barely skate through a credit with a 66 percent. With all of the pressure, we often lose the fact that we have to be worthwhile human beings first. Kind of like a high school survival guide, or this is The [Life] Common Core for Central Students.

1.) Join a club. Here at Central, there isn’t a club you can’t have. If we don’t have it, make it! There are endless opportunities from yoga to creative writing. 2.) Hold a door for someone, or pick up an empty water bottle and throw it away. Just do a random act of kindness. The little things you do could turn someone’s day from a two, to a six. 3.) Sit with someone new at lunch. Every day we walk into the cafeteria, get our food and sit at that same table, in that same seat, with the same people. 4.) Take the time to listen. Really listen. Stop checking your phone. Pull away from the iPad. Look at someone and listen. 5.) Just take it one day at a time. With block scheduling, our days sometimes only get longer. Don’t think about tomorrow because it hasn’t happened yet, and don’t think about yesterday because it has already passed. Focus on the class you are in at this very moment. 6.) Compliment someone. Just to be noticed is something some people hope for every day when they walk into school. Sincerely tell that boy in your Spanish class you like his shirt, or that girl you never talk to in Psychology that you like her earrings. 7.) Interview someone older, like a grandparent. Take the time to hear your grandpa tell you about the time he served in war or listen to your grandma’s hardships that she faced. 8.) Write a thank you. To anyone. Maybe your favorite teacher, who only helps you to succeed. Maybe to the aunt you don’t speak to all the time. 9.) Appreciate the little things. We as people expect the best of the best, which cannot be given at all times. Be thankful that someone picked up that paper you dropped. 10.) The biggest key to leaving high school with the same sanity you came in with, is to never forget where you came from. We all have our story, and some are yet to be written. You can make something of yourself, no matter where you come from. Look for opportunities to succeed, and only to succeed. Don’t forget that person you once called a friend who backstabbed you. Don’t forget that time you had endless support. Don’t forget the things and the people that have shaped you.

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