When going into middle school and high school, most students have the opportunity to pick extra curricular activities such as sports, art, student council, and much more. These activities give them a chance to incorporate their interested into their schedules. These classes are also often beneficial to the teenage mind while they are trying to grow and explore themselves. However, should extracurricular activities should be required? Without extra curricular activities, it is harder for teens to have the opportunity to be apart of their community. They also help teens branch out, be creative, and make new friends. Extracurricular activities gives students more independence and freedom to structure their own schedules, which can get pretty busy and full of school work! Some teens, however, don't see the benefit of extracurricular activities during middle school or high school and still need a little push to get involved. Students should be required to take an extracurricular activities because, it forces them to be an active citizen who is part of the community, it gives them an opportunity to take their mind off of school, and it pushes them to go out of their comfort zone and try something new.

Requiring teens to take an extra curricula activity will help them become more involved in their school and local community, which is an important part of their lives. The average school community is made mostly of the student, so their involvement in the school is vital, even more so then the teachers. Not only does extracurricular activities help in school involvement, but it gets teens a head start to be involved in their local communities too. For example, some high school cheer leading teams not only cheer at school sports events, but cheer at town or county events. Also, lots of school art classes have their students work displayed at local shows or even just around the school building. In addition to that, lots of musical groups preform at school concerts and go to state competitions. These are only a few of the options, but almost all extracurricular activities work to get their students involved in the community. By enforcing extracurricular activities you enforce an involved lifestyle at a young age which is a skill teens can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Not only do extracurricular activities make students lives part of the community, but takes their minds of of their stressful school life. After a long day in school students are often forced to go home and do even more school work. Teens minds are consistently on school, grades, tests, and homework. School can create an unhealthy amount of stress, especial for teens who are still growing up. It is also easy to get sucked into over working and over worrying about grades and a good GPA. Having extracurricular activities normally gives them at least an hour of time to de-stress themselves every day. Not only do they get this time to distress, but also to put their energy into something they love! It is a huge change from sitting in a classroom trying to pay attention all day. Student need this time and this outlet do things that make them happy. Requiring extracurricular activities will give all student the chance to de-stress and take their minds off school work, especially when it becomes unhealthily over whelming.

Lastly, requiring teenagers to branch out and try something new threw extracurricular activities can introduce them to new opportunities and teach them a valuable life lesson. Teens often fear trying something new or coming out of their shells. These fear often come from the fear of not being accepted or the fear of failure. Unfortunately, while trying to figure out how to fit in, teens can take the wrong path and become a bully or put themselves in danger. Extracurricular activities teaches them how to try new thing in a safe way. Breaking the ice between groups of people can be very hard and is something that most teens fear they will fail at, but it becomes a lot easier when they all share common hobbies. Extracurricular groups are like built in friends, or at least a group of people that have shared interests. Learning how to try new things, even tough it might seem scary is an important lesson that will helps teens for the rest of their lives. In conclusion, extra curricular activities will teach teens how to branch out and try new things, a skill that they will use even in adulthood.

Teaching teens how to become part of their community, take their mind off of school, and try new things, are all benefits to requiring students to take at least one extracurricular activity. Extracurricular activities force kids to not only be involved at school, but locally in their town and city. They also let kids have a built in break from the stress that school brings. Finally, they teach kids the valuable life lesson of trying new things. Most teens are just trying to figure out who they are before being thrown into the life of adult hood. For many, however, they don't want to identify as the average teen who sits in a classroom all day. It is important to give students things like extracurricular activities so they can celebrate what makes them unique. Extracurricular activities aren't just a club or a group of people, it is an outlet to be yourself.