I’ve been thinking a lot about school the past few days. Because, for as long as I can remember, the point of school has always been about performing.
And I don’t say this lightly. Every decision we’ve ever had to make as students – quite literally starting in the fifth grade, if not earlier – and every action we’ve taken in school has been to optimize our college applications and make us perform and look better.
In fifth and sixth grade, it was conversations about taking harder math classes. In seventh and eighth grade, discussions on the number of high school credits you can get in middle school. In ninth grade, maxxing out the number of AP classes you can take. In tenth and eleventh grade, finding a way to balance those dozens of APs with studying for the SAT and winning awards at competitions.
The last class I remember taking, just for fun, was Animation in 7th grade… during online school.
Even as far as the classes themselves go, it’s never truly been about the learning – instead, the focus has always been on performing well, whether that’s on the EOC in April or the AP exam in May.
It all feels like we’ve lost the plot.
Yes, school is about preparing for college and getting ready for the future, but it is just as much about education. And lately, it feels as if we spend more time ensuring that we know how to do stuff, rather than actually understanding that stuff.
A few months ago, I was talking to someone about physics and they asked me a question about the friction an object on a ramp would experience as opposed to a flat surface, something we learn early on in AP Physics 1. My first instinct? Reaching for the formula for friction for an object on a ramp: μmgcosθ.
I ended up confusing myself and getting the wrong answer because I chose a memorized formula over thinking with common sense.
Another example – currently in AP Government, we’re talking about the way the different branches of the government. Last week specifically, we talked about the inner workings of Congress, how different committees work, the purpose of the Calendar Committee, you get the gist.
I took a dozen pages of notes on the topic, watched all the EdPuzzles, and read all the articles. And yet, as we prepare for an FRQ on the topic on Friday, I can barely remember one new thing I was to have “learned” beyond vague definitions. Instead, my understanding of all these processes comes from what I observed at Youth and Government and learned at a district legislative committee – places where we learned to learn, not to perform.
And that’s the difference.
As a senior looking back on my last four years in high school, all I see is memorization and tests. All I remember is staring at pages of notes and worksheets full of formulas and struggling to recognize the meaning behind any of it.
I’m not going to blame the entire issue on college, nor am I going to pin it on standardized testing. I’m not going to pretend like it’s easy or – at this point in our lives – worth it to put learning over grades. And I am most definitely not going to pretend to be absolved of all involvement and guilt.
But what I am going to say is that in a world where information is available at our fingertips, where facts and formulas can be Googled and historical events ChatGPT-ed, it’s not the things we memorize that will equip us to succeed.
It’s the skills we learn and the ability to recognize that there’s More to the Story than the letters and numbers on the page. It’s the tiny efforts to prioritize true understanding and learning over settling for an A on a test, a 5 on an AP exam, and a “welcome to the Class of 2030” from your college of choice. Most of all, it’s the understanding of our world – and the people who share it with – we develop along the way.
