This piece of non-fiction
showcases some of the challenges individuals encounter as they work to hop
across their many stepping stones. I wrote this article about an issue that is
very close to me, for I have had to deal with it for the past four years on a
regular basis. I believe it shows that while we go along with our lives, the
path is not always smooth-sailing, and though some of the issues we encounter
seem silly, they can make the journey a lot more difficult.
School boards all over North America
often ring out with the same cries full of promise: “We will turn your children
into capable adults!”, “We will ensure that they learn everything that there is
to know in order to prepare them for their life in society!” and so forth,
vowing to make the learning students undergo perfect. However, as someone who
has not yet seen life outside of the public school system, I have a cloud-free
horizon of experiences to pick from to showcase just how inefficient the system
can be.
While I am not here to pick apart
every wrong-doing I have ever encountered at my own high-school, there were
some definite bumps along the road that made me raise an eyebrow. The biggest
one for myself, a senior student mere weeks away from graduation, is my
complete lack of any clue as to what I want to be for the rest of my life. I
took, in total, 30 classes in school along with 2 out-of-school
credit-contributing classes, yet none of these pushed me in the right
direction. Instead, it was as if each class I took was a rope attached to my
limbs, and each pulled me towards a separate way. Consequentially, applying to
universities this past January was a nightmare, as I sat at home, watched by
the calendar screaming “DEADLINE THIS WEEK” and was forced to hastily make a
choice that could very well determine my future. In the end I wound up applying
for business, even though all my life I had loved writing, and my Career’s
class in Grade 10 had instructed me to become a marriage and family therapist.
It was a hectic week indeed, and one that caused high peaks of stress.
The probable reason as to why I
couldn’t make up my mind in what to study post-secondary school was because no
course I took truly showed me what a
job in that certain field would be like. For example, when I took English, it
was a matter of reading Macbeth, writing an essay, performing a skit, and
creating a power-point. I did not enjoy these tasks, although the grade I
received was high, and the class certainly showed me no glimpse as to what
going into the field of writing would be like. Similarly, taking the economics
course right now, I have so far had to do a presentation on Karl Marx and make
a poster on the themes of the movie “Wall Street”. Again, not an accurate
representation of what awaits me if I do decide to pursue a career in
economics. These many classes and their multiple projects only cloud and annoy
students who are trying to get a sense of what they are good at and what they
like. It is difficult indeed, to figure out what you like, when you hate every
class because every teacher has you doing a presentation on a historical figure
at the same time.
Following this minor road-blockage
along my high-school career (that I hope has not resulted in the threat of a
chaotic future for me), there is the case of what many students face all over
Canada: impossible departments. In some schools it is science, in others
English; at mine it is the infamous mathematics department. I am currently in a
class that is facing such a low average, that in order to save their chances of
getting into university, the class size has dropped from a near 30 to a mere 15
or so people. On top of that, the brightest student in the class has only immigrated to Canada recently, and thinks the class is joke. Meanwhile, everyone else is drowning in the 40-60% range. I’m sure the department
could easily win the award they seem to yearn for: “Toughest department in the
GTA! Failing you, and you, and YOU! Hooray!” but alas it is not a joke for
those currently suffering through it.
Every student putting themselves
through the torture of taking Calculus and Vectors is doing so because the university they wish to attend demands it. My program, Business Management,
asks for this class as well, even though intersecting planes and the area of a
triangle inscribed in a cylinder will do me no good in the world of human
resources. For this reason, I would love to be given “a break”, as they say. It
would be splendid if what I learned was what I was tested on, but nay, every
single time I arrive in class to write a test I find myself staring at a
twisted version of what I had been studying for weeks under the Knowledge and
Understanding section. In fact, what I hear so often from my grade-watching
parents is, “You will at least pass, right?” Yes, departments like these are a
definite inefficiency in school systems, and I’m sure the thousand-plus league
of failing students across the country will vouch for my point.
There is a definite list in my mind
that goes on to prove my argument of inefficient roadblocks, however I will stop here. I do understand
that it is a difficult task to oversee the perfection of every nook and cranny
in every high school across every board. That’s why, for the purpose of keeping
this article civilized, I have narrowed my tear-inducing complaints down to a
list of two. These issues, the lack of preparing students and the impossible
departments, are the two factors of my school and many others that I think
deserve to be looked over and made changes to, for they have made a serious
dent in my learning experience. If they were fixed, I’m sure the school boards
would be able to shout out their repeated promises of perfection in a more
confident tone.
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