One thing that I believe pretty much every student feels, not just college students, is the wonder of why we must learn certain things. The biology major that must take history, the English major that must take math, the PE major that must take Fine Arts. We all wonder why. We go to school wondering what we want to learn and possibly make a career out of. When we finally make this future altering decision, we are still forced to learn learn lessons that we care nothing about. Over this semester, I have read the blogs of young students who have their whole lives ahead of them, full of mystery, wonder, and life changing decisions. I feel sorry for them because I know what they are in store for. They will be force fed the white man's education, and not just on what they feel is worth learning, but everything "The Man" believes we should learn. Whether it proves of any importance to the student or not. This gorging of personally irrelevant education can cause some very unnerving stress to the student, all for what? To learn about something that has nothing to do with the path they have chosen or have yet to choose. Why can the education not just stop where it is needed? I, myself, wanted to become a high school math teacher, specializing in Algebra and Trigonometry. I have taken and tutored both courses with relative ease and passed them both with flying colors. However, the education system requires me to go beyond my understanding to require me to know 3 levels of calculus, 2 levels of statistics, linear algebra, as well as 4 more mathematics courses, all having prerequisites before I can continue. All of this to teach algebra and trig. I know first hand that this stress is unnecessary and ridiculous and yet, I do not believe that this is something that will ever change. The children of America will have to deal with this undue stress for as long as education exists. I am not saying that people shouldn't have to work hard to get where they want to be, but I do not feel that it is necessary to force feed information that they will probably never use in their career.
And you can't say that this is for the good of the student. How is it good for the student? Teach them what they need to know based on where they want to be, not because society and "The Man" believe that it will be beneficial. It is only taking time out of their lives, money out of their pockets, and adding stress to their burden. It's unfair to the student, because they are forced to pay for and study for a course they will never use in their life. Teach what needs to be learned and save the future from insanity and stress!
