In 2002 The United States Legislature passed the No Child Left Behind Act. The negative connotations of this act has pervaded our failing school system now for fourteen years. Students, parents, and teachers alike have all grown a resentment for the idea that, despite the effort, a student has the opportunity to fail, parents have the opportunity to bear witness to that failure, and teachers hold the considerable weight of believing it is due to their inadequacy. Individuals who possess potential for something better are squandered and placed in the general education system that any academically unprepared adolescent can comprehend. The process of moving every child along through the twelve years that they are forced to endure the school
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School became an obligation which stood in the way of what truly matters: work. Some believe that high school inadequately prepares students for what is ahead of them after they graduate. Bard College President and well-known writer Leon Botstein even proposed a new form of education in which elementary school would begin when children are four, eliminate junior high completely, and have students begin their “pubescent” change through high school. In Botstein’s plan, high school would start at seventh grade and would continue until graduation at sixteen. His opinion is rooted in the belief that too much time is wasted in high school: ¨By the time those who graduate from high school go to college and realize what is at stake in becoming an adult, too many opportunities have been lost and too much time has been squandered¨ (Botstein 154). Inpatient adults are rushing students, they 're rushing them to pick a passion, rushing them to figure themselves out in the four years they are provided before we push them into a chaotic world of other confused young adults who are then ridiculed for not being ready. Society begs for better students, better citizens; yet, we mourn for the uneducated generations who are getting pushed more and more to ¨just hurry up and choose¨ instead of waiting to see what these …show more content…
Emerson describes how too many students are filled with ¨appetite and indolence, but no enthusiasm¨ (Emerson 104-105). Teachers are expected to educate adolescents with absolutely no desire to strive for anything further than what they think they know. Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, says students ¨have traded knowledge for forms of inquiry based on feeling, not fact¨ (Sewall 66). Students confuse instinctual knowledge with real education; students begin to lose motivation because they think they know all there is to know. A circular system of a mutual lack of motivation for an education is created which further adds to the negative image high schools posses. Then the system attempts to fix the problem. Teachers and administration begin to cater to the unmotivated students who flood the halls. A contrast between regular classes and AP classes was created because other students-- the ones trying to search for their individual genius--resent their peers’ lack of motivation and complain that teachers shouldn 't have to waste their
School became an obligation which stood in the way of what truly matters: work. Some believe that high school inadequately prepares students for what is ahead of them after they graduate. Bard College President and well-known writer Leon Botstein even proposed a new form of education in which elementary school would begin when children are four, eliminate junior high completely, and have students begin their “pubescent” change through high school. In Botstein’s plan, high school would start at seventh grade and would continue until graduation at sixteen. His opinion is rooted in the belief that too much time is wasted in high school: ¨By the time those who graduate from high school go to college and realize what is at stake in becoming an adult, too many opportunities have been lost and too much time has been squandered¨ (Botstein 154). Inpatient adults are rushing students, they 're rushing them to pick a passion, rushing them to figure themselves out in the four years they are provided before we push them into a chaotic world of other confused young adults who are then ridiculed for not being ready. Society begs for better students, better citizens; yet, we mourn for the uneducated generations who are getting pushed more and more to ¨just hurry up and choose¨ instead of waiting to see what these …show more content…
Emerson describes how too many students are filled with ¨appetite and indolence, but no enthusiasm¨ (Emerson 104-105). Teachers are expected to educate adolescents with absolutely no desire to strive for anything further than what they think they know. Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, says students ¨have traded knowledge for forms of inquiry based on feeling, not fact¨ (Sewall 66). Students confuse instinctual knowledge with real education; students begin to lose motivation because they think they know all there is to know. A circular system of a mutual lack of motivation for an education is created which further adds to the negative image high schools posses. Then the system attempts to fix the problem. Teachers and administration begin to cater to the unmotivated students who flood the halls. A contrast between regular classes and AP classes was created because other students-- the ones trying to search for their individual genius--resent their peers’ lack of motivation and complain that teachers shouldn 't have to waste their