By Eres Croker
Image via Bethany Westall.
It is no controversy that the current education system is corrupt and dysfunctional. From underpaying teachers, to rising suicides and mental illnesses due to bullying, the US school system has a lot to improve. One of the most prominent and enduring issues is the quality of their teachings. Throughout school, we are repeatedly taught the same things which are both unnecessary and difficult for the future of our lives.
In high school, subjects like Geometry, Algebra II, Physics, Chemistry, and more are often completely useless to teenagers on the brink of entering the real, adult world. Instead, I believe that college is the place to begin focusing heavily on these such topics that apply to your major and career choice. I will agree that the basics are necessary: math, science, English and the likes, but where will I need to use Algebra II in my everyday life?
There is a strong need for real-world duties to be taught. When we turn 18 and finally become independent, the world is sprung upon us with the stress of paying bills, making a bank account, filing taxes, keeping up with savings, budgeting, and applying for jobs. We are never truly taught the fundamentals of these practices.
These are universal concerns that are applicable to nearly everyone in the world. In high school, it is hard to be fully aware of our future plans in our career. What we do need to be aware of, however, is the mind-boggling aspects of adulthood.
As an adolescent, I currently don’t know how to pay bills. I don’t know how taxes work. I don’t know how to apply for an apartment. I don’t know how to budget my spending. I don’t know how to track expenses. However, these are things that my parents do every single day. How have we not learnt them yet?
In my opinion, schooling focuses on dumbing down our society and informing us of misinformation and biased facts. This is a common issue in history classes. Your location and the teacher’s political stance will often influence their teachings and the information they choose to disclose.
There are so many topics that we should also be taught alongside how to manage our money. There should be classes educating young people on mental health, as well as resources for mental illnesses that are applicable to all financial levels. We should be taught how to apply to college, but also how to find a job if college is not the path that a student chooses to take. There should be education on stress management, and so much more. This is only the beginning of how lacking our education system is.
A fundamental issue with our world today is that we are progressively being dumbed down into mindless slaves. Since our intelligence is slowly being decayed, now it is more important than ever that we should be properly educated. By spending excessive time on subjects that have no relation to real-life whatsoever, we are losing out on the time to learn about the things that matter. It is no mystery why most people are struggling financially and mentally; because we are losing touch with our true intelligence.
It is the education system's job to ensure that we are mentally capable of living our lives and succeeding. With such a corrupt country, it becomes our personal duty to study the truth. The leaders of our country, as well as the board of education, should be helping us reach our fullest potential. Our generation is made up of the future leaders of this world. Now is the time that everyone has the chance to be properly educated to prepare us for the world ahead.
Written by writer Eres Croker