Our Education System Is Failing

The concept of school and the reality of it are entirely different. We are told that school is a place we will look forward to, enjoy, and learn from. While school teaches numerous subjects that help us develop into well-rounded individuals, it leaves out one of the most crucial components of being well rounded: possessing skills that are necessary to succeed outside of school.

Despite this argument being made plenty of times in the past, it still stands today. Students are simply not receiving the education they need to be successful in the real world. Yes, English, math, and science are important because they teach us about the natural and social structures of our world, but students would also benefit from knowing practical life skills like how to file their taxes and why credit is so important. 

Proponents of our current education system may argue that we’ll learn these things over the years as we are inevitably faced with them. However, this mentality can set a lot of students back once they become adults and lead to a lot of confusion and difficulty as young adults try to succeed in the real world. 

Regardless, who wouldn’t want a head start? If schools started teaching high schoolers—or even middle schoolers—how to budget correctly and save money, they would enter the workforce differently. 

Students may even feel less stressed going into college because they would be more educated on how to form different networks of income. Hence, they wouldn’t feel like their careers alone are the “be-all and end-all” of economic stability and success. 

Instead, much of our current education system is comprised of concepts that most of us will forget in future years. Not to mention that much of what we learn in many of our classes is only remembered for an end of year exam.

If we were taught about interview preparation, résumé development, and how to build professional connections while in school, we would possess the actual skills that make us better prepared in real life situations. 

It is also important to realize that our lack of knowledge can set the economy back. The less we know about the real world, the less prepared we are to operate in it. As a result, we make bad economic decisions, or are simply not educated enough to make investments, expand businesses, and even just manage our bank accounts.

Among the abundance of negative opinions that exist in regard to our current education system, there is a confused and desperate population of students across the country who feel that their curriculums are not preparing them for life after high school. 

If it is a school’s duty to set their students up for success, perhaps more emphasis should be placed on real world application instead of hypothetical algebraic problems.