For many years, students, parents, and even teachers have constantly complained about how dysfunctional and ludicrous the entire school system has become. More specifically, the American school system has received many complaints about it, comments ranging from “outdated grading system” to “unconcerned to handle bullying”. Complaints have piled up and while some schools have attempted to accommodate these complaints, they are heavily restricted in what they can change and end up doing nothing at all.
While many people think that school is really not as flawed as others make it seem, they are blind to the truth. A very popular reason people hate the school system is how the grading system works. Grading is the process of applying a measurement system that shows a varying level of achievement between students in a certain course. On one hand, this seems like a great way of displaying a student’s success or failure in a certain subject. On the other hand, the concept of giving students a certain value based on their grades is a way to create harsh competition between students and cause problems in their motivation for school or their learning.
A school is organized to be neat and prepare its students for a participatory role in society. Its original purpose, when created, was to help children learn basic things like math and reading with the idea that they would go on to work in a factory. While this does sound like an obvious fact, there is a point here. Due to this, students are sucked into a spiral of learning useless facts and information that don’t correlate to their passions. Calculus, chemistry, psychology, and even high levels of English classes are quite useless unless your dream is to be a chemist, have a job that deals with a lot of calculus or want to teach these subjects. Students are forced into a curriculum that limits their creativity by forcing them to take these subjects they are disinterested in. This disinterest leads to a lack of motivation and bad grades, which gets them into trouble. Schools should have the main objective of helping a child grow up with their talents and give them a space to grow their interests and be their best person.
Students or parents who care should have an equal say in what they want to learn in their higher levels of education. (Not considering college, where this can be done ). A freshman student at Quartz Hill High School, James Ramirez, Brother of Anthony Ramirez, made a statement in a recent interview about his brother.
“I have seen school discourage my brother from his passions and what he wants to do by forcing him to take classes that he really is not interested in.”
“ I never felt right in school. I didn’t feel like I fit in with all of the smart people that like all of the hard subjects they taught” said Quartz Hill Highschooler Elijah Fly.
Benefits still exist in today’s school system but the constant and very relevant holes that are in it call for a massive do-over.
