Educational Reform: A Necessary Step to Take

​By: Amanda Sherman

​With September rapidly flying by and schools reopening for the semester, children are once again stepping back into mainstream institutions of learning. Classrooms are filled with six-foot social distanced children, mask wearing has become the norm, and entire sections of schools have been blocked off to accommodate the new normal. Yet, how much have circumstances really changed ever since March, when the pandemic spread across the entire world?
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In many ways, things are the same. High schoolers are once again settling into the familiar routine of studying for AP courses, while online planning software such as Notion has become commonplace among today’s circles as youth attempt to balance their academic responsibilities with extracurriculars. After they sit through five hours of Zoom classes, they FaceTime their friends to get assignments done and chat about the day. In areas with lower rates of COVID cases, sports have even made a comeback. It all seems much more routine than during the past six months - and thankfully so!

However, there is a certain tradeoff of freedom that our society has bartered in favor of blending elements of the pre-COVID and the post-COVID societies. Although quarantine was undoubtedly mentally strenuous and mind numbing, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore personal interests without being burdened by time. Students have reported being able to discover the joys of oil painting, pottery, and poetry - activities that are all undervalued in an education system that places heavy emphasis on “profitable” subjects. Studies show that individuals who engage heavily in the arts show higher rates of happiness than those who don’t. This may pose an enormous benefit in the long run to youth who have grown up in an image based culture, with flashing images of perfection constantly surrounding them. 

Is it time to once again bring back that sense of liberty, so that our youth will be able to dedicate more care to their mental health instead of breaking their backs taking college level classes? Is knowing how to formulate complex derivatives necessary to living a “successful” life? And what is with our culture’s unending obsession with success itself?

The future all depends on which direction our generation will take education. In fact, there already is a heavy shift towards flexible education, which covers all of the essential tenets of core subjects while allowing students to mix up their schedules with different activities at all times of the day. Seen in the rise of learning pods and homeschooling rates, parents are clearly looking outside of the longtime accepted standard. Through fostering rigor in their own sense, they are enabling their children to intimately develop their identities while giving them the gift of unstructured time. Increasingly, they are happy with the results. 
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For decades, experts have argued that the material instilled in students’ heads from the modern education system is barely relevant to students’ own lives. COVID-19 flipped every assumption about standards set in stone upside down when it swept across the world. It proved clearly that with the changing times, the system itself will change as well. 

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