A Voice for All

High schools do not foster students’ talents. It has become nothing more than being forced to learn eight subjects a day that hopefully a student would care about one of them. They force subjects on you that don’t help you look at the world with discerning eyes. I think instead of making you read older books like Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451 and Frankenstein they should make you do your own research paper. It would be on something a student liked but formatting, cohesiveness and grammar would be objectively graded. How can a student have any passion about reading something like a novel that he is assigned when they will just go and find the summary notes in a bookstore to write what the teacher wants to hear? Instead he should be allowed to write about something that is important to him. I don’t see how it is unique for teachers to assign you the same books that are being read nationwide. No one cares if you’ve read these throw away books but people do care if you can write well, have passion and can describe something new to readers who have little knowledge in what you are talking about. If reading a book is mandatory then it should be a book that a student chooses to read and not from a list by the teacher.

Instead of having eight classes a day they should have two. You should tell them what you plan on studying in college whether you are going into the arts, English, math or sciences or business. Then you would take general classes until you found what you liked. If you spent more time on your subjects then you would build a craft and sharpen some preexisting skills. They should also help you utilize your skills in real life. If you are in English they should make you make you write articles for small newspapers or at least school papers. If you give students the chance to write about things that are a concern in the schools they will write with more passion and conviction than forcing them to read old classics they have no interest in. Subjects should be practical. If a kid wants to read a classic work he can do so at the library or bookstore. Integrating subjects as well might add some excitement to the prison that is high school. If a writer was doing an article on a particular theme then he would ask a photography student to take a picture that evoked the feeling that he was looking for. It could work as well for the photographer if that writer was to write an essay on what he thought the photographer was trying to say in how he shot a picture. He could describe why he chose a certain angle, aperture, filter and so forth. This would make students appreciate other subjects without being forced to take them. If you give students freedom to choose their own path then they will excel in there interests and you most likely wouldn’t have to worry about disciplining a kid who was being disruptive in class. It is all about giving students a voice.