Have you ever thought about how much time you’ve wasted sitting at a desk, listening to a lecture you don’t care about, and will never use again? Sadly, this is how thousands of high school students feel about their classes. Feeling as though the classes they are forced to take will never hold any value in the real world. And they are right. Schools currently do not teach the interests, or necessary skills students need after they graduate.
High schools need to begin teaching students about adult responsibilities as soon as possible. Having classes over subjects such as taxes, job interviews, household tasks, social skills, and basic car maintenance, would set students up with the basic skills they need to survive adulthood. Currently, the average student has no clue how to manage personal finances, purchase a house, pay bills, or even how to go about calculating taxes. Teaching, or even making these classes mandatory, would have bountiful benefits for students. Which would give them a leg up as they transition into adulthood.
Changing the school curriculum to a more personalizable experience would also have many benefits for students. Currently the curriculum does not cater to the interests or passions of students. Focussing on a fundamental group of subjects decided on over 400 years ago. Making the current system outdated, and quite boring.
The curriculum falls short even more with how little information taught is retained. According to a study from the University of East Anglia U.K. the average young adult forgets roughly 40% of information taught in high school, before they even get into college. More so if they don’t go into college immediately. That amount of lost information is insane for how long students work in class. But it’s not the student’s fault.
The curriculum is geared towards what is on the test, and what was considered necessary knowledge 400 years ago; not to what the students actually want to learn. Though there are some exceptions: those who wish to go into fields of science, history, mathematics, or find such subjects interesting; the rest of the student body is burdened with these uninteresting lessons, simply to graduate. Changing the curriculum so that it is based around a wide variety of subjects would relight students’ desire to learn. Education and knowledge should be something someone desires, not shoved down their throat.
If high schools provided a wider variety of subjects, students would be able to explore their interests further than ever before. The experiences a variety of subjects can provide, would allow students to explore tons of future careers to find the one that fits them best. Finding one’s career path early is incredible for not only their future, but their wallet. According to Finder.com around $462.3 billion student debt is paid for by jobs that don’t require the degree the person attended college for. Leaving people feeling like they wasted so much time and money on something pointless. All of this could be avoided though, if students were able to figure out their career path, before even applying to college.
Currently schools do not teach what students need to become successful adults. From forcing students to be in uninteresting classes, to not properly preparing them for life, there are a lot of things that need improvement. Many things can be changed; many are unreasonable to ask for immediately. But something that we can all do, is begin talking. Talking about changing the requirements to graduate, what needs to be taught, and how we can make school a more interesting place. Maybe one day no one will ever feel like they are wasting their time in a classroom.
