The bell rings after a long 8 hours and (like a programmed machine) every student stands up, grabs their bags, and exits the classroom in unison. They trudge down the hallway to their bus, and mentally prepare themselves to go home and continue their school day by completing an additional 3 hours of homework. This is the style of the United States school system, something that has not had a major revamp or remodeling in almost 400 years. Which is odd given that as a society we change our technology, fashion, food, and every other industry on a yearly, if not monthly, basis. Why has our education system remained so constant? One theory may be that it is successful and helps our students. However, others may find that it preaches perfectionism and memorization. The United States education system needs a serious update and must begin to encourage student learning and progress. Schools can begin to do this by encouraging creativity and nuanced thinking, putting less pressure on a student’s GPA and test scores, and supporting those students who have a passion and curiosity for learning (not always the students who get the highest scores on a test). Students in the American education system need a school where they can learn and grow, not the same program which teaches them to memorize, test, forget, repeat. 

As a junior in high school, I have spent the majority of this school year studying for tests day in and day out. You finish a test in one class and move right on to the next one. This has created a highly stressful and anxiety-ridden environment. My grades are weighted as 90% tests and 10% homework and other assignments. Although this is because we no longer have midterms, it only made this year more stressful. As someone who started high school in 2019, I had not had 1 full year of in-person traditional high school. So, for my first year to be my junior year (which is usually the hardest year for most students), was not necessarily a “breeze.” In fact, most days I had to rush so much just to get through the material for a class that I had not time to actually relate to the material and grow from it. I spent a year memorizing data, definitions, formulas, and formats. I spent a year in school passively learning, concerned more with the scores on my tests than the material in the class. This is not learning. This is not living. This is not what young people and children in our society should be taught they must endure if they want any chance at success in the future. A middle school in California explored how they could foster a learning-based environment with a project intensive course load and saw students outperform their peers by more than 10%. Students in this environment are given the opportunity to explore learning in the way it occurs in the working world: through collaboration, research, and reflection. Because when in our modern society does someone ever hand you a pencil and sheet of paper, cut off your access to everyone else and any forms of technology, time you, and ask you to crank out a calculus problem? The modern technological world we live in is driven by collaboration, inquiry, and checking our work. In a testing environment, students are docked for an incorrect answer and are not necessarily given the opportunity to re-learn the material or address their mistakes. Project based learning also enables students to learn how they can do things for themselves. It teaches confidence, independence, and how to manage more challenging work. A testing environment teaches stress, no second guessing, and no second chances. As I learned from reading “Think Again” by Adam Grant, it is always best we think again and retry our answers and experiments. However, when one is timed with no opportunity to retry, they must trust their gut and go with what they’ve got. Teaching our future doctors to think this way would make hospitals a much more dangerous place, and patients could be misdiagnosed and mistreated. Project based learning focuses on what a student needs to do in order to learn the material. Project based environments allow students to learn and teachers to teach. They allow schools to do a more effective and efficient job of producing strong learners and critical thinkers. Afterall, the fastest way to do something is hardly ever the best way to do it. 

Another common factor of the test-based learning experience is the weight and importance of one number. It ranges from 0.0-4.0 (or 5.0 depending on your school) and saying the numbers 3.6, 3.8, 4.0, or 4.5, to any teenage student will lend them to think of one thing: grade point average. These numbers are what teenagers fixate on for 4 years of their lives. They work toward reaching certain numbers just to get into a school of their choosing. Colleges like Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford all stress the importance of a high GPA, along with lots of AP classes, SATs, and ACTs in the 98th percentile, all the while completing an overwhelming and burdening amount of extracurriculars and writing unique and thought-provoking essays. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is ranked the number 1 high school in the entire United States. They average a 1530 on their SATs, a 35 out of 36 on their ACTs, and a 0 on student happiness and satisfaction. All joking aside, a survey from the students at TJHSST revealed about 95% of students were “always” or “often” doing schoolwork and only 22% of the population said they “enjoyed” the schoolwork they were doing. Students at TJHSST get an average of 6 hours of sleep each night (a minimum of 9 hours is recommended). And over 50% of students reported having to complete over 5 hours of homework at least once in the last week with an average of 4 hours per night. Although these schools may have the highest test scores and the best GPAs, colleges (such as the ones listed before) do not even want these students out of fear that they are “memorization machines.” Top universities want students who will engage with the material and learn and grow from it. These schools worry that students from programs like TJHSST will be unable to develop a deeper understanding of the material, only an ability to memorize it. Students cannot win. They go to the top school in the country and succeed, but they are considered memorization machines because high schools are so test intensive. Often times when one goes to a low ranked high school and does well, the curriculum is easy, and their success is downplayed. I go to Great Valley High School, ranked 659 out of 17,843 schools in the United States. I have a close friend who attends the Downingtown Stem Academy which is ranked 44th. I also have friends at Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa. LHS is ranked 11,361. We all take similar classes and have similar GPA’s and SAT scores. But the real question is, who would get into the most selective and prestigious schools? That would be the true test of college admissions and values in the United States. 

Something colleges stress the importance of is a student’s drive to pursue their interests. However, many high schools do not have the ability to allow every student to fully pursue said interests. And even when they do, showing interest in a subject does not mean that a student wants to major in it. It is difficult for many students to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives in high school and choose the “correct” classes based on this decision. In fact, it is recommended that most people do not choose a career path until they are 25, after one has already graduated from college! For myself, I know that I want to be a biology major in college. Therefore, colleges would like to see mostly science and math credits on my transcript. But just because I want to be a STEM major does not mean these are my only interests. High school students should be given the opportunity to pursue their greatest interests and subjects they want to learn more about. Psychologists say that the teenage years are a time for development of one’s self-efficacy, self-confidence, and identity. By forcing ourselves into these roles and categories too young, we strip ourselves of the ability to fully develop every aspect of our personalities. It is unfair for young students and learners to have to choose between a current interest they are passionate about, and a career choice they aren’t sure about. We have a human tendency to choose things we are comfortable with and know, this usually plays into our career choice. However, when it comes to discovering who we are and the person we want to be, taking a class that interests students is more important. Studies have shown that explorative learning techniques are more important and helpful to an adolescent's identity development. Yet most universities hope (and even expect) to see the opposite: a student who is sure in their way and pursues courses related to how they wish to spend the rest of their life. I love learning, and there are so many classes I wish I could have (and would have) taken in high school. However, I chose to sacrifice these classes so I could add another math or science course as that is what I thought a college would prefer to see. 

When it comes to education, it is not the practice that is the problem but the inability to think of new and innovative ways for students to learn. It is not that our system has never worked or even that it does not currently work. It is that our system needs an update. As a society we have raised our test scores, but not changed the tests. We add more options like painting and cooking, but colleges would prefer a student didn’t take them. We run our schools on a schedule for farming and factory work, a part of the American economy that grows smaller with each passing decade. We update our science and technology and discover new material and practices we require our children to learn but we neglect to discover new ways for our children to learn. We can update the curriculum, but if society does not update the way it is taught, then our country will become outdated. Failing to teach the next generation how to approach problems with many angles in mind could result in there being no solutions at all. A generation ago, America was ranked among the highest of all countries for education and learning. The neglect of an update has caused us to fall drastically behind. Other countries have prioritized their education systems and continued to grow and evolve because of it. Our failure to do the same has put us behind others technologically and will continue to do so unless changes are made now. 

To implement change would not be a big ask of our society. It is not a tear-down rebuild we need. We just need some innovative ideas and techniques. All students learn differently, and we must learn to adapt to those needs and considerations. Without eliminating the prospect of tests (because yes, they do have some important benefits) we can stress the importance of projects and creative thinking. Instead of having a government set standard for education, schools should have the ability to decide how they will teach and how their students can learn based on their students' needs. We can implement regulations and teachings that show the benefits of homework when it is not over assigned. Doing 5 hours of homework each night is excessive but doing nothing will cause students to score lower on tests. Additionally, it is frustrating for students to complete assignments that do not factor into their grade. When students are required to complete homework, it should count for something. Society needs to remember that students are just adolescents. They are young minds. When it comes to standardized tests such as the SAT and ACTs, society must learn these tests fail to predict what they are supposed to. They are invalid. They predict a student’s ability to take the test and succeed in a freshman level college course. They do not predict one’s ability to succeed in the workplace. Yet, much of the high school curriculum is materials covered by these tests. The changes we must make would take time, but they would not be impossible or impractical to do. They just need someone to support them and understand the need for them. It takes one person to change a mindset, a couple people to start a movement, but a society to make a change.

Bibliography: 
“Access Denied.” 2022 Best U.S. High Schools, www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings. Accessed 10 July 2022. 
“---.” US News, 27 July 2018, www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2018-07-27/americas-schools-arent-working-for-americas-kids. 
Cao, Hung. “The Erosion of Excellence at Thomas Jefferson High School.” Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/21/erosion-excellence-thomas-jefferson-high-school. 
“Challenge Success: Parent Survey Results | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.” Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, tjhsst.fcps.edu/resources/challenge-success-parent-survey-results. Accessed 10 July 2022. 
“Challenge Success: Student Survey Executive Summary | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.” Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, tjhsst.fcps.edu/resources/challenge-success-student-survey-executive-summary. Accessed 10 July 2022. 
Khan, Rabia. “United States Is Falling Behind In Education, Data Reveals.” The Morning News, 28 Apr. 2021, themorningnews.com/news/2021/04/22/united-states-is-falling-behind-in-education-data-reveals. 
Pinsker, Joe. “The Future of Work: Shorter Hours, Longer Careers.” The Atlantic, 14 Dec. 2021, www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/12/future-work-shorter-hours-longer-careers/621003. 
Preston, Teresa. “A New Research Base for Rigorous Project-Based Learning.” Kappanonline.Org, 24 Jan. 2022, kappanonline.org/research-project-based-learning-de-vivo. 
The Learning Network. “What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education.” The New York Times, 22 Dec. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-how-to-improve-american-education.html. 
Verhoeven, Monique, et al. “The Role of School in Adolescents’ Identity Development. A Literature Review.” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 31, no. 1, 2018, pp. 35–63. Crossref, doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-9457-3. 

Additional Information and Resources: 
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/21/erosion-excellence-thomas-jefferson-high-school/ 
theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/12/future-work-shorter-hours-longer-careers/621003/ 
nytimes.com/2019/12/19/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-how-to-improve-american-education.html 
usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2018-07-27/americas-schools-arent-working-for-americas-kids