Unprepared And Unsatisfied
Written by Jenell Inthavong
What do you want to do after high school? Do you know what occupation you are looking for? What do you want to major? Are you going into the military? Are you going to attend college? These are questions that we are asked throughout our entire lives. Everything is set up to where we can only look at our future. Even as a child you are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, from teachers at school. Then you go from one school to another school to another school to go to even more school or the military, then you have to look for a job and it’s just a continuous cycle. Even with all that preparation, people still fail to succeed at finding an occupation and then what do they do? They’re left empty-handed because what school prepares people for is how to solve for slope and y-intercept, what date WWII occurred and who was involved, or how to balance chemical equations. I’m not saying these are unhelpful in general, but in a real world situation, when will I ever sit down at my job and write an MLA format essay? Exactly, I won’t, because why would you?
While students settle down after high school and decide on what they want to do, whether it be joining the military, going to college, or going for their dream job. It always comes back to moving out or staying at home. This can be one of the most unsettling things for teenagers or soon-to-be young adults. A lot of people have adapted to their lifestyle at home, so it’s hard to make part when they leave. Although this is a lot of students, a lot of people would say on the other side of things that they’re excited to leave home and go ‘party’ or have more freedoms. Either way, once you’ve parted ways with your childhood home, it’s time to take the real world head-on. There are a lot of tedious things that your parents may have taken care of at your home that you now have to deal with because they’re no longer there with you. Whether it be from physical things like cooking your food, choosing the good ingredients from the grocery store, or being there for you through hard times. With all those responsibilities given to you comes new ones like paying your taxes, taking care of your bills, how to make sure you build your credit score up properly, keeping your savings up while you have so much going on, etc. While school is supposed to ‘help’ us, what will it have done for us by then? In no way does math class cover how to pay taxes, in no way does history teach you about how to build your credit score, in no way will science class teach you how to replace your flat tire. The education system now doesn’t prepare us for the real-world properly. Yes, there are classes in the system that can help, such as finance, culinary, or FACS. We may be required to take a year of FACS classes and a semester of business class but in all actuality, does anyone actually take in what they’re learning? No, because students are stressed about a letter grade on paper. They do what it takes to get good grades because in the end, that’s what matters. Whether they learn the material properly or quickly skim through pages to fill out a study guide to get that out of the way of the multiple other assignments they have to do, they will get the assignment given done.
The education system is flawed in the sense that it only matters what teachers can see and grade. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve learned the information the class wants us to, it matters if we do good on that one test or if we manage to finish all those assignments before the quarter ends. We are continuously stressed about the letters A, B, C, D, and F. The letters will never go away until we get out of school and even then, depending on what you want to do, you may have these letters haunting you for a long time. So, this just completely takes away from the purpose of actually listening in that one boring finance class you have to take even though you might need that information later in life. If there was a more engaging, purposeful way to teach students how to be prepared for the world, I’m sure a lot of students wouldn’t feel the overwhelming stress of moving towards their future. If we continue to learn about things like this in class, it’ll just be more useless paperwork. Maybe instead of a whole class of paper, do something hands-on. There have been multiple advisory periods where I don’t do a single thing, maybe try out doing activities to help, like: How to remove a tire, choosing good fruit in a whole bunch of stacks, how to sew a button, etc. Small details like that that you would never think of. Even students to this day don’t know how to properly iron their clothes. So when they get that interview in college and are out-of-state, what are they to do? They’re going to go running to their phone or watching a quick YouTube video, but that’s after giving it a couple tries.
We are so oftenly told that the things we’re learning in school are important. But when it comes down to it, when you get the job that you want are you really going to talk about the Incas and Aztecs? Are you going to talk about that one book where a guy shoots his own brother who’s mentally unstable? Are you going to tell them about the Laws of Gas Stoichiometry? No, you won’t. The education system is primarily based on paperwork and tests that can majorly drop your grade. If we continue from this point forward, there will be more students who have an unsettling feeling about their future because they aren’t provided with the information necessary for life.
