I spent my entire high school career trying to find classes that challenged me. I learned very quickly, however, that I was fighting a losing battle. While the No Child Left Behind Act was well intended, our education system is now geared specifically towards the kids who learn slower or the kids who simply don't care. There is no room to grow for those who learn quickly or care about their education; there is a glass ceiling in place that they are destined to slam into over and over again during their desperate attempts to learn.
My freshman and sophomore years of high school were spent in supposedly advanced English classes that wasted two weeks each on proper capitalization and punctuation -- something we should have understood by sixth grade at the latest. Freshman biology was a nightmare. I had such an interest and thirst for knowledge in that area, but it was stifled by the outright disregard of my peers. Our teacher did his best to make sure everyone could pass, even offering a glorified coloring book as fifteen points of extra credit tacked onto our final letter grade. I finished his class with a 115, while most of the other students somehow managed to fail or scrape by with a D.
I became eligible for AP classes during my junior year of high school and hoped desperately for mature classmates and a challenging environment. While the classes were an improvement, they weren't nearly what I had hoped for. Junior year, AP English consisted of labeling rhetorical strategies used in speeches over and over again. We read two pieces of literature: The Crucible and a novel of our choice. I had hoped for some sort of literary analysis, but we only answered infantile questions about the plot and shared whether or not we enjoyed the books. The sole purpose of these questions was to ascertain that we read the works -- no attempt was made to delve into the intent of the author or the works' themes.
Anatomy (which was an elective science) was more of a challenge, but rather than rise to it, every single one of my classmates cheated on every quiz and test. They openly admitted it and discussed their methods with each other. I was the only one who never cheated on a single assessment. To make matters worse, even though the teacher was painfully aware of the widespread cheating, giving the students well-earned 0's would have reflected badly on her and potentially threatened her job.
In senior year of high school, my AP English teacher had to explain possessive plurals to the group of supposedly gifted 18-year-olds sitting in front of her. Shouldn't we have grasped this concept years ago, in early middle school at the absolute latest? Even then, I was dumbfounded that I had still failed to escape classes that attempted to teach me concepts I had understood for years. Was this truly what going to school was supposed to be like?
That English class, however, was one of the classes in which I learned the most during my high school experience. It was the first time that I was actually given the opportunity to analyze literature, something that I had been doing, to some extent,, on my own for years. The class was taught by an extremely talented teacher who went to great lengths to interest seniors in the effort it takes to analyze a play or book. Most of the students, though, lacked such a basic knowledge of their own language that they had to ask our teacher about elementary grammar. Where's the disconnect?
We are raising a generation of people who can't write or speak their own language properly, let alone form educated opinions. I saw plenty of this growing up in the public education system -- even in the advanced and AP classes that I took throughout high school, I was hard-pressed to find anything that remotely challenged me. It wasn't like my teachers wanted to teach me infantile grammar that I'd learned in elementary school; their power had long ago been taken away.
Tests rule our schools; teachers must prepare students for a certain test using specific methods with very little wiggle room in between. Bad test scores reflect negatively on the teacher but don't necessarily judge the teacher's skill or love of their kids, nor do the tests necessarily judge how much someone has learned. There is a big difference between memorizing a list of facts and the critical thinking and intimate knowledge it takes to utilize a lesson in a real-world setting. Cheating is officially discouraged but effectually the most logical business decision for students, since teachers can do little about cheating students lest they reap the punishment of their students' dishonest and irresponsible behavior.
I (and many students like me) was left to seek out challenges for myself, but even then it was difficult. The most fulfillment I ever got from my public school education was a journalism class -- an elective -- that I walked into in my freshman year. I spent the next four years in that classroom, working in the newspaper and climbing the ranks in the staff. I was given challenges, goals, and support in that classroom; it was that class that helped me begin to realize what school should be like.
The journalism teacher expected the best from us -- she knew what each of her students were capable of, and she wasn't afraid to tell us. She told us when we did well, and pointed out what we could do better. She challenged us to do better, to learn more, to become the best we could be. Those of us who had talent and were willing to put in the extra work -- hours before and after school working on our newspaper, ventures into the community to sell ads in order to fund it, and handing our finished products out to students -- were rewarded by honest and sincere praise.
We were also given the opportunity to apply, interview, and compete for leadership positions within the staff. I've always been a shy, socially awkward girl who loves writing but hates talking to people, but this teacher and the challenges she presented to me pushed me to improve myself. I conducted interviews, even with the principal, and competed for leadership positions until I reached Managing Copy Editor (the second in command) during my senior year.
Kids can blossom if they're given the opportunity and room to grow and improve, but that is exactly what our current system doesn't do for all of the children who are trapped inside of it. I was blessed to find an environment that gave me that opportunity, but it was only one class in a childhood of classes. Granted, I had other teachers who were extremely talented and loved their jobs and the kids they taught, but they simply couldn't provide the challenges that I needed within the system they were forced to abide by.
This is intellectually crippling our younger generations; they are learning at a glacial pace, they're not challenged, and those who learn faster and instinctually strive for knowledge slam into the same glass ceiling that I found myself trapped against. The children that No Child Left Behind was meant to help are being left behind anyway, because they still aren't getting the help that they need. All that has happened is a dumbing-down of teaching materials, rather than a classroom environment that is sensitive to the needs of each student and schools that are willing to equip their teachers to teach these students at their level.
Instead, no one is permitted to pass a certain point; there is no real accommodation for the kids who need extra help, nor is there a proper learning environment for gifted or even average kids. This is a problem. Our children are our future -- they are the ones who will care for us in our old age, and they are the ones who will one day make the decisions for this country. Are they really capable of leading our country if they can't properly write their own language and refuse to challenge themselves, instead preferring to cheat their way through things they find difficult? Cheating whenever possible has become the motto of a public school education -- there's no reason not to cheat, and the attack of conscience that should come with such an act is nonexistent. In fact, they're often proud of their "accomplishment." What does that say for our future politics and the future of our nation?
