Students think of school as a stressful and challenging obstacle. The amount of work put on them causes them to think that school is not a place for them. School is supposed to be a place where we can identify our future career path. Having these classes can help students think of school as a nurturing environment and not a terrifying world of homework. I definitely agree with the principals choice of making a mandatory extra-curriculum class, since it can have a lot of positive effects on the students. Having these extra classes will help the kids control their mental health and help them pursue their future career goals. It will also encourage them to try new activities.

Having extra-curriculum classes will help the students control their mental health. School can be very stressful and this is one way to overcome the stress. These classes will help them forget about the other class for a while and relax the body. For example, for students who enjoy to do art and work with their hands freely, pottery classes are excellent. Pottery class can help them forget about the stress they had in their other classes and let out the stress in a calming way. Next, students take tests as a terrifying piece of paper and that can make them worry for the whole day. The extra classes will help them forget about the test for a while and clear their mind. Science has shown that doing an activity that we enjoy can help us do better on the test, since we have a clear mindset. An example is I had my writing sol and circles quiz on the same day. I had two major things to worry about and that was really scary. Once I was done with my writing sol I still had band and math to go to. When I went to band, it helped me forget that I had a math quiz today and cleared my mind before. When I headed out to math and started taking the quiz I thought the quiz was really easy and I don't know why I was so terrified of this quiz. Finally, the extra classes lets the brain stop taking in information to just rearrange the ideas and to relax it. Having so much information in the brain can cause the student to forget important factors. If a student is playing a sport he or she enjoys like soccer, taking a class on soccer can not only let the student have fun, but also relax the brain and be free. The extra curriculum activities can help fix these three mental health weaknesses.

Secondly, these classes can help pursue their future career goals. Some students already know what they want to go into when they grow older and they want to take classes that will help them lead up to their dream career. Letting the kids have a mandatory extra-curriculum class can help the kids lead to reaching that goal. For example, if a student wants to major in culinary arts, doing a cooking class would be good. It can teach him or her new skills that will help him or her get better. Another reason why extra activities help pursue future goals is the classes will go deeper into the topic the student wants to pursue. If a student wants to go into Microbiology, they not only have to take life science, but they need to take a class about biology. This class can go even more deeper about microbiology. Taking these classes or activities can go further into the knowledge of the topic. Lastly, for students who don't know what career path they want to go through they have a chance to see what they might like. Having these classes opens up a wide variety of activities that students can do and they can see if they enjoy it or not. Depending if they like it or not they have a choice of going through that pathway in the future. As shown, having these different classes can help pursue or find future career pathways and goals.

The last reason why we should have these extra activities or classes is it helps us try new activities. Some students are very quiet and are a introvert. They don't really talk to people much and they keep their thoughts inside most of the time. For someone like them having these classes will help them open up more and try something new like being part of a student leadership council. Another way these activities help us try new activities is they will help the student see their likes and dislikes of a topic. For example, I never enjoyed sewing and during seventh grade we had to take FACS which was a class where you learn about family, cooking, and sewing. When we came to the sewing topic I wasn't very interested with the machines and the idea of sewing in general. Once we started our first project which was building an ear bud pouch I started to enjoy doing things with the sewing machine. I soon fell in love with sewing and one of my likes is sewing. This shows how trying somethings can be positive. The final reason that extra classes help us try new activities is it can open up many ideas or thoughts about the activity and opens up pathways to go through in the future. For example, if a student tried leadership council and enjoyed it, they might want to continue being a leader and become a lawyer in the future. In conclusion, this shows that having these extra classes can make students try something new and different.

I agree with the principals choice that each student must participate in at least one extracurricular activity. Having these classes will have a big impact on the students, such as controlling their mental health, pursuing their future career goals, and encouraging them to try different activities. Having the extra classes will help the students have a better view of how school is and why we come here.