Remember the time you dreaded the hour your teacher would turn the lights off and tell you to take a nap? Yeah, those were the days. You would grab your towel, crawl under some little desk and pretend to fall asleep. You would crack your eyes open just a smidge to see what was going on, even though there really was nothing happening.

       “You never know what you have until it is gone” is a widely known concept that is true about many things. It is true about love, friends and even objects. Believe it or not this though is even applicable to naptime. Kindergartners don’t appreciate what they have. By the time they have reached high school all they really want is a nap.

        As a high school student, you look back to kindergarten and long for a 40 minute nap. If students were able to have a period to just sleep, the results would be revolutionary. Grades would skyrocket, and students in every class would pass with flying colors.

        If high school students were given the opportunity to take a 40 minute nap every day, students would look forward to the rest of the day. They would have the energy to learn and pay attention to what their teachers are telling them. If students could sleep during a designated period of the school day, they would unlock the other 90% of the brain we are told we don’t use.

        If students could sleep, the percent of geniuses in the world would steeply increase, kids in Africa would not starve, and people would not die of disease. Giving high school students a period to nap would eventually bring worldwide peace.            

Every high school student misses their time to nap in kindergarten. Why can’t they just give us what we want? Right, that would mean that the students won, and no official could let that happen. If they were to give us naptime, it would ruin them. Their reputation would disintegrate into a sad dust pool of nothing. They would be nobody. Or they would be somebody for all the wrong reason: they would be known for giving the students what they wanted.

        When I wake up from a nap, it is like there has just been a thousand bolts of energy bolted into me. The feeling of joy, excitement, cheer, content, enthusiasm, motivation, delight, jubilation and merriness is so strong I could bounce off of the walls. Imagine if all of that emotion was directed towards school. Students could feel like that towards school too, instead of resenting it or just trying to get to the end of the day.

        When going through a school day where I have not taken a nap, the feelings of sadness, exhaustion, desperation, resentment and even disrespect are felt. All of that could be countered by a simple 40 minute nap in the middle of student’s days. The world would be a better place for everyone if high school students were granted the opportunity to take a period every day to just take a nap.