The Importance of High School

The Importance of High School High school is the final experience for students during their K-12 years. While many go on to college or technical school, high school represents the end of formal education for many students. High school also is a kind of “launching pad” into adult life. Students mature a great deal during these later teenage years, developing important work habits and attitudes as they become more independent. However, while many high schools give a good education, some things about the system are flawed. For example, I believe schools don’t motivate kids enough for further education or show career options for after high school. Also, many high schools don’t have systems to alert parents to a failing child until it’s too late.Obviously the modern school system has some successes and some failures, but what, if anything, can be done about it?
Firstly, high school is a good way to learn certain habits that lead to success in the adult world. One great habit commonly learned in high school is time management. Getting their "free" time under control now will help prepare students for managing those extra hours come freshman year of college, when they'll need to study and want to socialize more than ever. Using a daily planner is a good way to help achieve this control. Another important skill to learn is how to set goals, as long as they're attainable. Setting goals that are unreasonably high is a set-up for failure. A third life skill high school teaches is organization. Keeping yourself organized will save you valuable time and allow you to do everything that needs to be done. These are some of the “right” things that high school does.
Despite these good things, there are some shortcomings when it comes to individual student success. For example, when I was in high school I noticed that the only one there who seemed to care if I went to college was me. There wasn’t any kind of extra time spent on figuring out what college to go to, or even what career might be a good fit for someone. All we learned was what to do when we were in college or trade school. Needless to say, many of my peers, me included, didn’t feel very motivated to seek further education. Another problem I noticed in high school was poor communication between the faculty and the parents. The only communication was an optional open house for the parents and one midterm update on grades. If a student was failing a class, by the time his or her parents found out, it was usually too late to recover a decent grade. The only ways for a parent to get repeated communication with teachers was to harass them withe-mails or for a child to act out frequently. I believe that if these problems of motivation and communication had been addressed, it would have made for a much better high school experience for me.
So, what can be done to fix these issues in the schools? Well, for starters, faculty could be made responsible to incorporate career readiness like providing information on jobs that students might be interested in. This information could include job duties, salary, required education, and job demand which could easily be found on the internet and shared with students in a computer lab to see for themselves. Most importantly, students who like any of the jobs covered should be helped to figure out which college or trade schoolhas the best programs for the field of their choice. The other gripe with my high school experience was lack of communication. I believe this is a simple fix. Say a kid is on the fence in a class and starts getting a failing grade. The teacher should have to send multiple notices to the parents during the time this student is failing to hopefully motivate him or her to get a passing grade. I don’t think this is too much to ask of teachers; in fact, they owe it to their students to do everything in their power to help them succeed.
In conclusion, high school is an important time in the lives of students, where they learn many skills to help them succeed beyond high school. However, this often isn’t enough. Students must be given information on choices that will affect the rest of their lives. Also, good communication between teacher and parent is a key way to helping a failing student pass a class. All of these improvements could easily be done with some extra effort from the teachers and administration.