Today's Youth Ready For What's Next?

Despite schools technologically improving at a rapid pace, new learning techniques being incorporated into the education process, and the number of high school graduates rising annually; American students are not manifesting the capability required "tackle academe". Why are our children so often labeled incompetent? The answer lies in preparation, or the lack thereof. With lack or proper preparation come several problems which need to be addressed. The problems of apathy and incredible passivity toward schooling stem from the students' living environment, modern American outlook on education asserted by the media, and last but not least, the classroom.

The old adage "the problem begins at home" has proven true for American high school students and their lack of preparation for college. In today's world more than ever parents retard their children's growth through spoiling them with physical unmerited gifts and providing them with embellished images of flawlessness. While no parent wants to point out their child's flaws, over exaggerating their strengths has proven to be an unsuccessful way of helping them to succeed (Source E). However, undermining these strengths has proven unsuccessful also. While some students are brought up to believe that they belong on a pedestal, others grow up believing that they do not belong at all. These students have the mindset that they cannot accomplish those tasks necessary to be successful and with no one to steer them differently, they give up easily (Source A). Students today face other problems because they lack a sense of what is important (Source B). With many twenty-first century parents and the media portraying success as making quick money and having nice things, college simply does not fit into the glamorous lifestyle that many students hope to attain.

Students also find themselves constantly distracted by thing around the home. More than ever before, students have access to devices such as iPods, cell phones, personal computers and televisions. Utilization of these devices gives rise to the need to multi-task. Hence the ability of students to focus primarily on school work has become progressively worse. Multi-tasking has proven to be a successful method to getting more done in shorter periods of time which may allow some students to make better grades in school, but it also has a negative side. Multi-tasking allows students to temporarily retain the information via memorization. Studies show that by students not focusing completely on the tasks at hand, they are unable to gain any depth of knowledge on any one subject (Source C).

Lack of proper preparation can also be attributed America's distorted views on education in which the media plays more than a large role. Television and music more often than not play down education in today's society. As the media places labels like "nerd" and "geek" on those portrayed with high levels of intelligence, children are led to believe that being smart has a negative connotation. Much of this comes from the mentality that complying with authority makes you weak and dependant which may explain why when being portrayed by the media, "nerds" always get mauled or disrespected (Source D). Because of the improper values imposed upon students by society, many of them have learned to cheat "the system" and take the easy way out. With sayings like "it's not what you know, but who you know," it's no wonder America's children do not feel the need to work for what they want. Society depicts to students manipulation, not knowledge as the key to success in life. This also leads students to believe that college is just an unnecessary stress when in fact the odds of achieving the attractive, lavishly rich lifestyle without college are sixty percent less than they are with college (Source D).

Being only few of many, problems in the classroom take the most charge for the state and condition of today's