Gothreaux 1 Kaitlyn Gothreaux Mr. Fontenot AP English Lang.

6th January 15th, 2014 A Flaw in Our System Topic: Focus on the American High School, as well as your own insights into high school, identify two serious problems and propose recommendations for addressing them. One of the most common things American children will hear while growing up is how memorable and impacting their high school years will be. Theyre raised on the belief that theyll finally find themselves and have it all figured out when walking off that graduation stage with a scroll in hand announcing their well-earned success. Yet, is it truly considered success? Are they actually prepared to leave the prologue and enter the first chapter of their lives? In most cases, the answer is no, they are not at all prepared for what lies ahead after the awfully misconstrued ideal of life that high school presents. Built on a social system that puts team sports and favorable looks ahead of intelligence levels, and a public educational system that dismisses individual talent in favor of standardized curriculum, high school neither mentally nor emotionally prepares todays common adolescent for a college and further on, working-class adult life. The start of the problem could be blamed on the ignorance of our educational system in accepting the fact that children today are rapidly increasing their knowledge at younger and younger ages on adult topics. From the time that they can form a working thought process, kids are constantly exposed to all sorts of informational media. The nature and surrounding settings of their childhoods are generally becoming more explicit and pushing ideas on them that

Gothreaux 2 they (according to socially acceptable terms) shouldnt even fathom. New information is being absorbed every second by kids from personal and virtual sources. It is becoming the noise of our culture" (Gitlin 156). Some of the contributing culprits stealing the youth and innocence of American post-adolescents are television, sporting events, billboards, commonplace advertisements, video games, books and even music (Gitlin 156). Half of them are rich with propagandistic advertisement intended for certain audiences, and the other half entertainment sources to occupy unchallenged human minds. However, the largest and most widely-recognized outlet for easily accessible information to anyone able to move a mouse and press letters on a keyboard is the Internet. As more and more media, news and social networking sites become popular in the young community, happenings and realities of real-world problems are spreading through dangerously blossoming minds like wildfire. Its giving kids the incentive to actually think and formulate their own opinions on an overwhelming amount of subject matter that shouldnt typically concern them. Ultimately, this is forcing them to grow up at a faster rate than their emotions and hormones are able to mature. Consequently, this development thus leads to chaos in the classroom. As children progressively become more intelligent outside their young bounds, they also become more selfaware of their educational atmosphere. The realization that the American public school system is lacking dawns on kids when they dont receive the individual attention they seek and require. However, what they do receive is the bare minimum of the standard curriculum from teachers that care more for their own welfare than their own students academic success. The overall quality of teachers is declining, from their recruitment qualifications to their actual professional training (Lakdawalla 3). Schools are becoming desperate for instructors as the student to teacher ratio becomes greater every year; therefore, theyll take anyone thats willing to do the job.

Gothreaux 3 Nowhere does it say that teachers have to actually care about their students; it is merely a conventional suggestion. Nevertheless, it truly becomes evident in the cases of at risk students how greatly individual attention towards said students can affect their intellectual mentality. When sent to a reformatory school, kids will actually receive more individual attention and care than they could ever possibly receive at a common public school. This is attributed to the fact that the teachers in reformatory schools are hand-picked and legitimately concerned about the welfare of the students they teach (Broder 159). Not only do they genuinely believe that their students can succeed and be more than what they are labeled, but they help their students realize that too. When asked about how their lives had changed, about what made them able to get to the top from rock bottom, most of the at risk kids answers pertained to the fact that they felt like themselves and their work actually meant something (Broder 159). Yet, sadly these circumstances dont apply for common students and regular high school has become an environment where individuality and dissent are discouraged (Botstien 153). Many kids covert potential will not be recognized by teachers only who do what theyre required to do and not what theyre truly meant to do. Consequently, this can affect the overall educational mentality of many studentsan action that has the ability to sabotage their entire thought process post-graduation. This isnt the only thing that can completely sabotage a kids view on education in high school, though. The way that good looks and sports prowess make a sort of artificial popularity out of the social system, instead of educational levels and value, can give a false sense of what real life is like to kids who arent part of the in-crowd. Now days, children have become more worried about their popularity, virtually or socially, more so than their grades. A common fact of being with a popular clique is to possess physical beauty. The physical attractiveness of students

Gothreaux 4 has become a distraction both in and out of the classroom for those just trying to fit in or match their hormonal impulses (Botstein 153-54). In addition to this statement, another top tier student type at the top of the popular ladder is those that participate in school team sports. The physicality and idea surrounding a tough, active youth isnt an unappealing one. High school sports have taken over the actual educational aspect of things in a lot of facilities. Even in the teacher group, one can find that many will cancel certain grades or offer extra credit in an offer to attend the weekends game. This sort of structure in a high school setting can lead lots of those who are outside the common gatherings to gain a false sense of how a working class world functions. Surprisingly, though, it also applies to those already at the top as most students near the top of the social hierarchy are often both perpetrators and victims (Web of Popularity). The childish artificial structure of a public school social system that defines femininity and masculinity goes through a transformation when a student leaves said school, though. Many kids go to college unprepared, not expecting the culture shock they experience due to the false sense of security they built up in high school. These things, in turn, can also greatly distort ones college and eventual adult-life experience. When most kids are made to believe that the goings-on within the parameters of their high schools are accurate representations of what older life is, they get a false notion about the workings of the world, a false notion about how to live. When this affects how one will progress through college, the negative effect will most often lead to required remedial classes or flunking out. While the quality of college students decreases, overall, the quality of the American workforce will also decrease. In conclusion, the situation in high schoolsfrom the poor sense of self gain over student individuality to the rickety building blocks of what they call a social

Gothreaux 5 cultureneeds to be mended if America truly wants her children to succeed, emotionally and mentally.

Gothreaux 6 Works Cited Botstein, Leon. "Let Teenagers Try Adulthood." Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture. 1997: 153-155. Print. Broder, David S. "A Model for High Schools." Washington Post (n.d.): 158-159. Print. Gitlin, Todd. "The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut." (n.d.): 155-157. Print. Lakdawalla, Darius. "The Declining Quality of Teachers." NBER. NBER, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2013. "Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying." Well Web of Popularity Achieved by Bullying Comments. Cengage, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.