With the events of the last 3 months in my personal life, I have grown to wonder what the hell some traditional college students were doing when they were in public schools given the fact that they have no work ethic when it comes to assignments and in some cases lack the capability to think for themselves. Well, today I've decided to break down the epic fail in American Culture that is the public school system.
The basic reality is that first and foremost, academic success in the public school system is a secondary concern in the eyes of most students and for that matter many of the faculty and staff of these facilities. While I do understand having some focus on belonging, I think it's reached a VERY unhealthy level of conformity. In some cases people are considered a pariah by students and faculty/staff due to the simple fact that they don't want to conform. The best example of this was the severe overreaction done by high schools across the country after the tragic Columbine shooting. In addition, many tend to focus mainly on athletics and supporting that as priority. The biggest issue is again, they are overemphasizing it and consider people who don't support athletics to be bad people. The biggest issue is this blind brainwashing where students at a school MUST support their teams which does extend into a blind fanboy following of professional sports teams that makes the majority of casual gamers and anime fans think that they are going too far.
Another issue is an obvious favoritism that can be seen with some students. In terms of educational opportunities, some get better ones while others do not get them due to this issue. One reason for this being that they are a son of a teacher, or from a rich family. Another reason for this is that they often are a favorite of their guidance counselors (more on that later) which allows for this to happen. Finally, those who don't see this, often get treated like crap when they try to point this out. As a result, this favoritism frustrates those students not getting the same educational opportunities.
Another issue is that in the case of some classes, they feel like pretentious busywork that really just kill morale and stifle students in the long run. The honest reality is that all too many people over time grow rather alienated with schools to an extent where they throw their hands up and say screw it. If they are going to teach something, they have to give a good reason for the students to learn about it. In addition, the content taught in many classes do not have much relevance with respect to getting a good job after high school which has made College become more of a requirement to obtain a decent job than ever. The biggest issue though is that there are teachers who suffer from a severe case of little name, big ego which just further annoys everybody.
The biggest issue though is the position of Guidance Counselors which is essentially the most bullshit position ever and also can ruin somebody's prospects of furthering their education. I've seen too many people railroaded by many of them who were worthless pieces of shit. Furthermore, they only work to further stifle individuals who are different. The biggest thing is that they can amend transcripts to recommend against students being accepted into college which I experienced firsthand. (This was one of the reasons that it took me so long to go back to school.) The simple reality is that these positions really need to be changed drastically and many of the people working from these positions need to be FIRED.
Overall, the public school systems need to re-evaluate how things are being conducted and how to turn out better students. I have good reason to say this cause I'm sick of seeing rich kids blow off assignments, then suddenly bitch about having low grades. More than that, they need to not focus so much of conformity cause their current trend of going overboard is just going to further alienate students and make them stop caring. Finally, they need to evaluate the position of Guidance Counselor as they are giving too much authority to people who are fucking incompetent. The issue at hand though is that unless something major would happen to make these changes a reality, I legitimately just see the public school system going further down the toilet.