The fault in our education system

The more pressure you put on something, the more likely it is to crumble. This concept can be applied to everything, especially the education system. Today’s students are falling apart by the minute; due to the extreme amounts of pressure placed on them to succeed, students are over-concerning themselves with mundane matters such as their GPA or whether or not they’re ranked in the top ten percent. Scholars’ stress comes from varying places such as teachers, standardized testing, class rank but most importantly: parents. Parents are an influential part of the education system as they play a vital role in both the academic and emotional development within their child. When parents condemn certain school subjects, students are unable to develop identities for themselves resulting in, you guessed it, more stress! Students are also held to high standards for academics by adults, which also contributes to the increased levels of tension. Parents have a tendency to uphold standards from when they were in school while disregarding modern educational methods. This superfluous pressure from parents and other adult figures is the biggest fault in the modern day education system.

What if Pablo Picasso’s parents had discouraged him from pursuing the arts after he showed an interest at a young age? Had his father not supported his interest and given him figure drawing lessons, he surely wouldn’t have ended up having a net worth of fifty million dollars. This day in age, adults are quick to tell children that some subjects are more worthy of attention than others. When a technology teacher tells a student that “the pursuit of art is the pathway to homelessness,” they’re molding the child’s mind, whether or not they know it. Right away, the student begins to believe that an electrical engineering is superior to the fine arts. What will this kind of thinking to to a whole generation? The rejection of certain subjects causes students to narrow their vision of what the future could hold for them. The end result: a society of sameness. Parents tend to steer their kids towards math and science related occupations, simply because they are high-paying. Scholars end up focusing on things that they have no genuine interest in, resulting in a generation of uniform, ungenuine people. If every student becomes a doctor, who will be soci-

ety’s graphic designer, music producer or journalist? Kids these days are being pressured to fit a mold that might be impossible to abide by. This is a major problem with the education system, since the system was created to allow generations of youth to discover their passion, and pursue it relentlessly with the support of parents and hard work. Instead of forcing students to follow a particular path, influential adults can use their power to encourage young people to discover their interests and support the student on their journey. Doing this will help dramatically improve the state of the education system and allow some of the weight to be lifted off of students’ shoulders. Students will become enthusiastic about learning with the ability to pursue whatever they desire, resulting in a more engaged population, and in turn, a better education system.

It’s the twenty first century, times are changing and so is the education system. Many parents have an obsolete knowledge of how the education system works this day in age. Today, learning

is more interactive and cumulative, with implementations of new programs such as the common core. The classrooms have changed drastically from just interacting during classes to taking multiple written exams every week. Grades are becoming increasingly test based and now do a substandard job of reflecting students’ true abilities and knowledge. Adults are quick to reprimand a student if their scores don’t meet their personal standard. This puts more pressure on students to please their superiors and work to achieve a nearly impossible standard. The new grading systems are not the only foreign concepts of twenty first century learning; technology has drastically changed the nature of the classroom.With computerized applications such as Google Classroom and Campus Portal, parents can be notified the second their child receives a grade. Although these advancements help better the classroom setting, these new additions to the education system allow parents to closely, some-

times too closely, monitor their student’s academic results. Parents who are unaccustomed to the new grading, teaching and systems are more likely to have a negative reaction when their child receives a subpar grade. Now, kids are scared to disappoint their parents with the extreme standards. At this point, many students are experiencing anxiety and extreme pressure to succeed and please adults along the way. A way to combat this unnecessary stress placed on students would be to make the grading system more reflective of the students’ knowledge. Along with this, schools could clarify the extent to which parents should be concerned about their child’s marks. Explaining to adults the difference in the modern day grading system could put these adults ease, allowing the student more room for mistakes and academic growth without the looming stress of satisfying a superior.

With the new curriculum and common core, the pressure placed on students to be as successful as they can be has dramatically increased. With this rise in pressure, the role of the parents in the education system has never been more important. However, if those adults fail to understand and accept the importance of their position as vital influences to their students’ lives, more problems concerning stress and anxiety will continue arise. In order to reduce these issues with pressure from parents, they must first understand their role within the education system: to be the support group for their children. If the parents refuse to acknowledge the importance of their role in the education system and the amount of pressure they can place on their children, more and more issues will arise due to these. If parents took the time to sit down with their children to discuss and address the topic of career choices and their differing opinions on them, such as the press for STEM careers due to the high pay, these problems could possibly be avoided, resulting in stress and pressure levels to reduce drastically, and “dream” jobs could be followed. The STEM field may not even have as many people looking for and heavily competing for jobs as more students pursue their dreams and passions. Without a doubt this could lead

to less tension between parents and children, but the parents have to take the initiative to change and address the issue; perhaps even support their children in whatever choice that they make regarding their future, as it is the placement if

the parents in the education system that drives so many students to insanity over grades and careers.

The authors are students at Shenendehowa High School and wrote this essay as part of a class project.