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Kaitlyn Gothreaux

Mr. Fontenot

AP English Lang.6th

January 15th

, 2014

A Flaw in Our System

Topic: Focus on the American High School, as well as your own insights into high school,

identify two serious problems and propose recommendations for addressing them.

One of the most common things American children will hear while growing up is how

memorable and impacting their high school years will be. Theyre raised on the belief that theyll

finally find themselves and have it all figured out when walking off that graduation stage with a

scroll in hand announcing their well-earned success. Yet, is it truly considered success? Are they

actually prepared to leave the prologue and enter the first chapter of their lives? In most cases,

the answer is no, they are not at all prepared for what lies ahead after the awfully misconstrued

ideal of life that high school presents. Built on a social system that puts team sports and

favorable looks ahead of intelligence levels, and a public educational system that dismisses

individual talent in favor of standardized curriculum, high school neither mentally nor

emotionally prepares todays common adolescent for a college and further on, working-class

adult life.

The start of the problem could be blamed on the ignorance of our educational system in

accepting the fact that children today are rapidly increasing their knowledge at younger and

younger ages on adult topics. From the time that they can form a working thought process,

kids are constantly exposed to all sorts of informational media. The nature and surrounding

settings of their childhoods are generally becoming more explicit and pushing ideas on them that


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they (according to socially acceptable terms) shouldnt even fathom. New information is being

absorbed every second by kids from personal and virtual sources. It is becoming the noise of

our culture" (Gitlin 156). Some of the contributing culprits stealing the youth and innocence of

American post-adolescents are television, sporting events, billboards, commonplace

advertisements, video games, books and even music (Gitlin 156). Half of them are rich with

propagandistic advertisement intended for certain audiences, and the other half entertainment

sources to occupy unchallenged human minds. However, the largest and most widely-recognized

outlet for easily accessible information to anyone able to move a mouse and press letters on a

keyboard is the Internet. As more and more media, news and social networking sites become

popular in the young community, happenings and realities of real-world problems are spreading

through dangerously blossoming minds like wildfire. Its giving kids the incentive to actually

think and formulate their own opinions on an overwhelming amount of subject matter that

shouldnt typically concern them. Ultimately, this is forcing them to grow up at a faster rate than

their emotions and hormones are able to mature.

Consequently, this development thus leads to chaos in the classroom. As children

progressively become more intelligent outside their young bounds, they also become more self-

aware of their educational atmosphere. The realization that the American public school system is

lacking dawns on kids when they dont receive the individual attention they seek and require.

However, what they doreceive is the bare minimum of the standard curriculum from teachers

that care more for their own welfare than their own students academic success.The overall

quality of teachers is declining, from their recruitment qualifications to their actual professional

training (Lakdawalla 3). Schools are becoming desperate for instructors as the student to teacher

ratio becomes greater every year; therefore, theyll take anyone thats willing to do thejob.


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Nowhere does it say that teachers have to actually care about their students; it is merely a

conventional suggestion. Nevertheless, it truly becomes evident in the cases of at risk students

how greatly individual attention towards said students can affect their intellectual mentality.

When sent to a reformatory school, kids will actually receive more individual attention and care

than they could ever possibly receive at a common public school. This is attributed to the fact

that the teachers in reformatory schools are hand-picked and legitimately concerned about the

welfare of the students they teach (Broder 159). Not only do they genuinely believe that their

students can succeed and be more than what they are labeled, but they help their students realize

that too. When asked about how their lives had changed, about what made them able to get to the

top from rock bottom, most of the at riskkids answers pertained to the fact that they felt like

themselves and their work actually meant something (Broder 159). Yet, sadly these

circumstances dont applyfor common students and regular high school has become an

environment where individuality and dissent are discouraged (Botstien153). Many kids

covert potential will not be recognized by teachers only who do what theyre required to do and

not what theyre truly meant to do. Consequently, this can affect the overall educational

mentality of many studentsan action that has the ability to sabotage their entire thought

process post-graduation.

This isnt the only thing that can completely sabotage a kids view on education in high

school, though. The way that good looks and sports prowess make a sort of artificial popularity

out of the social system, instead of educational levels and value, can give a false sense of what

real life is like to kids who arent part of the in-crowd. Now days, children have become more

worried about their popularity, virtually or socially, more so than their grades. A common fact of

being with a popular clique is to possess physical beauty. The physical attractiveness of students


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has become a distraction both in and out of the classroom for those just trying to fit in or match

their hormonal impulses (Botstein 153-54). In addition to this statement, another top tier student

type at the top of the popular ladder is those that participate in school team sports. The

physicality and idea surrounding a tough, active youth isnt an unappealing one. High school

sports have taken over the actual educational aspect of things in a lot of facilities. Even in the

teacher group, one can find that many will cancel certain grades or offer extra credit in an offer

to attend the weekends game. This sort of structure in a high school setting can lead lots of those

who are outside the common gatherings to gain a false sense of how a working class world

functions. Surprisingly, though, it also applies to those already at the top as most students near

the top of the social hierarchy are often both perpetrators and victims (Web of Popularity).

The childish artificial structure of a public school social system that defines femininity and

masculinity goes through a transformation when a student leaves said school, though. Many kids

go to college unprepared, not expecting the culture shock they experience due to the false sense

of security they built up in high school.

These things, in turn, can also greatly distort ones college and eventual adult-life

experience. When most kids are made to believe that the goings-on within the parameters of their

high schools are accurate representations of what older life is, they get a false notion about the

workings of the world, a false notion about how to live. When this affects how one will progress

through college, the negative effect will most often lead to required remedial classes or flunking

out. While the quality of college students decreases, overall, the quality of the American

workforce will also decrease. In conclusion, the situation in high schoolsfrom the poor sense

of self gain over student individuality to the rickety building blocks of what they call a social


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cultureneeds to be mended if America truly wants her children to succeed, emotionally and

mentally.


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Works Cited

Botstein, Leon. "Let Teenagers Try Adulthood."Jefferson's Children: Education and the

Promise of American Culture. 1997: 153-155. Print.

Broder, David S. "A Model for High Schools." Washington Post(n.d.): 158-159. Print.

Gitlin, Todd. "The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut." (n.d.): 155-157. Print.

Lakdawalla, Darius. "The Declining Quality of Teachers."NBER. NBER, n.d. Web. 14 Dec.

2013.

"Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying." Well Web of Popularity Achieved by Bullying

Comments. Cengage, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.

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