Schools are creating standard, working drones and forgetting that one crucial ingredient of a successful student.
Every student in middle school learns the exact same things: math, reading, writing, a minimum amount of science and a close-minded point of view on history. Why do we continue to subject all students to this old-fashioned boring way of life? Likewise, schools must offer more skill sets to develop students so they can be knowledgeable adults and achieve their dreams in life.
At the same time, the benefits of learning a second language are tremendous. The first taste of language most students get is in middle school. According to the book “The Younger the Better: Myth in Bilingual Education” says that the right age to start teaching a second language is when a child is from 11-13 years of age. In addition, most schools do not take teaching a second language seriously until high school. As a result, teaching children about a different culture at a young age will expose them to diversity so they understand other religions, foreign foods and traditions different from their own. It can be assured that learning things such a new language and about a new culture will cut down on racism that plagues our society and our inflexibility to understand other ways of life.
Moreover, schooling is supposed to prepare students for life out of the classroom and into the workforce or home. School boards must take into recognition that not every student that passes through the school will go on to higher education, so the school must offer classes such as cooking, sewing, mechanics, care-taking, sports, and health. Most students rely on their parents to always cook them dinner, or repair the door handle that fell out the tenth time! Therefore, schools also have to understand that not all students are going to be into academics.
74% of all students play an organized sport. If all of the pro sports players had spent 100% of their energy on studying to be straight-A students, they would never have had time to perfect their sport skills at a young age. Not every person is the best writer, or has the quickest calculating brain. Why can’t school boards realize this? If the main subjects such as math, reading and writing, science and history are pressed into our heads without any change or diversity in skill, we might as well stop the Olympics.
Professor White says “The repetitive classes of English, math, history, geography, science and foreign languages have traditionally been used to equip children with the skills to become a member of the standard, middle class.” Skills that are taught in schools are taught to teach students to work. Middle schools across the U.S. drill and “prepare” students for high school requirements instead of teaching students to develop lifelong financial, social, creative thinking and public speaking skills that will mean a great deal more than the standardized, required science test you took in ninth grade. Yong Zhao, the University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, says that “Creativity - and not standardization - may be the driving force behind an effective education system.” Repetition can be an effective way to study, but schools need creativity boosting classes to set the spark on the once-spectators-sport of learning instead of standardizing.
As of November 18, 2010, the public debt of the U.S. is a whopping $13,793,894,624,145.00 and has increased by $4.17 million per day according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. How did this happen? Jean Chatzky, author of “Pay It Down! From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day” answers this question: People have been living on more than they make. This may not seem like a problem schools should take into consideration, but they could have stopped this extreme debt from ever occurring. Students must be equipped with financial knowledge and know how to save money or get interest on it. As stated in a survey taken for “Special Edition: Family Finance by AAFP Insurance Services” says that “Due to our survey, a majority of teens don’t know even know how to write a check.” In this article, most of the teens said they usually spend all their money at once, either on clothes, gas, or electronics. It should be obvious that middle schools should offer finance classes so in the future, we can for once, have lower taxes and be debt free.
In conclusion, schools are in dire need to create successful unique students and stop creating the required standardized test drones. As you can see, the schools across the U.S. have more control than they think. The future and past of generations are affected by the students that come from our schools. They enter the workforce and are what our country has to show for itself. Consequently, students will be positively affected by changing or adding a variety of school subjects and boosting the creativity in schools.
We are not the drones made only to work and test; we are the budding students that need the last touch of pollen to make us blossom into success.