“If only you paid as much attention in the classroom like you do on the field,” heatedly ranted Abraham’s mother when he got an ‘F’ on his report card. In our world today, the genius-on-the-field, but yet stubborn-in-the-classroom teen reflects on one of the downsides of being involved in extracurricular activities. Along with the downside of being more focused on the activity rather than in the classroom, the positivity of learning commitment and responsibility also comes from those activities.

Extra-curricular positively affects those involved by teaching commitment and responsibility. For example, it was Logan’s first time to play a sport and he expects everything to be easy-breezy. But he soon finds out those long, hot, dreadful practices are not the piece-of-cake he made it out to be, making him want to quit. After the first week of the so called torture, he decides that since he started something, he should finish through. Too often people quit in life, but possibly if they would have joined extracurricular activities, like Logan, they would have learned commitment. Along with the learning of commitment, an even more important life lesson comes from extra-curricular, responsibility. In addition, Robert plays three sports, and his grades are not the perfect-straight-a’s as they were before. After a few weeks of watching his grades plummet like an avalanche in a blizzard, he decides to take responsibility and focus on grades, but still play sports. For many of us, responsibility means nothing, but joining extracurricular can help teach and positively affect us by teaching responsibility.

Along with the positive life lessons, negative effects come when being distracted to academics. For example, three days before the state championship game, senior varsity quarterback Cade, who everyone in the school looks up to as a holy figure, is focused on nothing but his final game more than anything. Sitting in the classroom, all the information for his calculus test the next day goes in-one-ear and out-the-other. The lack of attention because of his final game makes him fail his semester exam causing him to not be able to play in the final game. Like the glorified QB, many of us involved in extracurricular don’t pay attention in the classroom as much as on the beloved field or court.

Therefore, extra-curricular activities help teach life lessons and commitment, but just like Abraham’s mother said, they affect by distracting in academics.