Americans Don't Value Education

American's have to care for things to get better

The list of problems with American education is long and well documented. Low pay for teachers, outdated materials, overcrowding, common core, and decreased spending. Those problems can be largely fixed by the (failed) Department of Education and legislation. 

But if all of those problems were solved, if teachers were paid more and the curriculum was fixed, and if the problem teachers were to be thrown out, Americans would still be poorly educated. You can only do so much when the students just don’t care.

The People

We as a society love success stories, especially when those stories go against the grain. We’ve written books and movies about people like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. 

We love people who left traditional education and built something (dystopic, awful, and destructive to the human spirit) successful.

Generation Z, Millennials, and Generation Alpha love Internet celebrities. It’s hard not to. People make a living out of creating videos and streams, doing something they love. I’d personally love to make videos, and that would be my livelihood. 

It’s not feasible, or realistic. 

I’m not saying we should idolize scientists and engineers. That brings about a whole host of societal problems; that’s its own piece. 

We as a society love people who have found success outside traditional means, and Americans think that they can do it too.

This creates generations of kids who don’t see the value of traditional education. They also see the flaws. They, along with teachers, are victims of those flaws. 

I, too, was a kid who scoffed at a broken education system that couldn’t give me the success I wanted. 

“Why learn trigonometry when I can make millions buying Andrew Tate’s course? Why learn about science when I can make money being an influencer?”

I can’t place all the blame on the children. Parents are also at fault.

I come from a small town with a large population of miners. I will always remember a family friend, who was a teacher, telling us about a parent-teacher conference. The teacher, our friend, was trying to tell the dad of one of her students the importance of his education. The dad only laughed and said,

“Why does it matter? He’s going to work for the mines and make way more money than you do.”

Parent engagement is a serious complaint of teachers. Parent who don’t or can’t motivate or make their kids do homework. Parents who aren’t around, or abusive households. Parents can’t use schools as free daycare. They also have to be involved for their students to succeed. 

Of course there are families that value education. Who are involved and motivate their kids to succeed. 

The Education

It’s awful. But more has to be said. 

The goal of our education system is to produce a well-rounded individual. It fails to do so. 

Many students (myself included) wonder out loud why they have to learn these subjects. Why advanced math and science? Why history and geography? Why? 

Kids are taught these topics, so they don’t end up wondering how the mirror knows the egg is there.

Students learn math as a kind of mental workout. It’s like a bench press, but for your brain. And, like a bench press, there are serious consequences if you do them poorly. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the joke about the math teacher walking into class on the very first day of school and saying, “We’re already behind.” It’s rushed and not well taught. Students end up not understanding or retaining the concepts, but have zero recourse because they are shoved to the next lesson or grade. 

This remains true for all subjects. Bad teachers, outdated textbooks, and rushing permanently damage kids' abilities to learn, which in turn leads them to value their education less. 

Why should I care when this sucks?

A well rounded education is deeply important but I don’t believe we do enough to convey that to students. 

No we can’t teach to your “specialized skillset based on what you want your career to be.” That’s not how modern society works. 

A well rounded student understands the world around them and is intelligent enough to adapt to whatever career, job, or situation they find themselves in. 

A school that teaches to your “specialized skillset based on what you want your career to be,” is, to put it bluntly, a school for slaves. 

University

Americans have created an incredibly warped view of college and universities. It’s become our own secular, four-year-long Rumspringa.

We have party schools. I should just leave it there, but I can’t. Yes, leaving our parents house was incredibly important and formative. We got a taste of the wild life, but we have party schools.

I know I’m coming across like I have a stick up my ass. I know I’m coming across like some Scottish Presbyterian preacher who will not tolerate any fun.I’m not saying young people shouldn’t have fun. They should. I’m just critiquing the idea of party schools and their implications for American education.

Throughout media, stories, and the fact that kids are enjoying life without parents, we’ve created an ideal where having a 24/7 party is infinitely more important than actually getting an education. Look at underaged drinking and drug use on campus, and Greek life.

Again, it’s obligatory; not all kids go to college to party, so here’s where my next bit begins.

College is expensive and time-consuming. So why do I, a liberal arts major (hush, I know), need to learn pre-calculus?

The idea of creating a well-rounded and educated individual goes on to college, but it gets worse in the students eyes because now they are paying money. They are paying so much money they have to take on loans that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

At this point, university and college students know what they want to do, but they have to suffer through another roadblock instead of pursuing their chosen field of study.

Education is more expensive, wastes the student’s time (in their eyes), and, in the end, is worthless.

The value of a bachelor’s degree has plummeted in the job market. The bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma. The bare minimum required to get something somewhat decent.

Master’s degrees cost more and are more difficult, meaning students already crippled by student loans aren’t going to go back for more. This leaves them in a weird limbo where they are too qualified for most jobs, but under qualified for the jobs they actually want.

(It’s honestly a miracle I got my degree. I’m not taking that risk again.)

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This article might be me subconsciously typing out my regret over my educational experience. A wish that I had done things differently. 

I am not an expert on this topic. It’s largely informal, based on observations and experiences.