Higher Education??

                

               Everything seems to revolve around school. On average we will spend seventeen years in school and that will be just to receive a bachelor’s degree. From the age of five to about the age of twenty-two we spend most of our time in school. It is almost like a full-time job except we spend more time doing work for school. Not only are we in school from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., we also spend countless hours on homework. With all this work what are we really getting out of school?

                School is where kids go to learn but the adults set the rules to which have to abide. The constant monotony will cause all students at one point to loathe school. In his book “Texting Toward Utopia”, Agger comes out and clearly says that “they hate the structure, the endless homework, the compulsive testing and grading, authoritarianism, physical confinement behind desks, lack of free time, dress and comportment codes”. School is the same every year and has been that way for several decades if not longer. Agger says kids hate school for a few reasons. One reason is that school is a pre-labor force that leads to the real labor force. Another reason is that the kids don’t like how the adults are trying to turn the kids into versions of themselves. School is repetitive and leads to self-esteem issues. The finally issue Agger says why kids don’t like school is that it splits their body and mind. Their body is confined and not allowed to be active while their mind is forced into overhaul constantly getting new information.

                Agger calls school a factory. He says the goal is social control, denying students and teachers opportunities for open-ended spontaneous learning. While at school everything is structured and you are told when to do something. You are told when to be in class, you are told when to eat, and you are even told when you’re allowed to go to the bathroom. Agger points out that schools are more worried about getting students to class on time than what they actually learn. I would have to agree with this. Schools receive money based on attendance so grades come second to getting students in seats. Once the final bell rings and kids think they are free, they really aren’t. Once they get home they have to spend most of their time on homework until they go to sleep. And sometimes students will have so much homework that they end up staying awake until two or three in the morning. This lack of sleep can have a major negative impact on the children and it is never ending because the student has to do the same thing the next day. This never ending cycle can be associated with the rise in ADD and ADHD. We need to stop and take a step back to look at what exactly schools are doing to the children. It adds a ton of stress to the students and can really hurt some students.

                From the time we start school, we are told that it is the key to being successful in life. We have to graduate to get a good job and to be able to support our kids through school so they can get a good job. The students are told that they need good grades so they will look good on paper but I feel that students are never given an opportunity  to express what they can really do or who they really are. They are simply judged based on a letter on a paper. The grading system causes an immense amount of stress on students. If a student does not pass they are looked down upon when all that could have happened was that they know the material they just do not test very well. Grades should not be based on such an objective scale but rather find a way to actually test a student’s knowledge, not their test-taking ability.

In order to get a good job you need a degree from college. And in order to get into college you have to not only have good grades in high school but also be involved in extracurricular activities. Student’s time is already filled with school work but then they are asked to partake in multiple other activities which take up more of their time. This work load puts major stress on the students. Most adults do not have this much work to do. Because of all that the students are asked to do, it is no wonder that ADD and ADHD are on the raise and obesity is at an all-time high. Too much focus is put on trying to do multiple things rather than just enjoying them.

School may be a way for students to learn but it is not utilized to the best of its potential. School is so structured and regimented that it outputs almost a cookie cutter model of a person. Agger says that “the schools product is a marketable self, the member of a future adult workforce”. He says that schools are factories that the output directly is school work and homework but indirectly it is the industrious selves of youngsters.