Personal Narrative Analysis

With my growing experience in the modern day educational system, I have developed many deep opinions towards my education. The gripes that all students make about homework and tests are expected from a student like me, but obviously my list is ever-changing with the constant reforms towards a vast technological society. As computer’s roles rapidly grow in our society, our education system must also rapidly adapt to the changes. As a result, the integration of one-to-one technology here at Jefferson High School has only complicated my learning and fueled the fire to anxiety built by school. In addition to the technology upswing here at Jefferson High School, my classes have become solely about taking me to the next level in my life. The push

of ACT scores and increasing standardized test scores are at an all-time high. More frequently students ask: When will we ever use this in real life? There is no value for the countless invaluable skills I learn about today in school. Often times I am told of the failures that pass through this educational fortress with flying colors only to fail the only test that actually matters in the real word, life.
Parallel to my views as a student desperately trying to get a grasp on life after schooling, John Dewey believes that a curriculum based solely on the “three R’s” of education are “based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals”. In other words, in order for a democratic society to succeed, as well as the citizens in a democratic society, Dewey believes that education must revolve around “situations where problems are relevant to the problems of [society]”, rather than the countless hours students spend on book work they soon will forget.
In an article about the real issues about high school, Leon Botstein argues that many high school graduates “go on to college and realize what really is at stake in becoming an adult”, and are unprepared and “[many] opportunities have been lost and too much time has been wasted” towards starting their lives (Botstein 154). Besides, all modern high schools are used as is a stepping stone to the peak of students academic careers. High schools used to be “an institution intended for children in transition”, but “now holds young adults back well beyond the developmental point” to understand their future in a growing democratic society. Modern high school education is now turning into a handicap that does not offer any upside to the quickly maturing young adults that move on in life every year. Due to the way in which high schools educate their students, college for those who are advancing the meaningful life skills must regress down to the level of their peers.
Another flaw in the modern Unites States education system is the constant influx of unnecessary and meaningless standardized tests.

If schooling was used to its highest potential, then these pointless anxiety builders would be nullified, because practical learning for society has no standardized tests. In the real world, there are no scores given to you in order to separate the successful from the poor. These same tests also help high schools separate “gifted” students and those students who struggle academically. Programs like “Gateway To College” that garner students that “were all high school dropouts, kids who had walked out or been tossed out of their previous schools, kids with attitude problems, behavioral problems, drug or alcohol problems, [and] kids whose teachers and families had often marked them off as hopeless losers” may never exist without the constant guiding through of students in need (Broder 158). Programs alike the “Gateway To College”, also become quite successful in “[making] high school education more rigorous and ease the transition from high school to college or the workplace”, as 71 percent “successfully completed” the program (Broder 158-159). These same programs also further prove that high school students can successfully complete a course with a more societal-friendly

curriculum.
With the mass amount of technology displayed to me in high school, sometimes the basic rules proper English are abolished from my mind.

According to Todd Gitlin, he estimates, technology users see at minimum “160 short units of mass-mediated [messages] per day”, not including the many forms not associated with an hour of watching television (Gitlin 155-156). This outrageous exposure to many forms of disorderly media aimed towards the minds of sponge-like individuals, is unnecessary. Synthesize the number of computers in a high school and this leads to a classroom full of unwanted distractions. Even more prevalent, electronical assignments and due dates have come increasingly more powerful. Seldom do I go through a class period, let alone a whole school day, where I do not use my Chromebook. The growing influences in the way we use technology in a learning environment has become less helpful as technology

advances.
When asked if I am ready to continue my secondary education onto the real world, I am actually worrisome that I may fail the most meaningful test I will ever take like the countless stories I have heard. High school has long strayed from the democratic ideals of John Dewey and rather shifted in an unwarranted way towards useful, yet meaningless, curriculum that is presumed to guide us down the path to success. The education that we all believe should take us straight to our hopes and dreams, is ultimately setting us up to mass amounts of failure in the practical world. Society is changing, as well as high school, and furthermore the education in which young adults receive, and we must adapt to these continuously manipulated factors.