I don't believe in high school

I didn’t learn much in high school, and I honestly don’t know if I was expected to. Maybe I am exaggerating, but I think education in America is horrible, and there is not much being done about it--specially in small towns, such as Lumberton, North Carolina, where I spent my days at school since the age of eleven.

The first sign that the education at my school was not up to par was the fact that I went from doing calculus at my school in Columbia, South Carolina, to multiplication tables in Lumberton. “Nicolette, what is 6 times 6?” Are you kidding me? I went to the principal and told him I needed to skip a grade, and when I did, I was still bored. I’m not a genius, and I wasn’t the only one. Another girl from out of town named Cameron skipped the grade along with me, and I wouldn’t consider her a genius either. For some reason, which I don’t know if I will ever be able to comprehend, the expectations for both students and teachers are very low.

I was once an ambitious kid, but when I reached the ninth grade, I was done for. I didn’t care! I slept in all of my classes. There was one teacher I liked, however, and whose class I actually stayed awake for. Mrs. Russell taught my first high school literature class, and she really pushed us. She even made us enter a writing competition, which I did, and eventually won for our school.

But that was an exception. Most of the other classes were taught by teachers who seemed to want to go to sleep as much we did. I was never punished for sleeping; the worst I got was a witty comment from the teacher, which might have made me blush but sent me back snoring.

Our school system was set up so that eighth and ninth grades were together, and then real high school started in tenth. Before I went to the real high school, I complained enough to my parents so that I could try a really real high school. For 20 grand a year, I was able to go to St. Mary’s, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Raleigh. Despite having to go to church every Wednesday afternoon and not being allowed to leave the campus premises without signing out (and even then, only for two hours), I felt challenged by the school load there. In Spanish class the teacher actually spoke Spanish and we actually learned some of it. We were expected to read difficult books within a week rather than being given one for the entire semester.

Unfortunately, due to the distance from my family and friends and the lack of privileges, I lasted there only two months. I went back to Lumberton to finish my high school life in public school, where I slept my days away. I tried to graduate early, but they said it was impossible; instead they gave me an in-school job, which allowed me to leave before noon and go to my real job as a waitress. This means I spent my senior year in a restaurant, not in a classroom. There I learned "real life" skills, like how to make money.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining, right? Wrong. I think it’s not right that most kids can only get a good education if their parents can afford to slap down 20 grand a year. This means that only a select few of children in our nation really get taught something in school, get accepted to great colleges, and go on to have great careers. That’s not to say that you can’t become what you want if you went to a public school or college. If it was, I wouldn’t be here. It’s just to say that that so-called ladder which anybody can climb with equal strength is a lie. I’m sure if I graduated from St. Mary’s and then went on to Duke or another top-rated and expensive school, my options a year from now would be much greater. But like I didn't care in high school, I don’t really care now. I'm just trying to get the best bang from my buck while I’m in college. I’m not sleeping my days away anymore, but I still think that the expectations demanded from us could be higher.