I’ve been thinking…

I’m pretty sure that most of us would agree that the school system in America is flawed in some way or to some extent. But I wonder why no action is being done. Sure, you can tell me people are lazy. Sure, you could say they don’t care. But I care, and I’m sure that many people do. I mean, it affects students every single day. We are talking millions. And mental health issues have sky rocketed. Teachers say they care too, and though we may not have as much power as the people above us, why don’t we try to change its flaws? This is a genuine question too. And what can we do about it? What can I do as a student? I want this to be better. I want there to feel like there is hope. From the perspective of a teenager, it feels like the world has been falling back lately. There are bills banning trans people for being who they are, bills telling people they can’t be gay, rules forcing dress codes strictly onto women’s bodies, and it all baffles me. These issues are some I’m most passionate about:

1. Students with different abilities are all thrown into one single pool with other students and capabilities and graded the exact same way. Sure, we SOMETIMES have accommodations like for those with ADHD or crippling anxiety. But what about changing the entirety of the student experience? It’s become normal to hear phrases like “I hate school” and “school is not fun.” This is normal. It shouldn’t be this way. What about student’s feelings and passions? What about learning and loving the process instead of choking down information? We are forced to go to school to learn about the probability of picking out two green marbles and one red sock, yet there’s a war going on in Ukraine right now that I learned nothing about from the school. Yesterday, in all those 8 hours of school, all I learned was how to use one single button on a calculator and deal with stress (caused by workload), yet I have a life at home that I can barely explore because of homework. I am forced to sit and learn stuff that my parents have already forgotten, yet I know where my happiness lies and I STILL can’t learn about that.

2. Schools were originally put in place to prepare students to become factory workers. The system hasn’t changed. We don’t know how to do taxes, we don’t know how to deal with social situations, we don’t even know WHY we learn what we do in school.

3. Our worth is dependent on numbers, on grades, on percentages. We are taught that “oh social media sucks, don’t look at the likes and followers and obsess over it.” But is school really much different? If we get a good grade, we are expected to keep it up. If we get a bad grade, we are told to keep up. It’s either good or bad. Black or white.

4. This will be the last point for the sake of time and for my sanity, but mental health. I can’t stress it enough. I was in and out of the hospital for two years due to mental health issues. I have a nice counselor but even she couldn’t prepare me for what was to come. Everyone treated everything the same. I can’t put into words how difficult it is to deal with the demons in your head while being forced to think about things that you have no care for. Wasting time away and replacing it with stress. It drains and it kills, it has made me stressed to the point where I considered stopping it. I want to give up every single day. And I don’t, because of the pressure.

This isn’t the way we should learn. We are born curious, kids are born curious. We need to fuel that and allow our individual brains to lead us on our own unique paths to our own unique destinations. I am at a loss for words now as I have exasperated myself in thinking about this. I want this to change. I want change, and I think it’s time we do something about it instead of just saying it sucks and then sucking it up. I don’t know what to do, but if there’s anything I can do about it, please let me know. And if you have any words of advice or wisdom I’d love to hear it. Thank you for listening. As a student, I appreciate it so much.

Submitted March 11, 2022 at 06:12PM by juthex https://ift.tt/kGINh3e