As a 16-year-old teenager, I hate school. Many kids hate school because it is boring or because there’s too much work. I hate school because the education system isn’t right. The government decides what schools do and do not teach. The school system hires teachers who teach only for a check, and teach kids to pass a test, not to learn for the sake of knowledge. School is a place where kids stress over studying and memorizing material for a test, to pass a class so they can graduate high school, to go to college, to stress over studying again and memorizing for a test to pass a class so they can graduate in hopes of getting a career they have to go to every day so they can support their family by paying the bills for their home and their food in hopes of getting all their social security money back when they retire at the age of 62 to 67. How ironic how you get to live off your retirement money and be free at the same age the average person dies of old age which is 65 and older according to the nation’s health protection agency, the CDC. 

I understand the school works on a system provided by the government. I also understand Math, History, Biology, etc, are very important subjects and are pivotal to learn and understand the fundamentals. However, the student needs to decide if he or she should advance in that particular subject. Why teach a subject one will soon forget when you can teach a subject that strongly connects to someone and will actually teach them something they will remember instead of having them stress over a test in a subject they hate? One of the greatest minds in history, Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” So why are we learning subjects that most likely don’t consider interesting or serious material; I thought school was an institution for the purpose of educating children? Yet there are kids who graduate High School with a 4.0 GPA just to remember nothing. We spend over fourteen years of our life in school…that’s over in 122,640 hours. With that much time, I would assume everyone would be very educated…but that’s not the case.  I know so many kids who lack basic Math skills, basic English skills and are not curious about the world we live in; school is supposed to educate students but it’s doing the exact opposite. It’s causing kids to hate learning, to think exactly how the school wants you to, and that is not right. We live in a society where people see education as a duty, not a passion. We live in a society where education kills wonder, curiosity, and the love of knowledge. We live in a society where our country tells us we have freedom to do whatever we want, if so, then everybody would be happy. If we lived in a free country people would be painters, philosophers, explorers, and horse riders. We would do or be whatever we wanted but we can’t because most of our deep passions don’t make us money.

 They tell us the illusion that we don’t have to go to college but if you don’t go to college you won’t have a good job, so you have to take multiple loans out just to pay for your classes, just to be in a lifetime debt. Schools are designed to make you an employee, even teachers say,” You won’t get a job if you are always late or you don’t behave in class.” Why don’t you think schools don’t teach you about money? Or how to pay your bills? Because the school programs you to be an employee, not a CEO. For example, Elon Musk hated school and he didn’t go to college and look at him now, a multi-billionaire who created PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. He did all these amazing things because he understood how the system works, he understood how the education system does not teach you to fulfill your passions so he learned outside of school and he isn’t the only person. There are many very successful people who didn’t go to college. Don’t get me wrong school is a brilliant idea, it keeps order, and gives students a place to go. If there was no school, violence and crime would increase significantly. School gives order and keeps kids busy, but school should teach kids that learning and educating themselves is important and taking failure is a lesson that must be learned. Instead of pressuring kids to not fail a class for getting some answers wrong, as if we are some sort of lab rat getting tased for getting an answer wrong and getting a treat if we answer correctly, which is not right, they must teach kids that they have potential to do great things in the world. But these kids lack motivation because they feel they are stupid because they constantly get F’s or D´s for simply not being perfect as the school expects you too. School does not define your intelligence, it simply defines your ability to memorize and be repetitive.

One time a “friend” of mine made fun of me for reading a book;  that is the society we live in. Where self-education is looked at as a joke or being a “nerd”. If you don’t obey you go to jail, you don’t pass a test you fail, you don’t believe in God you go to “Hell”, we live in a system ruled by fear. The education system needs to teach kids what really matters, but at the end of the day you can’t escape it because if we fail our classes we can not graduate. We need to graduate to at least get a job, there are few people who find a job they love but most people hate their job. They only work because of money, not passion, which is sad. I know so many teachers who don’t care or hate their job or are like robots simply doing their job with no passion, no heart for the job at all. The school system was literally created for the intention of programming kids to work in factories, which was created in the 17th century and that is a fact. 

I hope one day people realize they’re all slaves to the system and all the government wants is for you to be an employee to help their business grow. They don’t care about your feelings, your passions, your dreams, all they care about is you helping them get wealthier. I hope one day people will realize that money comes and goes…but knowledge stays forever. Julius Caesar once said, ”Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.”