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Depression. Suicide. Stress...

These are not words you want to associate with youthful minds and your precious children; yet these conditions are being forced upon us, by the compulsory education system with which we have to conform. One in three teenagers suffer chronic stress due to the high standards of work they are required to meet unless they want to be considered ‘stupid’. I believe that school puts a huge amount of unnecessary pressure on children and doesn’t benefit the young in the way it was first intended. 

Every single human being has a skill that they can excel at. Despite constantly being told that we are unique, at school, the population’s intelligence is all being measured by the same tests, the same routines, and the same procedures. School is an institution to educate children, but why do we have to be tested? Why do we have to be compared to each other when we are all individuals? Rather than broadening our knowledge, I think that our intelligence is being restrained. We only get the opportunity to learn what the government wants us to learn. They only want us to learn what they think will benefit them, benefit the country, benefit the economy. The facts and figures that are drilled into our head, only later to be regurgitated onto a test paper, are just things to help the government. Students of today’s generation are just products in a factory that are being manufactured to comply with society.

Learning is supposed to be fun. Learning through fun is effective. Unfortunately, we don’t learn for enjoyment, we learn to pass the tests, because surely once we can solve quadratic equations and discuss alliteration, we have a bright future ahead of us, we are destined for success? That’s what I’ve been told. As long as I fully understand all of Shakespeare’s thoughts and decipher everything he ever imagined, I’m set up for life. Once I’ve got that GCSE, I can achieve anything; we are continuously told this yet we all know that’s not the case. Why should my ability to analyse a man’s language, that I find incomprehensible, determine my future?  Why am I learning how he thought rather than how to think for myself? 

We should be taught how to think, not what to think. The period in our lives when we learn the most is when we are babies. We taught ourselves to talk, walk, discover – learning was fun. You were at the peak of your intelligence before you were swallowed into the system. Now learning is about exams, coursework, essays, just so you can be a better person than the next.  We care too much about what people think; we only follow what society says because we don’t know how to think for ourselves. We don’t know how to be creative, how to be individual, how to use our minds, because all we are taught, is that grades are imperative to our success. 

There is more than one type of intelligence. If you ask a fish to climb a tree, it’s going to live its whole life thinking it’s dumb.  Just because I may not get an A* Physics GCSE, why should I be considered less intelligent than someone that will? I think people should stop wasting time abiding by the education system to impress society. Instead we should be utilising our skills and experimenting with our individual intelligence.  After all,  all we are left with is a few qualifications related to  things we didn’t even want to know. Do the things that make you happy, and don’t feel pressured to conform to society. Everyone is intelligent and has the ability to be successful – you just have to discover how.