Health: High School and Students Essay

Submitted By c-cco
Words: 808
Pages: 4

American Education “Bug” Nelson Mandela stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” In 2013, about 65 countries’ students took the PISA test; unexpectedly, in the PISA test results, American students dropped behind many countries, but Shanghai’s students were crowned. By-standers see more than gamesters. As a international student, I am educated by different systems of the two countries, and I think there are three problems in American education: American don’t care about students’ grades as much, students have too little school time, and teachers and parents give the students too much confidence. First of all, American should be concerned about students’ grades. From the article “Fear of Heights,” Bob Chase states that most parents, teachers and students think extracurricular activities are more important than academic achievements. The current situation, more American will concern their children’s social skills instead of grades, I have personal experience: three years ago, I was trying to apply to American high school, so I spent all day long to study English and never hung out with my friends or joined any school clubs. After all the effort, I got really good grades and I had confidence to apply to a good high school. However, I was rejected by most high schools that I applied to, for the reason I didn’t join any clubs and they thought my social skills are inadequate. Then I came to America and I found sociality is really important for American students, academic achievements were not the definition about good student any more and I kind of like that, because that means I don’t have to speed my whole day to study. Instead, I can go out and meet more new friends and play sports, that make my life more colorful. But, most Americans are more concerned about student’s social skills instead of the academic achievements, this is also a reason why American student drop behind many countries. In my opinion, if you are a full-time student, you have to put academic achievements on the most important position. This is not about which country you are from or live in, school is somewhere you can get knowledge from, so during your school time, you need learn as much as you can, it will help you a lot when you try to find a job and competition with others. Hence Americans should concern their children’s grade more than sociality. Secondly, American school’s calendar should change to a full day. In the article “Teenagers in Dreamland,” Robert Samuelson states that American students have lost the reason for hard working because they and their parents are already satisfied with their current outcomes. In a psychological perspective, if something takes people most of time to do it, people will put it in an important position consciously, therefore if American school’s calendar change to full day, students will pay more attention to study instead of part-time job, parties and cars. If students spend 8 hours in school, their parents will reduce lot of stress about find baby sister to their kids or summer Camps, it also reduce the money stress of the parents. A