If my principal were to declare that all students were obligated to participate in an extracurricular activity, I would be less than pleased with the idea. I do not believe students should be made to do anything outside of the curriculum by their education system. The mere concept of this rule being enforced shows a lack of understanding or compassion from schools.

Now, please allow me to clarify- I believe that extracurricular activities are perfectly fine. Clubs like "We the People" are great for those who are interested in American history or writing, and playing sports is perfect for exercise, to no one's surprise. They are a wonderful way of expanding horizons, making friends and exploring new things. But that's exactly how they should remain:

extracurricular.

As in, outside of the required learning and entirely optional. Students should be free to choose whether they do or don't participate in activities outside of the standard school day. If a student's parents require him or her to do a club or sport, however, that is a very different case. Parents have a say in what their child does, and they have every right to decide if the student will participate in any type of organization. Schools do not and should not have the same level of involvement.

In addition to that, turning extracurricular activities into a mandatory affair is either a waste of student time or class time. Although making clubs compulsory perhaps sounded like a good idea, not only is it a bad one, it's a time-wasting one.

If every single student will do an extra activity, then by that logic, schools would just add an hour to the school day, which I know would not go over well with many. Besides, students already have significant amounts of homework from various classes. Adding another obligatory activity to dedicate time to could very well be too much. Making extracurricular activities mandatory is also just disrespectful to many family's schedules. Maybe a student had already been participating in a separate, unrelated activity or organization. It could be that the student has a religious practice after school, or he or she has to take care of a family member. The examples are endless. Nevertheless, schools should not take up student's time outside of school any more than they already do.

Even if that isn't the case, if the school system somehow managed to squeeze in enough time for an extracurricular activity for everybody without adding any time to the school day, it could potentially be wasteful of the teacher's already limited teaching time. If we only have 45 minutes per class right now, imagine how little it would be adding another period. Educators would be in a constant struggle to cram enough information in such a short class time. If this did happen, it could be very possible that the school year might be stretched out so students could properly learn the concepts, which would leave many students and teachers who love summer vacation with disappointing news.

To summarize, I firmly believe that making extracurricular activities compulsory for students is not a good idea. Those activities are meant to be optional, and if every student were to do them schools would have to monopolize everybody's personal time by extending the school day, drain the little instructional time teachers have by shortening their classes, or elongate the entire school year. While at first it may seem like a terrific idea, various cracks start to reveal themselves at second glance. In the end, I don't think the idea would have worked.