[from my myspace] The Fundamental Flaw in the Education System

[intro]
I used myspace.com blogs for the past few years for my randomly-spaced blogging. Therefore, I am jumpstarting my blog here with most of those blogs, lightly edited.
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Original posting: Wednesday, April 12, 2006, 8:30 PM
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I'd just like to start out by saying I'm 18!!! I've been officially 18 years of age for about 22 hours.

This means I can vote, buy cigarettes, smoke, drink alcohol in some countries, enlist, gamble, buy porn, do porn, go clubbing, get an ebay account, am not under the legal guardianship of my parents, open various accounts (be they banking, etc.), get a driver's license without having to take driver's ed, won't have to get my passport renewed every 5 years (now, it's every 10 years; but I think the age is 16 for this change anyway....), won't have to get parental signature(s) for forms, get a tattoo, get married without parental consent, become a prostitute in some country (maybe the Netherlands), commit a crime and not be tried as a minor, go into a bar, have sex legally with anyone of legal age, buy real estate, buy a gun (I think), go to a strip club, visit someone in jail, buy a lottery ticket, and get any piercing I want.

Now, will I actually do any of these things? I'll probably vote. I have to enlist because I'm a male in the U.S. And the others? I'll just say that I don't have a government-issued ID card or driver's license, so I can't do them even if I wanted to.

Speaking of being 18, 18 is also generally the age in which many American students graduate high school and begin college. As of right now, of the 6 schools I've applied to, I've been accepted into 4, rejected from 1, and haven't read from the other yet. Accepted: Boston University, University of Chicago, Tulane University, and University of Texas at Austin. Rejected: I'M A PRINCETON REJECT!!! Pending: University of Houston.

Thus, we now arrive on the topic of school. Ah, yes, the education system. In case anyone didn't realize it yet, America sucks. We teach our younguns a broad array of subject matter for 12 grades (plus kindergarten and/or preschool)!!! In the U.K., kids usually choose a profession to begin concentrating on sometime in the mid-teens. (I would Yahoo! search this information, but I just spent 15 minutes trying to find more things to do when you're 18 and am therefore all-searched-out.)

In fact, British politicians' careers are actually just that: political science. Their politicians (you know, the ones running the government) have to actually be knowledgeable in politics. In the States, due to our--in my opinion--chaotic (and unpractical) democracy, anyone can run for office. I mean, an actor is governing the state of California! The Texas Senate/House or something has mainly those rich folk (such as doctors, lawyers, etc.).

An aside: In Texas, those individuals that are already rich from their day jobs (as doctors, etc.) usually run for office because the salary for a Texan governmental person is, I believe, under $10,000. It's really a loophole to keep the rich in charge always. Also, because the ones-with-high-paying-day-jobs can afford to run for low-paying office jobs in Texas, they are better able to protect privileges for themselves.

Seriously, is there really a point for Americans to learn a broad array of topics when all the irrelevant knowledge ("irrelevant" in that it won't pertain to their normal day-to-day life or their careers) will just be forgotten anyway? I recall reading a column in the Dallas Morning News a long time ago in which the columnist had previously "bashed" kids for not knowing the material on the TAAS or TAKS or some state-mandated test. But after taking it (he scored near perfect on the reading and really well on social studies or writing or something, which should be a given since these matters pertain to his career), he completely changed his opinion because he did poorly on the math test, which went up to around Algebra II material. He does have a valid point. Who the hell cares what the letters in "y=mx+b" mean when you write for a living? Don't even get me started on the uselessness of trigonometric functions unless you actually do something math/science-related.

HOWEVER, this isn't my biggest issue with the education system. I don't mind learning a broad array of topics, but I do not see why all kids have to learn this way. If a person wants to be a journalist from the time he/she is in grade school until graduation from college/grad school, then do they even need to know calculus concepts? Or even algebra II concepts?? The answer is NO. Wait, I just said this wasn't my biggest issue.... (But tangents are fun!!)

My issue is the emphasis of education. Graduation requirements drive home the point that you need all these academic courses to graduate. The majority is academic, with perhaps the requirement of a handful of non-academic classes such as P.E. credit, art classes (visual art, music, dance, theatre, etc.), and ... maybe speech or something. How did society come to devalue the arts in education?

However, I can kinda see how athletics is lesser than academia in school--but just barely. People have come to view "school" as a place for enrichment of the mind and not the body. I, on the other hand, am beginning to strongly think that education should be about general betterment of self, meaning children attend school to enrich mind (academics), soul (the arts), and body (athletics).

I mean, when we were kids, we would draw for fun. We would play pretend with toys, pots and pans, really anything.... sometimes with nothing even! Where did both this instinct to draw and the intense imagination disappear? I blame the education system. I blame No Child Left Behind, which causes schools to focus on the things that won't leave a child left behind. The arts and sports get neglected.

I won't say much about athletics because that's not where my issue with current educational facilities is.

But the arts.... The arts allow us to be imaginative, use the other side of the brain, be more hands-on, splash our personality abstractedly, etc., etc., etc. It may not be as thoughtfully-intense or -invigorating as, say, math or English; but I think it is just as necessary to be well-rounded.

Hm, I again did not spend as much time as I wanted to on what I really wanted to say. But seeing as I'm tired of this topic, I shall conclude: basically, to better balance the student, education should equally emphasize the arts and the athletics in addition to the academic.