The idea of high school wasn’t designed to keep up with maturity of teenagers of this day and age. As explained by Leon Botstein in “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” high school should be abolished and if not abolished then under extreme reconstruction. In this day and age teenagers my age are ready to take on the responsibilities of adulthood all they need is a little guidance career wise and life wise. If we went to college at age sixteen teenagers would be doing something useful with the last years of our brain and body development. Opposed to wasting time in a class room where you learn nothing and are disciplined all day while talking to friends, we could be actually learning what we need to know to survive in life. Everyone would have a better opportunity to be successful in America.
Botstein talks about how high school environment is “age- segregated” with little exposure to the outside world and demented view of how social society works. The social environment of high school is absolute opposite of the way it works in the real world. Instead of punished for standing out we are rewarded, instead of isolated for individuality people seek it. When we leave high school most teenagers can’t succeed unless they go to college, the transition between high school and the real world. In college you still have school work and homework even though the social experience is different and you’re treated like an adult there is still the crutch that is the familiarity of school.
The main problem with high school is the system. The people who control the system are focused on the sports aspect of school as opposed to education. As Botstein points out it’s controlled by coaches who value the sports over the education. They believe that the lessons learned on the field or the court is more valuable than the lessons learned in the class room. But they don’t realize that there are only a limited number of people who can be on a team. In a school of five thousand teenagers not everyone is going to learn those lessons. Survival of the fittest can’t be allowed in high school based on athletic ability because there is so much more important in life. Life is not based around a field or court it’s based around education and how you used it to better yourself and the people around you and that takes more than a lesson in being a ‘team player’.
Despite the fact that the high school system is corrupt, and the social injustice is unrealistic, putting all that aside all that is really important is the education. And when the education is messed up there is a serious problem. When teachers are only there to get a paycheck, don’t know what they are teaching or how to teach it, and have absolutely no life experience applying these subjects outside the classroom then high school really is a daycare for the moody and rebellious, as Botstein says, adolescents that adults don’t want to deal with. (Words: 512)
