These are all the questions students are not asked often about and yet they are the ones who feel the aftermath the most. These decisions are left on someone who barely has any touch with students or one school day. The kids are thrown in schools like in cages and expected to shape their life, dreams and hopes around some numbers. It is a common known fact that many students suffer from stress and depression due to too much pressure they feel in school. If children are really the ones the world will be left on, why do people in charge keep doing this?
The first thing I would like to change in our education system and I am sure many of my fellow students would too, is the pressure we all face during the finals. It is all caused by the fact we are aware that that one number can change everything we have worked so hard for a whole year. Even though they say this is the best period of life, many students would not agree since we do not actually get a single day off without worrying how we did on our last exam or are we well prepared for the next one. We go to school every day faced with the fact that one wrong word, one moment of lack of concentration or even a professor in a bad mood could change our options in the future.
Speaking about professors – that is another thing I would like to change. Not all teachers are bad but I do think there is certainly much more space for improvement. So many teachers are there just for the paycheck and I do not really know whether they aware that they are the ones impacting young students' lives the most. We spend most of our day with them and we are not learning just about the subject. We, as undefined young personalities, have the habit of taking their way of thinking and moral standards. I think that teachers should only be the ones who truly enjoy working with children and are really passionate about the subject they are teaching. I do not think that one piece of paper should be enough to let those people into children's lives. All teachers should be tested based on their ability to teach (really teach – not just throw a fact after a fact into students' faces) and the ability to solve problems their students may confide to them.
Next, in my ideal school, I would like to change the subjects we are taking every year. History, biology, geography and so on can come in handy sometimes but students should not feel such a burden when it comes to these or any other subject. I do admit it would be a shame if young people did not know anything about their anatomy, history etc. That is why the basics of these subjects should be included in regular curriculum so if the students like that subject they can take it as an extra subject next year along with the regular subjects. So every year students are required to take about 8 regular subjects and 4-5 extra subjects they are especially interested in and can see themselves working a job related to that.
Students should be assessed not just by their score in exams or assignments but also through the effort they put in the class, the respect they show to teachers and class as a whole. Not everybody has the same ability when it comes to adopting new knowledge so the teachers should be there to show them the best way to do it and not take it as their fault if they fail trying to do so as long as they give their best try.
Education, not just in ours, but in many other countries, can be pretty expensive so many children have to give up their dreams just because they are not able to pay for the studies. I do not think that is fair. Some kids who work hard can’t achieve their maximum due to lack of financial funds. I think education should be free on all levels since it is a basic human right.
Schools must have 0% tolerance to bullying and priority should be teaching kids nice behavior and compassion for others. The school should be place everybody can enjoy. It should encourage children’s creativity and logical thinking. It must not try to fit them into boxes or pressure them to follow one worn path. Every person is talented for at least one thing and the main job of schools should be to discover that talent in everybody and work on improving it. The government should invest more in education because in that way they are investing in the future of all of us.
Ehlimana Ćesić, II 4