Education in America

Many people (and countries) would agree with me when I say that the American Educational System is not the best in the world. Everyone knows that, just look at places like Japan; we are nothing compared to the amount of stuff their students do. I don't believe we should have more school days and longer classes though; I think we should change the way students are taught.

We have this thing called standard education, which is my opinion, is totally worthless. Students are basically forced to take classes they don't want or need. And let's not forget the way things are usually taught. History classes are nothing but the teacher saying ' now kids turn to page eight and read about how great our country is and how bad everything else is'. Math classes are nothing but numbers, just 2+2, 2x-8+67=y stuff. Yes, math is numbers, but here I pose the often asked question 'When will we ever use this in real life?', the question that is usually answered with something along the lines of 'math is important no matter what'. All they do is sit and do boring math problems; teachers never actually do things where the students say to themselves 'Oh, we actually can use this in real life'. They never do real life situations that make them actually want to learn algebra.

The real problem I have with the educational system is how it's not personal at all. There are just classes that you absolutely have to take and then there are a handful of classes you can pick later on. The whole idea of 'standard education' doesn't appeal to the students, it only appeals to what the government thinks is important. It doesn't care what the students think is important. And I don't think we should have stupid pointless classes that will never take anyone anywhere like 'Learn How to Paint Bowls of Fruit Class', but I just wish teachers would act like they care about what the kids want to do instead of just forcing them into things.

What if some kid wants to be a marine biologist, and he's really set on doing that? Instead of being able to take classes that will help him learn about marine biology, he's put into 'Welding', because he needs another elecitve, not just a science class that he needs and wants to take, because 'Welding' is required according to standard education. What if some girl really loves math (for some reason) and she wants a job involving math. That girl should have math classes all day so she can learn more about the thing she loves and what jobs there are and how she can use it in the world. But no, the teachers say she has to take anatomy and sociology because those classes are required, and even though she has no intentions on doing anything with those two things in the future and she hates those subjects, she's put in them.

Why can't we just let the kids choose what classes they need, instead of forcing them into things they don't want or need to do, and if no kid wants to do 'Welding' then we should stop teaching stupid 'Welding' and let it wither and die because no one wants it. It's like we want everyone to be a scholar in everything ever taught ever, to just be totally ingenious in every subject. Why? If one person doesn't want to learn about something, don't make them learn it. Some one else who actually wants to know about sociology will take it and become learned in it while that girl takes math. And the boy who doesn't take math will learn something else he wants to learn. And it would work that way.

Of course, I'm excluding pre-school and elementary school because kids need to at least know the generally information about language and history and what not. I'm just saying, that once some one gets into junior high, they should be able to learn something in depth that they actually want to learn. Having some classed be required is pointless. If someone is going to be a pro-cheerleader when they grow up there is no reason for them to required to take something like 'Desktop Design' or some other class that has nothing to do with cheerleading.

Just stating my opinion. That's all.