What's Holding Back American Teenagers By Laurence Steinberg Summary

In an article titled “What’s Holding Back American Teenagers?” by author Laurence Steinberg, the claim is made that, “Our high schools are a disaster.” Steinberg begins by mentioning education policies which had recently come to the attention of Obama during his term as president. This involved two issues, the first being early-childhood education and the second being college accessibility; however, Steinberg’s article preferred to focus on a third issue: American high schools. Throughout the article, he continually reflected on research from organizations such as OECD, The National Assessment of Educational Progress, and The National Center for Education Statistics. Each of these organizations’ research proved his point that our high schools …show more content…
There’s one day specifically that I recall within the current school year. I was sitting in my third-period economics class, and it was only a month into the year, yet already I wasn’t expecting to learn anything at all. My peers filed in to sit at their desks, each student either immediately pulling out their phone or beginning an uproar of conversation; meanwhile, my teacher sat there and did nothing other than taking attendance. This scene continued for the next 45 minutes, and attendance is the single thing we did in class that day. As the bell rang and I walked out the door of the classroom I found myself feeling frustrated as well as extremely helpless, wondering why my teacher should have the job of “teaching” if he was not even going to do it. The fact that I’m able to keep my grade above a 95% without paying any attention during class, or oftentimes not showing up at all, displays that there’s a humongous problem in our educational system. I recognize that I’m lucky to live in a country that gives everyone a chance at an education and a bright future, yet every day I see it being taken for granted or wasted; As a result, I’ve slowly begun realizing that America’s high schools need to make a …show more content…
Without teachers that care, it’s not possible to have a perfect educational system, because teachers are the very core of that system. Students in schools right now, sitting bored to death in a classroom, are the future of this world. Without proper education, how can they be expected to function well or improve the world when they reach adulthood? Kids will never meet our expectations for the future if they aren’t pushed to know how