Final Draft PAper #3

School forces us to learn what we do not care about. Whether it be math, art, reading and writing complex writings, science, music, history, or even something more hands on. People need certain skills like basic arithmetic, writing, and reading, but these are all things that we should be taught at a young age. Going into high school people should not be forced to take such a large range of subjects. They need to have the freedom they will experience after high school, so they understand the importance of their decisions. By the age of a high school student, and even before then, we know what we are good at and what we enjoy doing, we may have figured it in class or after school, but we know. To force someone to do something they absolutely despise, barely tolerate, or is incredible difficult for them to understand, then tell them they need to work harder, is torture. Also, when given the chance to make decisions on our own we tend to take for responsibility in our actions. The requirements for students to graduate from high school should be changed to allow more control over students own educational path.

The classes offered to complete high school requirements can be quite repetitive as well. In a history class, for example, students learn about one thing in world history that happened in the United States and learn about it again in U.S. History. A good portion of a semester of math class is spent going over what was learned last year. In English classes novels with similar plots are read and essays about the same things are written. We just are expected to sound more grown-up with each passing year. In Mike Rose's “The Answer Sheet” one of his fourteen revolutions is “To have more young people get an engaging and challenging education.” Classes that students are required to take aren't challenging enough for them.

Something can be incredibly easy for someone to do, but if it is not interesting they are most likely going to make it harder on themselves just to prove a point. It becomes harder and harder to concentrate on these subjects students do not like which let's them fall further and further behind, getting them stuck in this loop of not caring followed quickly by not understanding. So putting a student back in a class they failed does not do them any good. They are just going to do what they can to not fail again so they can move on. Gatto says in his article "Against Schools: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why" that, "Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it." Learning should be fun, and it can be if the students being taught information find the information worth their time and interesting.

Students need more freedom in what they do in high school. I am not saying they should be able to decide not to go to their science class some days, but rather not have to take a science class if they do not find it interesting or if it is not something they see themselves doing later in life. A lot of classes are assigned before hand, that is what I experienced at least. All juniors take this English or the AP version, but you are automatically put into the first, and you need to take biology as a sophomore and so on. After it is all said and done students get one or two electives, more as students get closer to graduating. They do not get a chance to figure out how interesting certain subjects are to them and end up having to spend a lot of money figuring out what exactly they want to to in life. In bell Hooks “Critical Thinking” he explains that we need to keep an open mind. How are students supposed to keep an open mind when we are force to worry about requirements instead of what they enjoy?

Some may argue that giving students to much freedom is dangerous. That teenagers will make bad choices. Acosta says in Deb Aronson's article “Arizona Bans [Latino/a History Program]” “Young people being empowered is scary to many people, institutions, and establishments.” But, if they do not make mistakes they do not learn valuable life lessons. After touching a hot stove as a child you learn not to touch it because it hurts you. You take a class you do not end up finding interesting, you do not make a career out of it. Also taking away peoples freedom can be even more dangerous. We saw in “Dead Poets Society” that Neil felt the need to take his life after his dad told him he could not become an actor. Freedom is very important, and as Americans we are lucky enough to be given freedom. We do not really get a good chance to realize the consequences that come with our decisions because we have certain freedoms.

Much like what Friere says in his piece “The Banking Concept of Education” that students are expected to blindly except information, they are also expected to blindly except what information they need. The requirements that students are expected to take as high school students are worthless and contain a broad span of subject matter. Students leave high school and are expected to make decisions they have no experience in making. Students should be given the opportunity to take the lead in their educational path earlier in their educational career. Given more freedom in what subject matter they get to learn. Students should be allowed to take an art class over science or a math class over history. In the current system of education students are limited to what they learn until the go to college. This puts us behind were we should be. Again I'm not saying students must know what they are going to do with their lives, but most students know what type of career path they are going into or what the aren't going to do. Having people sit through classes they get confused in is discouraging and should be stopped. Challenge students, but let them choose the types of things they want to be challenged in. 

Work Sited

Bell Hooks. “Critical Thinking.” 2009. Print

Dead Poets Society. Robert Sean Leonard. Peter Weir. 1989. Film

Deb Aronson. “Arizona Bans [Lationa/a History Program]” Print

Freire, Paolo “The Banking Concept of Education.” Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970. Print

Gatto, John “Against Schools:How Public Education Cripples Our Kids and Why.” Harper Magazine.                    2003. Print

Rose, Mike "Resolutions Someone Should Make for 2011.”The Answer Sheet Web.