Spencer+W’s+2015+OpEd+Article

School is Crushing the Happiness of the Modern Teenager

Although school is an institution devoted to the progression of education, college level high school classes are much too stressful. Most people would just say, well why don’t you refuse to take these honors and AP classes? The answer to that question could have many different responses but I feel two of the most common would be, “I need to to get into a good school”, and “I need to be challenged”. However the most prevalent of the two would have to be the first response. While I do feel it is essential to be challenged and receive a quality education, there is a point where all the extra work and stress because a surplus, serving no real purpose other than crushing students. Everything is for college, I’m sure there are very few people at Foothill who are just so interested in calculus that they took advanced placement calc because they just wanted to learn more about the subject. Most likely, they took it because it’s what they need on their transcript. How many students really want to go to college to learn? Chances are only a fraction, college is geared towards fairly young people, and those young people don't want to spend the next 4-10 years of their lives going through grueling work every week, they want to live, they want to be free and happy, and in the end, that is the ultimate goal. How does this relate back to advanced classes being too difficult? Most high school students have their goals set on going to college, this requires them to meet the requirements that that school is looking for, often in a very soul crushing manor, such as taking 7 AP classes and dying of stress. Ultimately I suppose my point is that the school system, and most of society is the enemy of happiness. No one goes to high school to be happy, people don't go to college to be happy, people don't work 9-5 jobs 6 days a week to be happy. Everyone is just trying to fit into society and it is society that has a very strict outline that you must force yourself into, because there isn't much any way around it. We are force fed the idea that to be successful in life we need to go to college and get some expensive degree to make it in society, this idea, which is raised in school from a young age, is the enemy of happiness. It’s a redundant cycle, we are forced to go to school by law, but it is school that teaches us how to conform to society’s demands, and why it’s so necessary, and even as we learn more about the presence of this oppressive system, there is nothing we can do about it. If you want to be unlike the rest and not go to college, as depressing as it is, you, the free spirit who broke free of the system, will probably end up worse off in the end, even if you’re doing what feels right to you. You have two options, conform to the system and live a cookie cutter life, or you can be free, follow your dreams and probably end up very off course because you didn’t comply to the demands of society, as crushing as those demands may be (high standards, AP classes, college etc.) in the end they will end up benefitting most people. School is essential, theres no doubt about that, but the extent to which high school students are pushed just to make it in society is too much, expectations of colleges and parents are too stressful, there needs to be a balance between school and happiness. High school is just the first step in conforming to society, and that isn't always a bad thing, but in this age it seems like school and college rule many people’s lives and that isn't how we should live. If there weren’t such high expectations on high school students, then chances are life for those students would be much better. I’m not saying don’t be ambitious and disregard college, but if college didn’t require so much from us then there would be more opportunities for high school and college students to be happy and successful. As it stands the modern American school system is overbearing, honors and AP classes are the norm, 5 hours of homework isn’t unusual, and these things limit most students to a very small sliver of free time, causing way too much stress and unhappiness for a 14-18 year old student.