High school, for a lot of us, is a time filled with memories – many of them good memories, and many of them, well, bad. However, what almost never becomes the topic of discussion at high school reunions is the curriculum – because it really isn’t worth discussing.
1. School isn’t about learning; it’s about memorizing.
The biggest problem a lot of us have with high school – or any school, really – is that your ability to cram a whole bunch of facts into your noggin is seen as far more important than any semblance of actual learning. A lot of contemporary schooling still doesn’t check its students for ‘fact retention’, so to speak – so you’re far more likely to just end up throwing away information you don’t need as soon as you put that darn exam behind yourself. That sort of misses the point now, doesn’t it?
2. Your teachers are probably as fed up as you are.
Being a high school teacher isn’t a very prestigious job – unless you’re really into teaching pubescent kids with a penchant for arrogance. Let’s face it, none of us were really particularly easy to deal with back when we were in high school – and to top it off, the pay is nothing to be very happy about. So you’ll see why a lot of high school teachers are probably not really, well, all too excited about their jobs.
3. In the end, skills matter, and grades don’t.
This is a tough reality in the job market, but also a natural one. High school and college diplomas no longer require any serious amount of status or intellectual prowess – they just require a lot of money, or alternatively, future-crippling loans. Because of that, the job market is overflowing with unexperienced high school and college graduates who may be able to wave around that piece of paper saying they graduated, but still can’t boast that three- or four-year internship + recommendation that they could’ve gotten by just skipping the algebra and getting straight to doing what it is they wanted to do – or at least taking the time to figure that part out.
4. You’ll mostly forget what high school taught you.
Let’s face it, we have to remember a lot of things in high school. Things about ancient Rome and Egypt, things about Napoleon, things related to factorization, things detailing the difference between Elizabethan and Shakespearean literature (that’s a trick question) – just too many things! Most of which won’t ever help you.
Getting a grasp of the basics of science, language, history and math are pretty important – but then there are moments when subjects are delved into to such a level that any interest in learning about them is just squashed beneath the pressure of learning so much in so little time, and the fact that as soon as you’ve “learned” something, you might just as well forget it to make some space for the next lesson.
We all learn at different paces, and at a certain point in our education, we begin to show promise in some subjects – and utterly loathe others. There are a few students that say they don’t dislike any particular subject, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a favorite one.
But it isn’t just the curriculum that sets us apart. Some people can’t learn with the stress and competitive spirit of modern education breathing down their necks – they’re far more efficient learners when given the chance to learn through cooperation. Others can’t deal with an endless stream of nigh-useless facts thrown at them – they’re more interested in the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ rather than the ‘this is what happened deal with it.’
6. Stress and competition kills learning.
Learning is a process of discovery, and it usually requires passion and patience. To learn something, you need to actually want to learn it – school usually destroys that by forcing you to memorize instead of learn, for the sake of getting grades to either pass, or beat the marks of others. It’s no longer about helping one another further knowledge and study deeply in subjects that interest you – it’s about grinding as much info into yourself as possible in as short of a time-frame as possible.
That level of stress can have dire consequences – to the point that students nowadays are exhibiting the same sort of stress-related “burn outs” that a lot of adults in stressful work conditions have. Are burn outs real? Who knows? It doesn’t change the fact that “learning” and “high school” are often mutually exclusive.
7. A “good” high school education is expensive – way too expensive.
Secondary and higher education is a lot about money, and getting as much of it as possible – especially money you don’t have. Although this is a bigger problem with student loans for colleges, private high schools that boast a better standard of education are also more likely to string your wallet up by its seams and shake it till the last hidden dime drops.
Aside from the ethical argument that good education should be something everyone could have access to without having to inherit a castle of wealth, the issue of money also piles up on the mountain of stress you’re facing – which doesn’t help learning.
8. Being forced to study makes you less likely to ever study again.
Even when it’s a subject you really like, the fact that you’ve got a test about that subject the next morning that jeopardizes your chances at getting a scholarship – with the alternative being a life of loan debts – will eventually put you off from studying.
Studying is important, and getting into a good, comfortable learning groove is necessary for enhancing your skills. But when the heat is turned up to a breaking point, and you’re told your life’s future lies in your ability to cram for a test at the age of 17, you may just not want to study much after all that. Never mind the fact that a large number of high school text books are outdated, or that teachers are often ignorant of their subjects and dissatisfied with their jobs, or that the competitiveness of high school detracts from the learning experience – it’s the entirety of all that artificial social ballast making a high school education inferior to a well-tailored, self-made mix of Internet courses and part-time jobs.
9. A high school education leaves out the important bits.
There are many aspects about modern life that high school glosses over, when they should be incredibly important. Among them are things like anger management, preparing students for maintaining a proper work-life balance, the incredible importance of nutrition, how modern banking and simple economics work, how bank accounts work, and a whole list of other mini-courses and more in-depth topics to prepare students for the transition from student to working adult.
Life is more than just work, though. There are aspects to life that we only learn when we feel that it’s too late – things like dealing with our emotions, or getting out of a depression. As more and more people plummet into personal depths and medication, it’s important for kids to be prepared to face their own demons and talk with others to heal themselves – not just because their parents sent them to a counselor, but because given the cut-throat world we’re in, we all need to learn some of the basics of empathy: like loving ourselves and forgiving others.