On the lack of functional classes

There have been many cuts to classes with obvious real life applications, such as car maintenance or cooking, but is that really at the benefit of the students?

Gus Grider

Students in line waiting to enter a classroom.

The educational system is a failure, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. It’s good at teaching people things, but what it needs to do and what it does are very different. What the educational system should do is prepare people for life and at this, it fails miserably. Many students are not taught the basics of personal budgeting, job applications, or even how to make good financial decisions, and then are thrust out of college (which focuses purely on academics) into the adult world with no experience and no guidance. Home Economics was a class that almost everyone took by the mid-20th century, but these days the idea is rejected as too “old-fashioned,” and many other classes with direct real-world functions, such as car maintenance or shop, where you could learn how to fix issues yourself rather than having to buy an often expensive service from other people. Instead of these things, kids are taught the politics of ancient Rome and Greece.

The second main problem is the cutthroat grading system, where any mistake is punished, no matter how small, and not able to be rectified. If you had to build something for somebody in the real world, they would not just “grade” you and give you an arbitrary number, they would make sure that your final product is the highest quality possible and give help or advice on the mistakes you made. If you weld a girder for a building, an inspector would come and scan it through. If you made a poor-quality weld, he would not just dock you points and move on, he would make you take it out and do it right, even if it took 5 tries.

All in all, I believe that the school system falls far short of the areas it should be teaching and conditioning its students to, and rather focuses on tedium that is overall not very useful.