In today’s society, public education has
become a major problem in the United States. The fundamental
goal of public education is to give students the knowledge and skills they need
in order to become a working member of society. However, this is no longer the
case. This is due to a number of reasons, with the most prevalent being the
increasing amount of stress and pressure put on students. Students are expected
to take difficult classes, multiple AP’s, extra-curricular activities,
volunteer in the community, score well on standardized tests, and maintain
close to a 4.0 GPA, all the while trying to continue having a social life and
possibly a job. Needless to say, it’s a nearly impossible feat. These
impractical standards in our education system have promoted conformity over
individuality and memorization over learning. Students spend less time understanding
the material, and are forced to memorize, because there are not enough hours in
the day with all their other activities going on. In addition, if they are able
to pass without actually learning the material, then what’s the point, because
they will go on to earn an A regardless. The problem with this is that we are
teaching students, (aka. the future members of society,) that the most
important thing is good grades, when we should be encouraging hard work. Unlike
good grades, hard work is the key principle that will carry us throughout life and
lead us to success. But it’s not the student’s fault that they start to think
this way. In recent years, public schools have begun to place and increasing
amount of weight on tests and quizzes, and little to no weight on homework and
class work. Students who do not complete any class work or homework can still “earn”
an A in class just by doing well on one test. While this benefits some students,
for others, it is detrimental. Even if a student has done all their work, if
they do poorly on one test, their grade will plummet dramatically. The same
principle is applied to standardized testing.
Students may have worked hard all throughout high school, but if they do
not do get a superb score, all that work would have been for nothing. As I said
earlier, this not only reinforces the idea of memorization, but also of
conformity. All our lives we have been told to be unique individuals, but how
can we express that in a system that wants to educate us like we’re the same?
If we are to fix the fundamental problems in our society, we first need to fix
the same problems that are tainting our public education system.
