Why is high school important?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
41

<p>To me high school is important becaues it allows me to explore many of the potential things that I will choose to further explore in college. I don’t like it. I agree with you that it often discourages learning because it makes it boring and very routine. My high school is different than your school because it encourages critical thinking and allows you to lean towards an area that you like best. I want to major in math. I think of high school as a step I need to go through so that I can go to college and really study math. I want to go to college so that I can choose any job I want. Not for money, but so that I can do what I love for a living. </p>

<p>Also about the money doesn’t equal happiness thing… that’s true, but making a lot of money can give people opportunities for what they really want to do. My stepfather is convinced that being an anesthesiologist is the best job out there. Why? Because he only has to work every other week and on his off weeks he can take one of his very expensive boats and go fishing for as long as he wants. He can randomly choose to go skiing in Colorado one weekend and then New York the next. He is very happy, because having enough money provides him with the time and resources to do whatever makes him happy. On top of it all, he enjoys the job itself. So some people that want high-paying don’t want them because they think money or things will make them happy but the opportunities that those jobs might provide for them. I don’t want to be an anesthesiologist because I don’t think that is the lifestyle I want. </p>

<p>I went kinda off topic there. I don’t like high school, but it is important to me because I believe it will provide opportunities for me that I wouldn’t otherwise have.</p>

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<p>The majority of the responses to the original poster glorify education, learning, etc. I think that’s all “exploration” is. To invest in a study. The question at hand is whether or not high school is not an unflawed mechanism to learn. Certainly, we can agree it is not necessary - there is no reason we are incapable of picking up a book and thereby learning the material at hand. In fact, the current practice of schools deems that a requisite to learning. And yes, kids would still read even if they weren’t required to (if their upbringing encourages them to :p).</p>

<p>My desired majors (literature & philosophy), and aspirations for law school stem far, far away from the experiences provided by high school. A lot of it is inspired by pursuing debate at the national level. Here, you might say, “A-ha! But you only did that because you had the opporunity(!) in high school.” Well, no, I could have, and very easily, discovered debate through an external source - furthermore, it is simply discourse and a higher level of thinking that can be reproduced outside of debate. (And I didn’t discover debate through my own high school anyways.) </p>

<p>Sure, a lot of you will say, not everyone is like me, some people need high school to figure out what the want - blah blah blah. How so? To figure out they have an affinity for one subject over another? Besides, that no one is like anyone else should display that we can not all be taught in the same manner, in the same way, etc., which is the best high school can provide.</p>

<p>The education system in American is undoubtedly, and unbearably, flawed. Think about your English classroom. I bet you there are a wealth of personalities harvested in very unique individuals. It perplexes me that the same teacher can be grading and evaluating all these individuals, with the same mindset, the same expectations, for an entire 63-65 weeks. To the student, this is tantamount to saying s/he needs to rise to the expectations of a stranger. If his grades aren’t as high as Beverly, he needs to be more like Beverly. </p>

<p>The brain can be segmented into two hemispheres: the right and the left. The left is more linear, it is the part of the mind that jumps from A to B. That is the part of the brain that likes abstract math, allows you to focus and concentrate. The other hemisphere, the right, jumps from place to place - from the beta decay his Chemistry teacher is lecturing about to the hydrogen bomb to images of small children dying to his girlfriend who he will one day marry and forever protect. Obviously, high school likes your left hemisphere. And while we use both sides, the majority of people have a preference towards a certain hemisphere. High school does not take this into account. But then again, neither does the “real world”.</p>

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<p>In all honesty, every single argument here I agree with…even the ones that contradict each other…hmmm. Great thread</p>

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<p>I think I have to disagree.</p>

<p>High school is GREAT for learning what interests you. You might think that you really want to learn Japanese, but then you actually take the class and decide you despise it. Or maybe you have no idea what you want to do… your high school curriculum provides you a very vast amount of information in very little time in a very orderly fashion. It helps you make up your mind.</p>

<p>As for your arguments…

  1. You will actually use what you learn in high school unless you become a bum. But in any job situation (doesn’t matter what it is-grocery store clerk and all), you will use something that you learned in high school. You probably won’t realize it. But you will. You may not use something from every subject, but that’s the beauty of high school. You learn lots of things from lots of subjects.</p>

<p>Say you own a business… you want to see if it’s worthwhile keeping that product. Because of what you learned in high school, you KNOW that you can USE a graph. If you don’t remember how to use a graph, sure, you can look it up. But without your high school days, you probably wouldn’t automatically think of a graph. (Maybe in this situation you would, but this is just an example.)</p>

<p>Or maybe later in life, you decide to pursue an interest in music. Well in high school you studied music and learn the musical alphabet. You can use that to learn how to play one of your favorite tunes on the piano.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>For the majority of public schools… I would have to agree with this statement. However, not all schools are like that. For one thing, my school is heavily discussion based and we have a hard time remembering to raise our hands in some classes, because it is so discussion based. Our teachers want what we think of more than what the textbook tells us. We learn all sides of the story and are taught to be independent learners. (Isn’t that what IB is about?)</p></li>
<li><p>History repeats itself whether history is taught or not. It doesn’t matter. Notice though… People think “Well that couldn’t happen here.” And it can. That is why history repeats its self.</p></li>
<li><p>Not all students learn algebra in middle school. (In fact many schools don’t offer it until you are a freshman. =/)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>But you will also find that high schools only require Alg 1, 2 and geometry. Why? Because you use those in life. Maybe you want to build a shed by your house. You definitely can use geometry to figure out side lengths of the wood you need, so that it fits at a 90 degree angle.</p>

<p>Or maybe you’re trying to calucluate the savings amount you put for your child in the bank. You could definitely use a compound interest formula there.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>You cannot start college without prior knowledge. College builds on what you learned in high school. If there was no high school, college would become high school and grad school would become college.</p></li>
<li><p>Many people don’t enjoy learning in the first place. Why would they learn on their own?</p></li>
<li><p>But that’s exactly it… you do NOT know what your career is going to be. So you must be prepared for everything. That’s what high school does. It prepares you for life, work, and everything else.</p></li>
</ol>

45

<p>err…
I go to school because I have nothing else to do? and I take hard classes because I dont wanna be in the same class as the scary-looking gangsters?
i dont care about my grade too much, and umm, I guess school is pretty fun, (except for like finals week). school is important to me because err, I will ended up doing random crap like robbing a gas station or doing drugs if I dont do something to keep myself busy.</p>

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<p>I agree with the OP…to me, hs is completely pointless. Im just trying to get through it :slight_smile: The kids are immature, most teachers suck… what is there to like? lol, Im just looking forward to college!</p>

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<p>I really wish I could learn things, but I’m really just too busy with school to learn anything.</p>

48

<p>wow, this thread has been going since february. </p>

<p>I guess that I, as the OP, have somewhat changed my mind about this sort of thing. I wanted to posit my more nuanced position to see what you guys would think. It comes from a major sociological perspective called Symbolic Interactionism. I didn’t come up with this idea haha. Perhaps I’ll change everybody’s mind back to “high school is indeed important” from “high school is bogus”. </p>

<p>The nuance comes in when I combine these two observations: that high school is probably educationally meaningless (original post) and yet also that hs is seen as intrinsically valuable by society. Forget about the fact that this is frustrating. Ask yourself: why does this happen?
We might as well be learning Klingon or memorizing random numbers, yet people respect you for doing well in school and say going to Harvard. Why? </p>

<p>Symbolic interactionism in my understanding says that things are mostly meaningless until society ascribes meaning to it. A fancy BMW is an utterly meaningless arrangement of metal and machinery (they’re not even good cars either haha). Yet, it <em>communicates</em> “woah, fancy car, the owner is upper class so treat him as such”. The money gained by working wouldn’t be valuable unless society said it was - the second society stops seeing its value, it loses its meaning. Language or communication is probably the clearest example. The words we use are totally arbitrary and meaningless. There is no <em>reason</em> why our word for that-green-thing-that-makes-leaves-and-turns-orange-and-brown-during-the-autumn-months has to be “tree”. If everyone had agreed to replace the word “tree” with “peanut butter”, it wouldn’t really matter. However, through sociohistoric processes we have come to call it a “tree” and it has gained meaning as such. </p>

<p>In much the same way, I think my arguments made previously simply showed that high school is probably useless and meaningless - we might as well be learning gibberish or Klingon or something of the sort. However, society has ascribed meaning onto the event of graduation and the status of good grades. Getting high grades simply has the meaning “hey this kid is smart. he should get a good job. he should be able to run society. if he were a suspect along with a poor guy, arrest the poor guy. he’s probably someone you should trust etc etc.”</p>

<p>It’s a ******** hoop, I know. It’s bogus. It’s useless and meaningless. Yet, things like language are all of those things as well. Would anyone … boycott language? You can’t really change the system, society has pretty much decided that (at least for right now) doing super well in high school communicates “this guy should get what he wants”. I suppose, upon reflection, that … we gotta just jump the hoops… </p>

<p>@leslunettes - out of curiosity, where did you go to school and what circuit did you debate on? I debate the national circuit too :D</p>

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<p>Heh. I get disrespected for doing well in school. =/</p>

50

<p>The concept of high school–to build a foundation of knowledge, teach different thinking skills, and allow students to explore different fields–is a fundamentally good idea. However, I do agree that in public schools (I don’t have any experience with prep schools), these ideas are not promoted. Public schools are focused on getting kids to pass instead of teaching them to become independent thinkers. Does the system need to change? Yes, there are a number of ways it could be more effective. Does this render high school pointless? No, for one still needs to build a good knowledge base before moving on to higher education.</p>

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<p>It’s less about the point of high school, more about what you do in it.</p>

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<p>I’m going into a highly technical field for which I need large amounts of math and science to be prepared for my first year of college.</p>

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<p>Don’ t have any comments about your view on studing I think majority of follow comments has expressed some of my own opion , but one thing , when you talked about how different country tought histry or even political views differently , See , you said in some japanese schools they taught there is no reason why the atomic booms dropped on there city .( if the source that you used is corret :but we know what really happened right , from the text books , the actual fact) so what you call this. is it propagonda ?The same with commonlism country , I grow up in a commonlism country , And I was taught when I was at first grade at elementary school ( all the schools there like this ) to love my country ( which is no wrong but it’s the tool what they usually mingle your mind with the love of the party ) first , second love the commonlism party ,sing so called "RED " SONGS and so on so forth to brain washed your mind ! I don’t even realize what is wrong with it after I grow up a bit. just like the saying , if you lie one thing a thousand times you will believe it’s the truth .However , all this above are really from different perspectves , from theirs , but are they true ,I doubt it. Have they ever get some influences on my mind , i’ll say Yes .</p>

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<p>i think high school sucks major bals!!! i think high school should burn in hell, therefor i state my opinion high school can **** off *******s</p>

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<p>**** this gay a_ss Site this *<strong><em>s gay *</em></strong> **** **** ***** whore ass licker peice of *<strong><em>en horse *</em></strong> **** you all later faggets</p>

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<p>ok</p>

<p>10char</p>

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<p>I agree with everyone who’s defended high school.</p>

<p>your feelings are clearly based on your own experiences and opinions in YOUR high school. i know my school emphasizes critical thinking and analysis. no, school doesn’t teach you careers. it teaches you information you may need, it allows you to explore different fields, and it teaches you to critically think so you may solve problems later in life.</p>

<p>i would LOVE high school if not for the homework.</p>

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<p>best necro ever</p>

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<p>

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<p>Why so leet?</p>

<p>I give this an A for effort</p>

60

<p>I feel bad for you. You sound like a great kid (I’m a parent), but you ended up at the wrong school. I hear what you are saying in your well put together post, but I can tell you it does not at all capture my children’s highschool education and experience. They were given formulas so no wasting time memorizing them but learning the concepts, they were not tested on facts, but required to do analytical essays, huge emphasis on critical thinking. And so on. </p>

<p>And as a professor, I can assure you, without the basic skills you learned in HS, you’d not be able to master university level material, which is actually necessary to learn for a lot of the more interesting occupations out there. Maybe you don’t need algebra for taxes, but good luck becoming an engineer, physician, statistician, chemist…fill in the blank without it, and society needs someone to build the bridges, fix the sick, and analyze social policy.</p>

<p>Okay sorry for barging in. I don’t usually read or participate in this section, and I shouldn’t come in here and interrupt you, but it caught my attention.</p>