Have you ever found yourself questioning what the point of school is? Do you sometimes wonder whether or not this five-page paper that's due at midnight–and it's 11:45, oh shit– is really important? Because the A.

Recently, a lot of choice words have been used to describe the American Education system. Parents wonder why, as the most developed country in the world, we aren’t even close to being the leader in education. Yet they fail to see the toil that schooling takes on their children. Not to affront our parents, but the education system as a whole has become way more cutthroat than when they were teenyboppers. Now, it’s all about getting into every AP class on the list, getting into every IVY League, getting the most scholarship money, and taking on the most difficult classes. All for the A.

Or maybe that’s just my personal view, because the community in which I grew up laid on the pressure with every step I took to cross campus. “Oh, you’re not in AP Lit? Yeah we have to write so many papers it’s crazy and Dr. Beagle is such a tough grader but lolz I’m getting the A” (y’all Titans know what I’m talking about).

Having homework all day every day became a marker of pride, meaning that the more homework you had the smarter you were. But is all of this relevant? Is a 5 on the AP exam going to really get me anywhere? If I become president in the far future, is Trump, in his old, prune-like state, going to uncover the fact that I got a 3 on the AP Bio exam? Obviously not, but that’s what schooling feels like to most kids, especially as the cost of schooling rapidly increases and the chances of you getting in decrease and settling for the B becomes a heart-wrenching reality.

In a recent article from my home town, kids were asked what would happen if they were to fail a test, and they unsurprisingly answered “I’ll get a bad grade in class. I won’t get into the college I want to. I won’t get the career I want. I won’t have the standard of living I want,” none of which is actually true. It can only become true with that mindset, one that has led to an increase in suicide rates, teen depression, and self harm because the weight of the A is becoming uncontrollable. Over 2 million cases of self harm are reported annually in the US, which doesn’t even begin to address the stories that are left untold.

Of course, thinking with this “do it for the A” mentality is ingrained into students; doing anything for the A is what we breathe. But that’s not the purpose of education. To me, school should be about learning and passion and success, presently all of which to many students come at the cost of endless all-nighters, counseling, and the infamous Freshman 15. Personally, I love learning about anything and everything, but not when pulling my hair out because of an exam that’s worth 40% of my grade comes as the prerequisite. In my eyes, education needs to be tailored to the individual and needs to be more useful for the years after school (don’tEVEN get me started on Common Core). Honestly, am I ever going to need to graph the limit of an equation any time soon? Only for the A, I guess.

One of the largest problems that America has is respect, I think. And of course I am definitely part of the problem, because if any of you have ever heard me speak I’ve probs mentioned at least 10 times how much I dislike this professor and complained about that professor. In other countries, students actually respect their professors/ mentors, realize that they had to go through same things that we go through, and rationalize that the lessons the teachers give are actually meant to help us (because honestly, they’ve got agendas that they have to follow, and it’s not like making us read Jane Eyre is fun for anyone). But the A is as important to many American teachers as what they’re having for lunch that day.

But what’s my point here? Simply that there is so, so, so much that we need to fix in society, and it all needs to start with education. Instead of bogging kids down with things they’ll never ever need to know, give them a solid platform of some core subjects to start with, and then let them run. The reality of all of this is, of course, that there isn’t much we can do right now. As a college student, if I were to boycott all the classes I’m taking that I have (respectfully) no interest in (lol chem) then I might as well just sleep on Ankeny field on a bed of my tuition money. These are simply my thoughts, and I’m not encouraging anyone to drop out or boycott or do anything but take this article and think about it. And maybe, in the future when the country is more leveled out and some of our most pressing issues have somewhat cooled, students can confidently answer “I ain’t gon do it” when the education system commands us to “do it for the A.”