For 13 years of their lives, children in the United States spend nine months a year — five days a week, six hours a day — in school. With the intense and somewhat frightening international educational competition, one would find these circumstances to be appropriate.
The typical, "What did you learn in school today?" tends to be a common greeting upon returning home for many students. I know my response as a child was often the same as it is today: "Nothing." Perhaps kids are just tired from the early start, but maybe there is a bigger problem. What are we stressing in schools and what impact will it have on the future working class of our nation? Challenging courses such as geometry, chemistry, trigonometry, etc. make up the course schedules for a typical high school student. Some material is applicable to real life but, honestly, think how often you apply the area of a triangle to your daily activities.
Courses such as history and English provide students with basic knowledge that will allow them to provide for the nation in multiple ways while the other classes are truly insignificant in everyday life. Perhaps we should teach our students to provide for a family, manage a bank account and be independent.
Academic standards are rising on the international level. However, chasing the leader recklessly will not get Americans ahead. Values such as responsibility, self-reliance and maturity must be imparted before we worry about creating robotic children.
Emily Halpin
West Sand Lake