Editorial: We’ve been ‘schooled’ by the education system

Imagine the restless student: he gets four hours of sleep a night, participates in countless extracurriculars, plays a sport, and of course, maintains that sparkling, shiny 4.0 GPA.

Some of us wish to be him, some of us are.

How did this student—the one with no rest or time for joy—become the embodiment of academic success? The short answer is, he didn’t. He became a sign that we’ve turned a blind eye to one of America’s many failures. Our country builds it’s schools up ever so proudly, but the reality is, we’ve been tricked into backing the not-soeducational American education system.

Whether it be an outdated AP African American studies curriculum, high exam fees, or an alleged monopoly on education, College Board has faced a large share of disputes. Even in the midst of this controversy, we submit to the chaos, studying and working ourselves to death to get the grades, pass the Advance Placement (AP) tests, and build our resumes. We love to hate it, but remind ourselves it’s the only option because if the all-knowing College Board asks, we deliver.

College Board tells us that AP classes will make us “stand out” to colleges, but truth ends there. They say they are “for everyone” when a class with little intellectual freedom, a rigorous environment, and a cumulative test at the end is clearly not, in fact, for everyone. But still, under the notion that they will paint admissions the perfect picture in our applications, students will inevitably overload themselves because success is the precursor to college, and college is supposedly the precursor to success.

We say that the rigorous classes we take, even those beyond the AP curriculum, to stand out from the thousands of other applicants help us in the long run, but often at the expense of classes we truly want to take. Whether we sacrifice a creative class for advanced math, or free time for an extra class, a dent in our educational liberty is made to appease the higher-ups in admissions. Yes, we adapt to the academic burdens that high school bears, but at the risk of becoming a cog in the College Board machine.

Our teachers tell us to relax and do what's best for us, we nod our heads, then quietly set ourselves up for failure. Even professors see the drawbacks. In an interview with Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education about whether AP couses are all they are cracked up to be, she explains, “Colleges don’t always accept the courses for college credit, many students end up repeating the course in college anyway, and you can run the risk of memorizing material for a test versus delving into a subject and exploring it in an enriching way.”

Students who see through the College Board scheme have a peace of mind that eludes those of us who see a four-year college as our destiny. Whether leaving college behind is these students’ choice or not, they aren’t stuck on the treadmill of this so-called academic success generated by unhealthy habits.

The sleepless nights, brutal classes, and hours-long standardized tests—maybe we will be able to say it was all worth it when we get to whatever we deem a “good” college. However, can we say that what we’re learning now—ruthless study habits and a perpetual desire to succeed—we will be able to take with us?

This piece was written by Lucy Sanders on behalf of The Highlander Editorial Board. The cartoon was drawn by Urvi Kulkarni