Special Feature: Free Time
Sports
Sports rank number one in the choice teenagers, especially boys, make to occupy their free time. Sports develop both the mind and body and teach adolescents to work in a team and to acquire a healthy competitive spirit. They also give teenagers the chance to travel and meet new people as well as visting new places.
Unconventional sports offer teenagers a wonderfully exciting alternative. Extreme sports (such as bungee jumping, extreme skiing and sky-diving) have become popular trends today on account of the great amount of adrenaline that they imply.
Hobbies
* Hobbies at School
Beyond the traditional academic courses, many institutions offer more creative and fun choices such as drama, dancing or sports. However, these "hobbies" are often considered "extra curricular activities" while they should be promoted as an integral part of education.
* Unconventional Hobbies
Common prejudice portrays hobbies as dull and uninteresting, such as collecting stamps, having guitar lessons, practising sports or playing chess. Traditional hobbies, however, have become outdated now and have been replaced by other cool activities such as snakeboarding, magic, doing graffiti art or playing exotic instrmuents such as the sitar.
* Volunteer Work as a Hobby
People say that youth in XXI century are lazy, indifferent and selfish. The common prejudice is that this generation spends their free time watching television, sleeping or chatting on the Internet. However, there are admirable teens who show drive and initiave even during their free time by doing some voluntary work such as cooperating for ecology-related organizations or doing charitable work.
My Point of View
Hobbies aren't promoted enough by most schools and this a a big flaw. Schools should worry more about creativity and and less about suffocating students with facts. Double shift schools, in particular, should put special emphasis on fostering recreational activities since their students don't have much free time to get involved in hobbies after the bell rings. Moreover, teenagers should spend their leisure doing producting activities instead of wandering in the streets without knowing what to do.