School is an ineffective system that needs to be rethought

I like how you constructed your argument. I will counter it now because we can’t undo it, but keep in mind the first round wasn’t to debate, it was just for acceptance :P I’m going to start with your first point: “Every school's main goal is for the students to succeed. That's why, first of all, they give us homework and projects. They want to teach us the responsibility that we may have to use in the future.” While this may seem right, it is actually not. Schools have been designed around the premise of preparing us to be in factories. Not to get an elite job, not to be a good employee, but to work in factories. That’s why we sit in straight rows, raise our hands, and are considered to be mischievous and a bad student (talking back) for politely challenging the rules. I was always against modern schooling, and if I suggested to the teacher that maybe there were ways that our school could be better for the students, I would simply receive a detention. No explanation other than challenging the teacher’s authority. It’s been awhile since schools were created, but schools really haven’t changed much since then. Here’s a classroom from today: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com... Here’s a classroom from 150 years ago: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com... Virtually no change. Do you really think it is okay to update practically nothing relating to school in a timespan of 150 years, especially when back then, they weren’t preparing us for success, but instead, for factory owners to have workers? About clubs, those don’t kick in until high school, at least for me. And that’s nothing special. That’s simply organizing people together. I don’t need schools to micromanage my social life. I can micromanage my own. Your next point was that the teachers and principals are already doing their jobs. YES. They are. Well, sometimes, haha. I’m not disputing that. I’m disputing that it’s the students fault. Uh, can you please explain to me what I’m doing wrong? I’ve corrected incorrect curriculum, talked to teachers about why I disagree with their lessons, and I’ve only been rebuked for my “bad” behavior. I put effort into my classes and maintain straight A’s. However, I truly believe if schools gave me an hour to learn about a specific unit we’re learning in school, I could learn more than I’d learn at school in a month. I pay attention, but only get a consistent stream of useless or incorrect information. Also, I often know the material they’re teaching. You can’t teach an entire class the same things. There are slower kids who need 1 on 1 help, and smarter kids who get bored from the easiness of their classes and want to learn specialized skills. Why do you think so many billionaires hated high school? Teachers who know their students well don’t choose the lesson plans, curriculum creators do. I’m not blaming teachers for my bad experience, I’m blaming the system as a whole. Also, by the way, bad teachers don’t get fired frequently like you said. Teacher unions make it nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. There are plenty of AWFUL teachers at my school. One who was particularly bad treated us like we were in the military. That’s not an analogy. He was in the military himself, and showed us videos daily of how people behaved in the military. The first words we heard out of his mouth were him yelling at us because some 6th grade (he teaches 7th grade) teachers said a few students were on bad behavior when they were teaching us. I also learned nothing from the few days I was in his class. He spent 90% of class time yelling, 5% teaching useless information, and 5% sitting back, relaxing, and having us do busy work. I complained to my counselor, and he didn’t get fired. I got moved out of his class, which is pretty unusual. I actually got lucky. However, there are still a few hundred kids a year who are stuck with him (and millions who are stuck with bad teachers). He isn’t the outlier; getting bad teachers fired is really hard. Now, let’s look at the Bob scenario. Why do you think Bob was acting up? Here’s a few possible causes: He was bored in school by the material and didn’t think he needed to pay attention, so he needed something to do and turned to acting out. In this case, students like him should have ways to learn at a faster pace than other students. Honors classes aren’t cutting it, they’re just sped up or slightly different classes. No, in this scenario, Bob needs curriculum that is made for him, and adapts to how well he does on it. This sounds difficult, but with modern technology, it’s actually not that hard to do. Bob is unsuccessful in school, and doesn’t see a reason to put any effort in if he consistently does poorly. In this case, all we need is better curriculum. When what we’re learning is useful in real life, fun, and is explained in a clear way, students will be much more engaged and learn a lot more. Often, I find that people just need things explained clearly, and need to feel comfortable asking questions. I have a friend who got a C- on a math test and asked for my help. In half an hour, I explained to him a month worth of curriculum. When he retook the test, he got a 97%. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, I know there’s a lot of bright kids out there, but I think a lot of them feel the same way as I do. He is facing social, mental, family, etc. problems. In this case, the teacher needs to sit down with Bob, and ask him straight out why he’s doing what he does. Sending him outside is a terrible punishment; he’d probably enjoy being out there without an adult telling him what to do or being pressured. In most cases, he will probably apologize, and if the teacher helps him get back on track with the material, will start behaving in class. We should be spending more money on counselors, better curriculum, and lowering student/teacher ratios instead of wasting our budget on fancy sports arenas. This solidifies my belief that school is currently ineffective. Best wishes, Sam