The New and (not so improved) Educational System by Briannah

The New and (not so improved) Educational System by Briannah - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Thank you all for taking your time to be here. I would like to deviate your attention to an issue that I believe is particularly concerning. If you have not been paying attention, our school systems have taken a turn for the worse. Education used to be about what a student knew and learned; we have reached a point where that is no longer the case. Instead, grades are what matter most to anyone scouting an individual.

The educational system no longer values what students actually learn as long as they have maintained good grades. This means that students may be cheating on every assignment whereas another student, who is knowledgeable, may be receiving a lower grade on their work for their honesty. When did a number on a test represent the youth's intelligence? How have we let it get to this point? I am addressing this issue with the intent to fix it and restore the values that the educational system sought out to accomplish from the start.

The first step we need to take in doing so is to abolish the grading system altogether. Education should not be measured by the grade on a test; rather it should be based on what one knows and has learned during the course. We need to recognize that some children have other strengths that don't focus on mathematics and English, and instead on the arts and creativity. Why is it that students who intend on being a part of a creative industry that has nothing to do with mathematics or science have to pass those classes with an outstanding grade in order to be accepted into a college or pursue their role of as an entertainer? Not only are grades nonreflective of a student's abilities, but students' well-being suffers for a letter of their transcripts.

Students are getting less and less sleep because they are doing so much extra work; their teachers assign an extra 8 hours of work every night on top of the 8 hours of work that they have just completed at school. Anxiety and depression rates are rising because of the overwhelming workload that teachers assign in order for the student to keep their grades. We need to step back and ask ourselves what is more important? The strengths of these students or the topics that the educational system wants them to possess?

We need to think back to why we started educating students in the first place; did we do it to teach them new things and help them discover things about themselves or did we start educating kids to mold them into robots who know nothing other than the things they were taught in school? I urge you all to think about these things and that you will work with me to fix the flaws in the educational system, but as for now, I hope you will realize that students are more than the letter grade that they received on their transcripts.