Heh. I wake up at 7:00 AM, attend a full 7 periods with all the Advanced Standing classes I can, and leave at 3:15 PM. From there, I go to cross country, taking my time until 6:00 PM at the earliest. Then I eat dinner, shower… Then it’s 8:00 PM already and all my homework is there waiting. Then there are family activities, chores, distractions, and other projects I need to do thrown in. Did I mention I have a serious akrasia problem? Then I sleep at like 12:00 AM… Not that much time if you ask me.
So that suggests a middle ground between your current level of engagement and dropping out entirely. If there are things you think would be more valuable* than one of those activities, and you think you have the mechanisms to motivate yourself to do them, do so.
“Unschooling” won’t help with the lack of available time or motivation. It’s the wrong granularity to make your decisions on—think about how you spend individual hours of time, not how you identify your current lifestyle.
Which of those things (directed studying, sports participation, dinner, shower, family activities, distractions, other projects) do you not think you’re getting value from, and want to do less of? What do you want to do instead? For most sets of answers that pass the sniff test of reasonably long-term valuable, you’ll be better off making those tradeoffs within the traditional school framework than outside of it.
Edited to add: holidays and weekends are excellent natural experiments, and can help shape your beliefs about what you’d actually do with more self-directed time. If you undertook something over the summer that you think provides more long-term value to your life than one of your current activities, you should definitely consider continuing it. I’d recommend posting a more specific question on discussion or an open thread “should I give up cross-country in favor of building a telescope” or whatever the specific choice you’re making is.
leave at 3:15 PM. From there, I go to cross country, taking my time until 6:00 PM at the earliest.
Did I mention I have a serious akrasia problem?
I would look at these two things before considering dropping high school entirely. If you don’t intend on cross country having a positive effect on your college admissions, then you can exercise in a much more time efficient manner than 12.5hr/week long distance running. Your akrasia problem is not likely to disappear with increased free time and decreased structure.
Same here, if another datapoint helps. I’ve been out of school for almost two years now, and don’t feel like this has helped (it may or may not have hurt; I’m not convinced I’m calibrated well enough to say for sure).
In U.S. high schools, “cross country” is a long distance running sport.
It has the same meaning in Australia, schools or otherwise. (Obviously with exceptions based on context. If mountains in winter are involved skiing is likely involved for instance although “cross country skiing” would more often than not be said explicitly unless skiiing was already under discussion.)
Heh. I wake up at 7:00 AM, attend a full 7 periods with all the Advanced Standing classes I can, and leave at 3:15 PM. From there, I go to cross country, taking my time until 6:00 PM at the earliest. Then I eat dinner, shower… Then it’s 8:00 PM already and all my homework is there waiting. Then there are family activities, chores, distractions, and other projects I need to do thrown in. Did I mention I have a serious akrasia problem? Then I sleep at like 12:00 AM… Not that much time if you ask me.
So that suggests a middle ground between your current level of engagement and dropping out entirely. If there are things you think would be more valuable* than one of those activities, and you think you have the mechanisms to motivate yourself to do them, do so.
“Unschooling” won’t help with the lack of available time or motivation. It’s the wrong granularity to make your decisions on—think about how you spend individual hours of time, not how you identify your current lifestyle.
Which of those things (directed studying, sports participation, dinner, shower, family activities, distractions, other projects) do you not think you’re getting value from, and want to do less of? What do you want to do instead? For most sets of answers that pass the sniff test of reasonably long-term valuable, you’ll be better off making those tradeoffs within the traditional school framework than outside of it.
Edited to add: holidays and weekends are excellent natural experiments, and can help shape your beliefs about what you’d actually do with more self-directed time. If you undertook something over the summer that you think provides more long-term value to your life than one of your current activities, you should definitely consider continuing it. I’d recommend posting a more specific question on discussion or an open thread “should I give up cross-country in favor of building a telescope” or whatever the specific choice you’re making is.
I would look at these two things before considering dropping high school entirely. If you don’t intend on cross country having a positive effect on your college admissions, then you can exercise in a much more time efficient manner than 12.5hr/week long distance running. Your akrasia problem is not likely to disappear with increased free time and decreased structure.
This. Sometimes I do less when I have more free time, perhaps because the duties I have at least wake me up and set me in the motion.
Me too (though the effect is no longer as strong as it was when I didn’t use Beeminder and LeechBlock).
Same here, if another datapoint helps. I’ve been out of school for almost two years now, and don’t feel like this has helped (it may or may not have hurt; I’m not convinced I’m calibrated well enough to say for sure).
Why?
That seems to be time that you could use otherwise.
I would also add that “cross country” doesn’t seem to be a term with a fixed meaning and I can find many things under that label via google.
In U.S. high schools, “cross country” is a long distance running sport.
It has the same meaning in Australia, schools or otherwise. (Obviously with exceptions based on context. If mountains in winter are involved skiing is likely involved for instance although “cross country skiing” would more often than not be said explicitly unless skiiing was already under discussion.)
It’s true, my parents kind of forced me into it...
You are right, I should try to free up more time while taking the conventional and safer route.
But don’t you attend school only around 180 days/year (if in the U.S.)?
Yes, but with all those activities I listed above I have minimal free time during the school year. I do have much more time during the summer though.