Department of Education,
Aloha! My group and I are sophomores that attend Moanalua High School and we are writing to you folks to discuss an issue that we all feel is important for the sake of our own lives as well as other students. Each of us value education and constantly strive to be better students with the help of the teachers here at Moanalua as well as the great environment and community within our school. We feel that our school is one of the best public schools to be attending because of the statistics that have proven our schools’ success in education. We are proud menehunes of Moanalua High School.
Here at moanalua we have CAP classes that stand for ‘Career and Planning’. These classes are once a week and average around an hour l
ong. Within CAP we learn about ourselves and take many tests and surveys to see what our personal strengths, weaknesses, and interests are. The purpose of this class is in hopes that we will know more about what we want to be in the future and also what direction we are heading in. We have discussed colleges, made practice college application letters, learned how to write resumes, and job applications as well as many other things. One hour out of the week, we learn things that are actually really important for us to know how to do as adults and even then, there is still a long list of things that we do not know how to do. Which leads us to the topic of why we are writing this letter.
In school, we learn about core subjects such as Math, Science, History, and English. These subjects are the basics of life, at least that is what our education system has made seem like. In math we learn about Pythagorean Theorems, how to solve for x, algebra, geometry, trig, calculus and so on. In Science we learn about the gravitational pull on earth, how force fields affect a positive charge when put into a charged field, chemicals, and how to dissect . In History we learn about the Civil Rights movements and wars that occurred way before we were even thought of. Lastly in English, we learn how to structure our essays, how to analyze an excerpt, and how to read a book and interpret it from different types of perspectives. These are great things to be educated about but we do not learn things that we need to know as adults. Example, according to thoughtcatalog.com, adults should know how to pay bills, do taxes, how to get your car checked for maintenance, how to start a savings account etc. Thing such as these should be taught as necessity for our students to know before adulthood.
Learning about core subjects is very important for it teaches us things that we would need to know. Although many times students become discouraged and frustrated with learning things that they will not need in the future. By knowing what is your strengths and weaknesses with or without the personality and interests tests, students should not be required to take courses that are not necessary for their future career. If the student should change their minds after high school and switch careers, then they will need to just take the wanted course of major in college. We feel that the high school structure should be more like the way of college. In college, you take the courses that are vital and important towards your career. If you are going to major in Engineering, you would most definitely take a math course but it would not be needed for you to take an english class but instead maybe a science course. Planning accordingly to ones future plans saves time as well as energy because it will not make them feel like they are learning something totally useless for their future. Many times student say, “We won’t even need this in the future” and many times it can be proven true.
Students would still be required to take these core classes but standards should be lowered and the amount of things that are taught should be lessened and what is most general and most needed for multiple careers should be taught. We as a high school would still need to meet requirements but standards should be lower and the amount of concepts should be lessened so that students get more time to learn and perfect a certain topic. With all due respect, this is our protest against school courses and high school requirements. Thank you for your time and consideration.
