Debate Nirvana

High school can be a terrifying place for some people in certain areas. Some may have great experiences, but for most students, the experience is not so good. Many are seriously bullied; even more struggle with making friends and maintaining good social standings. Nowadays more than ever, kids are shoved through the educational system with little more than a second thought. Kids who are clearly too young for high school and the negative influences there make high school a place resented by many young kids. Also, the disparities in age between some students in public high schools is incredible; some kids held back for up to three years and others fresh from middle school. This leads to harmful social situations for younger kids, negative influences from older kids including drugs and violence, and an altogether unenjoyable and unhelpful four years of their life wasted.

Children, obviously, know their own feelings best. Parents and teachers can never fully understand how young people feel about school, and schools will have changed hugely since they were the same age. It is the life of the pupil which is affected by this, and they should be the ones to make the decisions about it, not someone else.

Schools teach everyone the same knowledge, but children are all different and one size doesn’t fit all. Not everyone will go on to the same jobs. The lessons and subjects taught at school are often not necessary for children to be successful when they are older. Now, this is only the case for high school, but not for middle school or elementary school, in case you were wondering. Why? Because in elementary school and middle school, kids are, according to an article in the Magazine of Science for the Public, expanding their brains and learning most things between the ages of 7-13, or from about 2nd grade to 8th grade. It is during this time that they need to know a lot about every subject. However, once you get into high school, there is a reason why you can pick your own classes; it’s because their curriculum is supposed to be tailored to what you will likely do in the future. However, high schools still have a fundamental problem, and that is that there are still minimum requirements for graduating. Why should a mathematician need to know about Shakespeare? How does knowing subordinate clauses reflect on job performance later in life for a trash collector? High school should be voluntary because the curriculum that high schools teach doesn’t prepare students well for their future vocation.

There are many successful stories of people who quit high school yet became incredibly successful later in life. These people could tailor their own education to themselves and make it fit their needs.

It is not the job of the government to tell people what a good or successful life is. If a young person is happy to spend their time on hobbies or with friends, and if they don’t mind having more difficulties with work when they are older, that is their choice. Many people who spend their lives constantly studying and working end up being lonely, unhappy and worn out. Who’s is to say this is a better life?

No entity in the world can tell us how we live our lives, and high school attendance should be no different. Why is college voluntary? For that same reason, high school should be.

Not all skills are best learnt in a classroom environment. Practical skills (for example carpentry, cookery, gardening etc.), are often best learnt ‘on-the-job’ or through an apprenticeship. Both routes place young people into contact with professionals in the field as well as giving them access to a wider range of tools and materials than could possibly be available in schools. For many young people who would like to work in these areas extra years at school will merely be time ‘treading water’ before they can get on with learning the skills of their trade.

According to the U.S. Labor Organization, kids learn up to 6 times as much about future occupations on the job or apprenticing instead of sitting around in a classroom all day learning about it. Doing is different that listening. Actually having that hands-on experience in real life not possible in high school allows children to learn ever more.

Working early can be an advantage in some circumstances. Many families need their children to make an economic contribution to the family income, often for example on a farm or in a family business. Working early can help these families to survive. Similarly unqualified individuals can gain equality or even an advantage over their qualified peers by having a few years’ work-experience ‘on-the-shop-floor’. If they are forced to stay in school as long as their peers they lose this advantage. Also, they may lose their family, due to poverty, out of reach and expensive medications, and other necessities including food and shelter that are only affordable if the teenager works all day instead of sitting around a classroom learning nothing. These kids are exactly the kids who would benefit from our system, while other richer, more well off kids could still go to high school if they don’t need the money.

According to a poll conducted by the Society for Poor Urban Areas, 36% of families said that the time their high schooler spends at school would be “better used” at work instead. Most of these high schoolers anyway would work at minimum wage jobs, usually about 78% of these type of families, according to the Society for Poor Urban Areas, and they’d all be better off working for four years than just wasting them.