In America we are blessed to have the ability to attend amazing schools for free, and learn a multitude of subjects while choosing supplemental curriculum's to coincide and enhance our learning experience. It is truly unique that we have schools that teach English, History, and Science alongside Band, Theatre, Language classes, and even Religious studies. We have the freedom in most schools to express ourselves through clothing, hair, and even accessories, including body piercings, tattoos, and other forms of body modification. And yet, our options in school are not limited to the core classes we attend, or the clothing we adorn. We get to choose what type of core class we want to attend. There are the regular classes, where you learn the curriculum the state and national governments have deemed acceptable for a student in your grade to be learning, or you may choose the advanced or AP class, which will teach you the curriculum that is taught in most state colleges, and earn you college credit if you get an acceptable score on the AP test. You may also advance within specialty classes, such as Theatre, Band, Photography, and Graphic Design to name a few. I myself am about to embark on my Senior year in High School, and am attending one of the top rated schools in the state. I have taken many classes that have tickled my fancy at different points in my life. I have taken Journalism, a World Customs class, Spanish, Creative Writing, Theatre, Financial Applications, Animal Science, Biology, along with the regular classes that I sometimes enjoyed greatly. I have seen the wonderful things that the American Education System can provide, but I have also seen the hurt it does, and some of the things that are seriously wrong with it.
I can practically hear you groaning now, since you can see that this is turning into a post that is not dedicated entirely to praising this Education System that is in place in our wonderful country. Although, I did want to address the things that it is doing right, because there are some great things going on here. But the major portion of this post is just pointing out some things I have noticed in my nearly 12 years of participation in this system.
The first thing I would like to address, is the most common issue that is brought up in conversations about the Education System; the grading scale. For all of my years, the scale has been 90-100%=A, 80-89%=B, 70-79%=C, 60-69=D, and 50% or below=F. While this scale makes sense in my head and in the heads of many others nationwide, the biggest issue I have found with it, is that parents, students, and even teachers have used these scales as a test of a students' intelligence. If one student gets a D in their math class, and their peer gets an A, the one who got an A is seen as more intelligent than the one who got a D in that class. Yet, that same student that got an A in math could go and get a D in English, while their "lesser intelligent" peer could get an A in that same English class. Do you see the issue here? The grade does not determine one's intelligence, because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. And taking the average of all of a students' grades does nothing to determine their intelligence either, because that student could suffer from very real, and very serious diseases such as test anxiety, social anxiety, ADD, ADHD, or any other number of things that cause them to not do as well in school. They could have the material down pat at home the night before, but as soon as you put them in a classroom setting, where the fate of their grade and even their ability to graduate to the next grade level rests on this one test, this one percentage, they freeze up, and forget everything they knew so well just twelve short hours ago. Yet, ask them in a pressure-free setting to solve the same logarithm that gave them such trouble on a test, they will be able to give you the answer easily, with no apparent frustration. The root of the issue lies in the importance that teachers and parents put on their children to succeed, to be the top of their class, to always have straight A's. I am not immune from this pressure, as I nearly failed a class in my Sophomore year because I always stressed about failing the test, failing the class, being a disappointment to my parents, and not getting into college. My parents are wonderful, and once I broke down and told them my frustrations and the reasons why I kept getting F's on all of my assignments, they told me "we don't care what grade you get on tests, or even what grade you get in the class. Do your absolute best, because you cannot do anymore than just that. And if your absolute best is a D, then we're proud that you did your best and got the grade you deserved." That lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders, and I began testing with less stress, and although my grades did not significantly improve, I was remembering content that I would have otherwise forgotten in my stress-induced test taking. I passed my class with a 63%, and when my report card came in the mail, my mom gave me a hug and said "good job, Jaina! I know that class was very difficult, but I am so proud you did your best and passed it!" The sad thing was, I still felt like I was a failure, because my best was a D, while others in my class had ended the year with grades that were past 100%. I thought, "am I less intelligent because I didn't understand a lot of the content in this highly advanced class that is meant for college students?" I began wondering if I would ever amount to anything, if I would ever graduate high school and go to college. This worry was not just because I'm a teenage girl, and we worry about everything. It was because I have been trained through years of school to believe that anything less than an A is unacceptable, that only straight A students will go to college and become successful, and everyone knows success and a high wage means you are happier than others. It wasn't until I took Financial Applications my Junior year, that I had a teacher that said something no other teacher had ever told me. "Do what makes you happy. Don't try to make your wage fit your budget; make your budget fit your wage." You see, my teacher had graduated college with a degree in Engineering, and she was working somewhere and making a ton of money. She was making a small fortune. But, she was unhappy, and hated going to work everyday. "But, Jaina, work is work. You aren't supposed to enjoy it." No. You go to work for the majority of your day, and give it nearly all of your energy, spend all of your time there, and dress up for it. When you get home, you have a small amount of time to spend with your family. You should love going into work everyday, and should not be contrary when you have yet another thing to do that day. My teacher told me that when she would come home from her high-paying job, she was irritable and unpleasant to be around. She would get into fights with her family, and it just was not a good situation. Once she switched jobs, and did what she truly loved, teaching, she became a happier person all around, and was happy to go to work, and was happy when she came home. She does not regret leaving her high-paying job for the seriously underpaid role of a teacher. So why are schools teaching kids that they will only be happy if they have a high paying job, and the only way to get that is to get straight A's all throughout their school years, which can only be achieved through hard core studying, stressing, and distancing of yourself from all distractions? Oh, but you need to do extracurricular activities such as sports and band and choir, otherwise you won't be well-rounded enough and colleges won't want you. And don't forget to do community service and volunteer work. And you have to get a job as soon as you are 16, otherwise colleges will think you are lazy. Are you not just stressed thinking about balancing all of that? No wonder kids are getting depressed at younger ages, and there are 13 year old kids with stress ulcers. There is too much pressure put upon kids to get A's in class. Once we relieve that pressure, students will actually do better in school, because they will know that their best is their best and it is good enough.
The second topic I would like to touch upon, is the highly controversial subject of the dress code. I do believe that having a dress code is an important part of public schools, especially one's without a set uniform. Students should be allowed to express themselves through their clothing, but you definitely do not want their clothing to be distraction or offensive to others. But schools tend to take this idea of regulating what students wear out of proportion, and out of context. Yes, profanity on a shirt could be seen as offensive to someone who believes you should not curse, and yes, a girls shirt should not be so low that there is really nothing left to the imagination when she bends over to pick up a dropped pencil, but we cannot change the dress code to fit the rampant hormones that are at work in teenagers. Some shorts really are not too short, and some tank tops are not too thin or revealing. I dated a guy once who said he had never spoken to a guy who found shoulders arousing. "It's just skin and bones, honestly, and I don't see how that could be seen as sexy." So why are schools so hell bent on telling girls their shirt sleeves are too thin? I agree that spaghetti strap shirts are not acceptable for the learning environment, but why am I not allowed to wear my normal two finger width tank tops to school? How are they inappropriate? They are not low cut, and they do not dip too far down under my arm. They just show the skin on my bony shoulder. Also, why is it that guys can claim "her shirt is distracting me from class", when the real issue is "I can't control my thoughts and my dick for a few hours a day"? And the issue isn't just with the girls' dress code. In seventh grade, kids at my school were not allowed to wear certain band shirts, because they were deemed "satanic". Kids would be sent home for wearing Metallica and Pantera shirts because the administration said that they were "devil worshiping bands", even though the shirts were completely harmless. I find it unfair that some kids were not allowed to wear their favorite bands shirts, because they contained the image of a skull on them, or the word "hell", which was actually in context to the place, not the "curse" word. I was once asked to change my shorts because they did not come down to my fingertips, which for me is ridiculous, being a very tall girl that has Marfan's syndrome, I find it difficult to find shorts that reach my fingertips that were not intended to reach my knee. Trying to explain things like this to school officials is useless, as they will just point out the fact that your shorts are higher than your fingertips, and the dress code states they have to be there, so you have to change. It is completely embarrassing to be called out of class and sent to the office, for what was a centimeter of difference. I am obviously a whore because my shorts were slightly above my fingertips. Boys are also not immune to the ridiculous standards of the school dress code. They are not allowed to wear chains on their pants in some schools. I cannot, for the life of me, understand this one, as the excuse to this regulation is that chains are affiliated with some gangs. With this logic, anyone wearing chains on their pants must be in a gang. Pocket watches were also banned with this rule, because their chain hung out from the pants pocket. In some schools, boys are not allowed to have ear piercings in. How can a school claim to promote self expression, yet outlaw something as simple as a stud in a boys ear? Is it really that much different from ear piercings on a girl? I can understand them not wanting facial piercings or tattoos, but even then I disagree with the forbidding of such simple self expression. I fail to see how ear piercings are a distraction or a danger to others. That is the fundamental purpose of the dress code, correct? To prevent distractions or danger to other students? So why are ear piercings and artificially colored hair of any kind banned? And why, at some schools, are girls not allowed to wear jeans, or pants of any kind? Only skirts that go down to the knees? I am not talking about the schools with uniforms, but the schools that "allow" self expression. I do not see how jeans are "distracting" on a girl at school. Again, I believe the idea of a dress code is brilliant, but do the requirements have to be so archaic and outrageous? Are we helping to prevent distractions and danger, or are we trying to protect our students from...well, what, exactly? Themselves? Others? I believe there are some schools that need to tone down what they deem "acceptable" at school and think of the students. For me, I have two lip rings side by side, and plan on getting tattoos in the next year. I enjoy wearing skinny jeans and band shirts for the most part, but also love high waisted shorts and summery dresses. My hair is dyed a red color that looks natural. I know at most high schools, nearly all of what I said is not allowed. This is who I am, who I feel happy being, and who I can say I love when I look into the mirror. If students cannot look in the mirror and feel good about how they look because your dress code says what they would like to wear or do is "unacceptable", are you really helping students?
The last topic I will touch on, as this post is already quite lengthy, is the fact that schools hire teachers not based on their love for the work, or even their qualifications, but based on their need, and whether that teacher fills that need, even if they fill it poorly. I cannot tell you how many times I have had computer teachers that used to be substitutes, but the school needed a computer teacher and they called to tell them they had gotten the job, even though they did not have a degree that coincided with teaching computer classes. I have had English teachers as Theatre teachers, Journalism teachers that got a degree in foreign language and knew nothing about Journalism, and I've had teachers that could not care less about whether we learned or not, and put just about as much enthusiasm into their daily teaching as I do brushing my teeth or taking my daily poop. It is absurd to think you can learn from someone who is not qualified for the position they are teaching, or even someone who shows no enthusiasm for the subject they exclusively studied in school for years. I hardly learned anything in the Journalism class I took, because the majority of the class was spent either reading from a book, writing sub-par newsletters, or talking to our neighbors pointlessly about our daily lives. Our teacher did not know Journalism beyond what a newspaper contained, so we did not have any depth in our lessons, and simply learned how to write our articles, and what we should have in our "newspaper". It was truly disappointing for me, since I did not get to really learn about Journalism itself, since my teacher was really just a Spanish teacher that was put in charge of teaching a class they were not qualified to teach. I find that I learn better when the teacher is passionate about what they are teaching. They tend to teach better when they get excited about what they are lecturing on. Their face lights up, and they capture the students in the room and their excitement is transferred to the student sitting there, listening. They are basically emitting giant waves of positive energy, which uplifts the students and makes them more positive in return. Even if you do not believe in energies and things of a spiritual nature, you can relate to times when your friend is telling you a story, and the more excited they are about what they are telling you, the more you want to listen, and the happier you are at the end. When they are telling you a story and they aren't animated at all, and just state it, almost in a bored manner, you end up feeling less than happy at the end, almost grouchy, and think to yourself, "well that was pointless." The emotions they were feeling were rubbed off onto you. The same goes in the classrooms. The best teachers are the ones that teach from the heart, and truly care about what they are saying, just as the best friends are the same way.
I know the argument of the Education system will go on forever, since nothing is perfect, and there is always room for improvement. It encourages me to see so many young people realizing the problems that there are, and wanting to make a difference. I realize a nobody like me is not going to change anyone's minds with a simple blog post on her blog that gets seen by maybe 5 people, but those 5 people could take my ideas and opinions, and talk about them in debates, and they could spread and affect so many more people. Change is not going to happen overnight, and it is not going to happen unless we speak out, and try to make things change and draw attention to what we believe is wrong. The only people who can truly speak for how the Education System is doing, are the ones who are currently in it. Not the parents or the administration or the government, but the students who are under it seven hours a day, five days a week.
Thank you for reading all of this, and please comment if you agree or disagree with anything I have stated, or even with stories of instances where the Education System succeeded or failed with you.
Thank you for putting up with my rants.
I love you all, and don't be afraid to speak your mind, and speak up for what you believe in.
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