There is a time in our high school career that we’ve wished we were already done with school. If you ask anyone about high school, it is very rare that someone would tell you they love it here. This stems from many different reasons all piling up together to make high school unpleasant.

The school system is outdated and reminiscent of factory-era assembly lines. Schools now still have characteristics of European education that emerged in the late 18th century that had a focus solely on producing results. Not on personal growth, and not educational growth. It seems as though there hasn’t been much change in the past three decades. As the years go by, there is also more and more pressure put on students to do well early, to know what they want out of life early, to get ahead, ahead, ahead. And that in and of itself is toxic.

Students feel the need to grab as many advanced classes as they can, regardless of whether they are ready or not, just for the sake of being considered a good student. The school puts an emphasis on challenging ourselves but often neglect the possibility of students having different challenges. AP and IB classes aren’t for everyone, and that’s not a bad thing. A student’s worth and intelligence shouldn’t be measured on how “hard” the classes are.

Those who decided to take advanced classes are often disappointed that they aren’t getting more substance out of their classes. There seems to be a focus on grades and classes and achievements as opposed to actual learning. I took AP government in my sophomore year to get a better grasp on the U.S government, but what I mostly got out of it was the ability to regurgitate lectures to score better on a test. Every class seems to be a chore and the desire for learning is watered down, if not completely extinguished, for the most part. It is quite obvious that the current structure isn’t working in favour of students, and so there needs to be a change.