Let Teenagers Try Adulthood

The author of Let Teenagers Try Adulthood is correct on his view of high school in general.  The majority of high school classes do not prepare students for life outside of high school.  This being said, education in America should certainly be reformed.

For example, imagine a student with the interest of going into the computer science field.  This student is going to need knowledge of math, especially algebra, and a lot of it.  Great, high school requires four years of math on progressing levels of difficulty.  While you would think that would be good enough, most math classes do not properly explain the math that is being done.  Generally, it is explained as when you see this pattern in the equation, use this method.  It is not, however, explained as this is what this equation is used for and what it means in real world practice.  If advanced math is being taught in the schools, it should be done so in a way that it can actually be applied.  Otherwise it is almost entirely useless information that everyone will immediately dump right after the end of the school year.  

For the most part, this is what happens.  The knowledge gained in the classroom is deemed useless by the brain and the sector is erased so that it may hold more valuable data.  Of course, this is not just about math courses, but any and all subjects taught in high school.  If they are not useful for the student they should either be done away with or remapped so that they are taught more practically.  High school should be a place where students learn to be functioning members of society in the adult world.  If educators are not teaching practical information, the students actual knowledge of the subject is null and the purpose of high school is void.

In high school, students should be taught why the information is relevant and how to apply it in the future.  If this is done, students will be more prepared for the rest of their lives and be more successful.  If students are more successful, the nation as a whole will be more successful as students are the future.  This is why it is extremely important for high schools to teach practically, if they do not, progress is not being made.  In fact, if students are being taught incorrectly, as a society, we could fall back on ourselves.

All this being said, it is very important that high schools ready students for their adult life.  Without an education including the application of information, all of that instruction is useless and will have to be retaught when it is needed.  If the information being taught in the school is important, it must be explained on a real world level.  Otherwise, it is almost as if nothing is being taught at all.  If nothing is being learned in a place of education,  it should be reformed so that it may provide education in a more efficient way.