Education is Key
The time as I write this is 12:21 AM, and I’m only barely finished with my homework for the night. As strange as it sounds, this is a good night for me. There have been some nights I’m up even later, stressing about how I’ll get everything done in a timely and satisfactory manner that doesn’t completely disrupt my sleep schedule. To someone not in school, this may seem excessive, but this — unfortunately — is a sad reality for many students simply trying to get by.
The first lesson you learn in high school is that those who make an effort will do well, get into college, and/ or have the profession of their dreams. We’re told to reach for the stars, only to be told in the eleventh hour that we’ll never reach far enough. Throughout the high school academic experience, this idea that effort is key is instilled in us, but it’s hardly the truth.
I’d always been an average student, earning mostly A’s and B’s, with an occasional C mixed in. Up until my junior year, I’d also been a laid-back and vivacious person. It would be an exaggeration to say that these traits have left me entirely, so instead I’ll say these traits have been left on the back burner.
Entering my junior year, I knew that I had to work harder than ever before. My college fund was nowhere near where it needed to be, so scholarships became my number one priority. Knowing A’s, B’s, and C’s wouldn’t earn me the money I needed, I bore down and began my academic transition. My time was consumed with studying, doing homework, volunteering, and extensively researching colleges.
By the end of my junior year, I’d earned six A’s and two A minuses, racked up a slew of extracurricular activities, and a repertoire of rigorous courses. Behind my picture-perfect façade, however, I was cracking. The pressure put on me by guidance counselors, teachers, and myself had begun wearing me down. I withdrew into myself and allowed external forces to destroy any shred of self-confidence I had. My mindset and outlook on my future had been distorted by what some people in the education system wanted them to be.
Seeing my academic potential in my junior year, I couldn’t stop there. The impossible standards I’d regurgitated from posters in the guidance office still haunt me as I go into my final year of high school. Carefully avoiding anything below an A minus, I’m doing my best to afford my future and all that I want it to encompass. Although I would be considered a model student, the system and the ideas they uphold still have me believing that I’m not good enough to cut it in the sphere of higher-learning.
It’s worth noting, of course, that the problem does not lay with the individual faculty members. I have had many teachers who care deeply for their students and do their job wonderfully. The problem, instead, lays with the system as a whole. After much reflection and many sleepless nights, I’ve come to the conclusion that the things I want to do are not unattainable, they’re just made to look like it by a system that’s designed to discourage creativity and individuality.
Intelligence in all forms should be taught and accepted as equal. Individuality should be encouraged as students have different strengths, weaknesses, and outlooks on their futures. In order to make this change, the rigid model of what an ideal student looks like should be updated and/ or scrapped entirely because every student is different.
