I think it is very important for parents to know what their children are learning about in public schools. I am currently a freshman enrolled in a public high school so I see first-hand what students are being taught and the things they are expected to learn. In this article, I will examine what I think the schools are doing wrong in the subjects of: math, English, social studies, and health.
The United States is a country growing more and more dependent on technology. The same can be said for a lot of the world. People are using their brains less, and their computers and calculators more. I am not saying that technology is bad in anyway, but I believe it is unacceptable to allow students to rely as heavily as they do on computers and calculators. Math is one of the subjects that many of my peers, as well as myself struggle the most in. I have been an “A” student in every subject and in every grade, yet I still need a calculator in order to do simple division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction. That is downright scary. Just last night I had to be re-taught how to do third grade math because after six years of not using the processes we had learned in that grade, I had simply forgotten how to do it. As much as calculators seem to help students, they actually do far more harm than good. For this reason, I think the use of calculators should be frowned upon, or better yet prohibited in math classes.
Audio recordings for books read in class are one of my greatest pet peeves. They have no business being anywhere near English classes. I understand that some kids find reading difficult and audio recordings make things a lot easier for them, but they also take all of the learning out of reading books. Nobody really follows along in their book when it’s being read out loud to them! Students tend to lose focus and end up not understanding anything that happened in the book which also doesn’t help them become better readers. Furthermore, wouldn’t the students who have trouble reading actually benefit by NOT listening to book recordings? The only way to get better at something you’re not good at is to practice and book recordings allow the less efficient readers to CONTINUE being led efficient readers. I am a believer in the theory that reading skills directly correspond with writing skills. So if reading skills of a student are poor and continue being poor, they will be a poor writer as well. I have also found that as I get older, the books classes read as a group are becoming more and more inappropriate.
I constantly find that the curriculum taught in social studies classes cross the border between constitutional and unconstitutional. Religion is often discussed in social studies classes, which is constitutional IF every religion is discussed. However, if a teacher were to ask a student what religion they are or only discuss a few religions, it would be considered unconstitutional. Both scenarios have happened in one or more of my social studies classes. Teachers need to be very careful about that. Also, social studies teachers seem to always have time to dwell on the positive influence of African Americans on the United States, yet the heroes in American History that happened to be white, such as Ben Franklin and the other founding fathers are rarely discussed. Every year I have been in school, I have heard lectures about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Every year we also learn about slavery and how awfully whites treated African Americans. Every year, teachers set aside months dedicated to African American and Hispanic people, but there are no special months dedicated to people of White or Asian descent. Is this not a form of discrimination or segregation? All the “months” seem to do are to place certain people in certain categories based on the color of their skin. Sound familiar? I have also noticed that in social studies classes, in terms of historic or current events stories that could be debated politically are almost always told with only a liberal point of view. I believe that the liberal point of view should be discussed, but the conservative point of view should be explained as well so students can decide for themselves what they believe.
Health class is the touchiest subject. Health classes cover everything from healthy boyfriend/girlfriend relationship to nutrition. Often times in health classes, students feel very uncomfortable, especially since the classes are split up by gender. I think health classes are great. They teach you stress management techniques, how to take care of your body, and other basic ways to keep your body in check. However, I do not believe that it is the place of the school to educate kids about relationships or intimacy. That is the responsibility of parents. Why are so many teenagers pregnant? Because they are taught in school how to be intimate without getting pregnant but the methods they learned failed. It is absolutely ridiculous. Every year since 5th grade, students have some sort of reproductive health unit, whether in science or a health class which I find to be a complete waste of time and unnecessary embarrassment. In health they also talk about Menopause, PMS, and other gender specific topics with both boys and girls in the same room. I don’t think they should teach that at all nonetheless teach it as mixed gender group.
Overall, schools need to do a lot of work to fix all of these problems. I think it is important that parents understand all of these problems because they are the ones who can change the policies of the schools so their child can actually get the education that parents are paying for in taxes. Without parents pushing the state and even national legislative branches as well as public schools about education, the schools will not do anything to fix everything they are doing wrong. For the benefit of the next generation, parents really should push the school system to reevaluate their teaching strategy and curriculum. I hope this article gives parents the incentive to do so.