Monday, October 7, 2013

     Why is it that school hasn't changed in decades? Sure, there's been the addition of more diverse charter and magnet schools, and some new "unschooling" schools, but on the whole we're still using the same system we had in place 50 years ago. No surprise we're lagging in math, science, and reading. Many of the "geniuses" that attend my school fail or receive low grades is many of their classes because they simply aren't engaging enough. Why should anyone expect a teenager to be self-motivated about these things that are taught in school that have foreseeable application in the future? Those students who are the most intelligent, at least in my eyes, have chosen to forget about formal schooling, and instead try to get by with minimal effort during the day and then go home and do self-studying as they please.
      My friends and I have decided that high school is a cage. Not for the typical reasons of boredom or lack of motivations, but because it seems to have been designed specifically to sap our curiosity and desire to learn. School has become something to dread. In just over two years of high school, I have noticed that it has suppressed a lot of my personality and natural agree-ability. Many of my close friends and family have noted this about me. They say I'm more likely to insult now, quicker to retort with a sharp comment. And they're right. I don't try to censor what I think anymore. To a degree, I've forgotten about respect. I entertain myself by doodling or calling attention to my teachers' mistakes to make the day go by faster. By the standards of my high school, I'm only taking a moderate load. AP English, pre-AP foreign language and trigonometry. The rest are "normal" classes. I know that I could do better, but I've simply lost the interest or the motivation to sit through hour after hour of tedious homework. I'll spend hours on end researching topics that interest me like cognitive neuroscience or psychology, but that's because I love it. If my teachers could make us love it again, we'd be so much more successful as nation. If you name the top ten most innovative people in the past 30 years, the majority were dropouts. Why?

Please comment on what you thought.
Thanks for reading