Too often in our public schools we barrage our kids minds with useless, impersonal facts, dates, names, and events that
they have or at least don’t feel that they have, any connection with whatsoever. The idea behind this being that if the child is drilled with the information enough times that eventually they’ll remember it well enough to spit back at the next test. The problem with this philosophy is that while yes, maybe the student will remember the information long enough for the test next week, they’re going to forget it by the end of the month. Now you have a school full of students who all claim they hate American History cause they’ve taken if 5 times, yet if you ask them what year the civil war happened they’ll shrug and say “I dunno, whatever.” Now, in that class of students that took American History 5 times and hates history, you could have a child who has an extreme passion for history, only that kid is never going to know it.

For that student to realize their passion, they’re going to need to know a lot more than the date Abraham Lincoln was shot, or the name of the assassin. For a student to really remember anything about Lincoln's assassination, let alone understand it, you have to offer real world connections, relationships to the world that that child interacts with and lives through every day. If schools don’t to this, not only aren’t they going to inspire students to be interested in history, they’re going to extinguish any interest in history a student may have had before coming to the class, completely defeating the purpose of school altogether.

If subjects were taught, along with connections that students could identify with, you would instantly start to see more involved in depth conversations in classrooms, better more insightful papers and projects, and yes, you would even see better test scores because kids would better remember the information given to them.  Students, now with classes that felt more relevant to their lives, would be able to identify what subjects or topics they really feel strongly about, or that they feel really inspired by, or that they really get pumped about. This would help that individual decide what types of things their interested in, and, inadvertently, what career they’ll like to pursue.

A big problem in this country is that it’s so filled with people who don’t like the line of work they’re in, and would rather be doing something else. When you have people doing something as a job that they don’t like, it’s only natural they’re not going to be as enthusiastic or good at their job as someone who loves what they’re doing, therefore the job isn’t done as good as it potentially could be. If schools were to do a better job of helping students figure out what their passions are, then you’d have more people in lines of work that they actually enjoy and therefore have better qualified people doing those jobs making for a better overall country. Not to mention the depression rates of the country would be cut in half, cause we all know, the number one thing American’s are stressed about; work.

Overall I think if schools spent more time having class discussions about how things relate to their own lives, the individuals as well as the country as a whole would be a lot better off.