school systems vs. life | Teen Ink

school systems vs. life

January 12, 2010
By wildcat DIAMOND, Hopkinton, Massachusetts
wildcat DIAMOND, Hopkinton, Massachusetts
64 articles 0 photos 15 comments

If I was thrown out into the world today, would I make it? Would you? Honestly, I don’t think any of us would. The way this system works lacks our true needs. They end up teaching us what they think we need rather then what is necessary.
We have this social proof in life where we go to school, then college, then a job, and then we start having a family. We don’t need to follow this set schedule, but we do. I feel as though by the time we are in high school we should know what we want to do when we leave. High school should be set up more like colleges because all of the teachers tell us that high school is suppose to prepare us for the real world. Well if that’s true, why is it that most people go to college after that? And, why is it that people who do go to college and get their fancy degrees always end up with the better jobs?
Pre-k through eighth grade should consist of the “basics,” such as math, science, history, etc, and even then they should relate them to the real world not this made up structure that is suppose to resemble real life scenarios, because frankly there’s no resemblance between the two. But, high school should be about letting us make our own decisions about the class we want to take that we think will benefit our future, while having limited supervision. Besides, once we leave the protection of our parents it’s always about us making our own decisions 24/7. And we cant just go from one extreme to the other; having everyone always telling us what to do to no telling us what to do if that happens that’s where chaos occurs.
Out there in the real world the Constitution say’s we have the freedom of speech but when we’re in school that doesn’t always apply to us. I feel like we are threatened into not being able to speak out because if what I say doesn’t agree with the teacher I could get a detention for it, and that’s just down right wrong.
So, here, this is what I have to say, this is me speaking up. I ask you to think about what I am going to say next. Everyone knows that we receive grades at the end of every month, but what is it measuring? To me, and hopefully to all of you, we can see that a grade is basically measuring what we do to make the grader happy. It doesn’t test us on our knowledge of the world it tests us on our ability to please, which may be the only useful thing we’ve learned in our schooling system. Because we’ll need to be able to please many people in life. One example would be our boss’, when we get a job.
I can truly say I have learned more useful stuff in life from my experiences and pure determination then school. I know how to cook, clean, do my laundry, speak Greek and Italian, and lots of other things because of what life has handed me. My real life experiences have prepared me more then any teacher or curriculum ever has.
Ever since I was little I would save any money that was handed to me. I don’t know why or what I was saving for but that small factor taught me to be care about what I have more then a teacher lecturing me about it ever would’ve. I feel as though life is a better schooling system then a building we’re forced to go to, where supposedly learning the basic building blocks of what we need to further ourselves in life.



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