Schools, education centers, or academies. No matter what you call these places, the health and environmental risks are all the same. All endanger human life. Those kept unaware of the risks can make a mistake, and potentially put another individual’s life in danger. And if, after you read this, you choose to continue your education, just remember: advance at your own risk and be aware of the consequences.

You may currently be thinking, “You can’t possibly be serious”, but I assure you, school is equivalent to death. Ask yourself, dear reader, do your teachers not use paper? Do you not have thousands of pointless worksheets in your binder, still waiting to be acknowledged? Are these not the same teachers who preach environmentalism? The ones who count the number of trees killed every day? You are risking your life every time you accept a worksheet from your teacher. The trees that are cut down increase carbon emissions in our atmosphere, which — need I remind you — contributes to global warming. This is because carbon traps heat within the atmosphere. More heat means global warming. Also, trees photosynthesize oxygen back into the atmosphere. Killing the trees will reduce our oxygen supply.

Now, you can argue that your teachers put the worksheets up on a class website. But even the manufacturing of your technology can hurt the Earth. If we kill the environment, where will we live? Is this not what our teachers advised us against?

Stress is something every high school student can relate to. We all remember the countless times our friends stood in the hallway before class joking about our stress and how we are “literally dying”. It turns out that stress, a result of the constant overdrive mode our brains are in, can actually kill you. Let that sink in. You read that correctly, the sad truth is that stress can kill. After careful research, I found out that under stress, the brain releases chemicals. These chemicals travel down to organs such as your stomach and heart, which keep you alive and fully functioning. These chemicals will make your heart pump at high rates which, at its worse, can result in heart failure, and ultimately death.

You might want to reconsider that school thing. Not convinced yet? Two words: inadequate sleep. School and the workload that comes with it can cause students to lose sleep. Loss of sleep can reduce productivity in school, where the problem initially started. Also, losing sleep and making up for it later can ruin sleep patterns, cause sleeping disorders, and generally affect your mood. An inadequate amount of sleep can also deprive your body of the rest it needs, which leads to overexhaustion, and in extreme cases, death.

School can clearly be equated with risks to our well-being, whether it be to the environment, or our personal health. No human should risk their lives for trivialities. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.