I’m pretty sure school ruins things. It’s not fair that they just have to ruin everything fun by making it into something for points, with a due date and a rubric. I know there needs to be grades for schooling to be assessed and for a standard teaching tool, but honestly, some things just never will be the same for me. Like writing. I used to write everything down. I would write like there was no tomorrow. Now, whenever I think about writing, I think about what I should be writing instead of what I want to be writing. Does that make sense? Same with reading. I have so much to read for classes that I don’t have time to read for fun, something that does not have to have its diction analyzed.
It also sucks that I have to place my classes in order of importance on what homework I will do. My German suffers because I spend all my time trying to solve a million math problems that all look the exact same, with slightly different answers. I don’t know what I can do. Taking fewer classes is a college suicide risk, as I fear being pegged as an underachiever. Asking for less homework is like asking for the clouds to rain sundaes or God to allow everyone to live forever. Meaning that it will not happen until the apocalypse. Gah.
In AP Language Arts and Composition, we are talking about the school system and how it benefits some and kills creativity in others. Music and the arts are generally looked down upon as inferior classes, while math is held in such high esteem that if it was a person, its ego would be too big for its body. I love science personally, which is lucky because if I wanted to be, say a dancer, I would have an extremely hard time finding enough music classes to help me even get my foot in the door. Everything would have to be done outside of school and in addition to my other classes, which would put a great amount of stress on me. That stress might even turn me off to dancing, and make me want to get rid of my passion and aspire to be a plumber instead. Now, don’t get me wrong, plumbers are important. Obviously we need them. But we need dancers too, right? For an expression of the society and for a form of entertainment? Or does nobody see the value of dancing as an equivalent of “typical” jobs. The problem with the school system is we are not harnessing the true potential of our creative children because we are constantly telling them to find creativity less important than memorization for tests. We tell our children that language arts are most important (4 years), then math and social studies (3 years), and finally science and foreign language (2 years). There is no requirement for the arts; they aren’t important enough. This system is meant to create factory workers, not modern thinkers. Yes, I believe that being well rounded is very important and good for people who can function in society, but I also think you should be able to specialize in everything or anything. Maybe set a 2 year minimum for everything, and then allow kids to take more classes in what they really excel at.
And there definitely needs to be more classes in each area. Language arts have a billion options, but if you are trying to find a computer programming class, you are at a loss. Schools obviously favor certain subjects and that is unacceptable.
Sincerely Sydney
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