Does School Prepare You for Real Life?

Does Schools Prepare You for Real Life?

High School could simply become one of those places where your knowledge about the world builds up, however not everybody remember being given a chance to spread their wings and fly for the first time. It is not until when students graduates from the restrictive environment where students were led through all kinds of trouble or given a second chance for almost everything, and in the end, the “happiest kids” most people so admired in High School are often the ones who struggle the hardest in the real world. So is this teachers’ fault? Or is it just the reflection of the lack of control of young people’s life. With these problems in mind, school clearly does not do enough to prepare children to step into the society smoothly.
Students may begin to learn the social aspects of the informal real world in school, but that is it. Once students graduate they have to gain experiences to business etiquette and formal socialization outside of school, and most likely all alone. The worst, is that every year thousands of new high school graduates faces struggles with their money control, most of the time without knowing where their money went after they realized they have none in their hands. This shows that in school, students have too much theory and too little practice. The core and soul of the student is not trained to understand who they should become as they get older. Instead of learning about how an atom could become an ion, they should be learning elementary skills that is needed on a daily bases with communication skills, the feeling of responsibility of every action, and social psychology as examples.
Memorized facts that were hammered into students only give them the score they required to get out of school, which does not represent their score of life. Academic achievements don’t stand much unless University is the next destination. Therefore in a way university degrees are the only truly creditable academic achievements, preferably at a Master’s level. As an example, presidents and celebrities does not get their high school achievements publicized nor advertised, in a way these pride will become invisible as time pass by. The achievements may look nice and add some weight on your cover letter but once you get in the university they seldom get mentioned ever again. What matters more is the experience which school cannot provide – experience. It is the hours and efforts that you put in to try to fit in to the society that matters, not the shining but heavy armor as high school achievements on students if they were knights. Students need to prove that even without the armors, what’s covered on the inside is gold: it has been smelted and fined, therefore useful, powerful.
Teachers can inspire, but many cannot. A “bad” teacher in this situation will be the ones to bit-by-bit have their students’ individuality and creativity figuratively or sometimes literally beaten out of them. Children living in Canada are extremely lucky compared to the ones living in the United States and China. In the United States 19 states decided that spanking in school is legal. Even worse in China, where over 40% of the students of a 50-student-class have been spanked. The over use of criticism and corporal punishment in school is too common nowadays and can lead to blockage of a child’s personality development at such a young age. This could turn a sunny child into somebody full of the fire of hatred later on becoming criminals or outlaws in the society, creating trouble. Finding and getting the right teacher with the right teaching method is such an critical part of high school life, yet we always hear complains from students about their teachers; so what is the point of putting a kid with the wrong adult who might not provide the kind of love and knowledge youngsters are lack of?
Mark Twain once said: “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” I strongly believe in this sentence since on one hand this quote does not deny that one cannot learn in school. However Twain is saying that there are many things, some of the most significant in life, that you cannot learn in lectures or textbooks are: love, friendship, coping with loss, compromise, the meaning of life, and life in general.

Luna Wang
2013.1.10