What is the educational system like?

Answer 1

Opinion The students have to carry a backpack to and from school on a daily basis. The average weight of a backpack is 40 pounds, and honors and AP students are known to carry even more. The weight has been shown to cause severe and incurable spinal damage later in life. Students spend approximately 7 hours a day at school, assuming they do not participate in any sports or other extracurricular activities. Each class supposedly should take 1 hour a day of homework and studying time combined on average, and so, with an average of 7 classes, 14 hours a day, minimum, is consumed by school. In order to get into a decent college and have a chance at getting a job, students MUST participate and do well in either varsity sports or other extra curricular activities. Most sports take 2 hours a day for practice. this puts us at 16 hours consumed. With 1 hour allotted for travel time to and from school, we reach 17 hours. Allotting for 30 minutes for Breakfast and dinner and 30 minutes to prepare for school/get ready for bed, we reach 18 hours. This leaves 6 hours a day for sleep, 3 and a half hours less that the recommended amount for teenagers. Furthermore, this leaves no time for friends, creative pursuits, fun, or learning, and is a highway to depression, anxiety, stress, and suicide. Furthermore, the education system simply does not educate. Starting in middle school, students begin being taught only formatting and how to take a test/ write an essay. By the time students enter high school, they learn absolutely nothing in their classes. They aren't even taught formatting at this point, they are given work to do and then graded on it arbitrarily, assigned project after project, take test after test, essay after essay, but are never instructed or given new information. Even if a student is lucky enough to get a good teacher, the "State standards" force the teacher into 'teaching' material that all of the students have learned long ago. For example, the 'on level' freshman courses are on par with most 3rd grade curriculum. Because of the insanely high pressure, 90% of high school students cheat. Of the other 10%, 8% receive B's and C's and are screamed at and told to work harder. the final 2% manages to get A's but most commit suicide by their senior year in high school. Only 1% of cheaters are caught, so cheaters learn that they must cheat to stay alive AND that by cheating they can help their friends stay alive, as well as make their families and schools proud. The education system has subjected children to a living Hell for enough generations that by now most children don't even have qualms about cheating. Teachers suffer because they must be the only visible instrument to the students of the Hell that is their lives. It is in no way the teachers' fault but most students see it as so anyways, because they need an enemy to fight against. Furthermore, teachers do not become teachers for money, they are paid almost nothing and must receive a ton of education, so most join with the hope of educating the future or other equally noble goals. All of their hopes and dreams are slowly crushed, however, as they meet the stupid, slow insolence of the education system.