School

It is very easy to disucss public education in terms of black and white but it is of the utmost importance to be realistic about it. Two of the most common complaints argue that school systems are almost always biased in the subject matter that they present their students and that students learn things that "we wont ever need in life and that are stupid and boring". While the former is a true statement that cannot be avoided, the latter is practically irrelevant.



There are clearly myriad biases that alter what students learn in school; writers of textbooks, historians, administrators and teachers all bend information in their own ways. I believe it is fair to say that these biases are most prevalent in the subject of history. History can be told from many viewpoints and will always be twisted to manipulate readers' minds to favor one side or another. Inevitably every country's education system will create self-appeasing biases because they wish to instill nationalism in their future generations. The trend whereby either everyone does something or nobody does something is also prevalent in history biases. Just as a CEO cannot begin to think of the people rather than progress because his or her company would crash, a country cannot begin to present information as a complete truth because its citizens would probably recognize the attrocities that were left out of the history books and question everything their government told them and subsequently become outraged/rebellious. Because of this fact, it is not evil but rather necessary that we put an "American bias" on our history. Now this is not to say that we should be lying to our students but rather highlighting events that make us look favorable. Nationalism is important because it makes people want to continue making progress in their society and defending their society. Now, this is not to say that what is learned in school is the only source that fuels nationalism- there are others, but what children learn while they are growing up may very well be the greatest contributor to nationalism.



As for what we learn in school, there is a misconception that what we learn in school pertains only to the subject matter that we are presented with. However, it is not only what we learn that makes school valuable, but also it is how we learn to learn. Our schools teach us information as well as the tools to learn. For example, many people express discontent with learning higher levels of math because they are "useless". These people, though, do not consider the many people who pursue careers in which these math levels are quite relavent. They also fail to consider that all of these levels of math teach certain skills that are quite necessary for higher levels of learning. Said skills include applying formulas and logic and are useful in the fields of economics, political campaigning, law and many other widely practiced professions. Math is not the only subject that teaches learning skills; English teaches analysis and under-the-surface rhetoric and history teaches us memorization while arts/crafts and sciences often teach us hands-on learning.


Although school may present us with subjects that may not seem to interest us, how are we to know what we should learn when we are said to be incapable of truly thinking for ourselves until we are 18? Therefore, school's purpose is to help bring out our potential passions and to teach us how to learn.