The problem with America's Schools

Please bear in mind that I mean nothing personal, and that it is a year old.
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The Problem With America?s School System
By Spy

It would be a great relief to believe that the average American highschool is a safe place for students to learn and grow. The idea that school is a place of learning and knowledge is the basic principal that schools were first founded on. Schools should be firm stepping stones for children while on their quest for knowledge. It only takes one bullet blasting down the hall to disprove the classic image of a school and replace it with the current and real image: A battle zone. Students are not competing for grades, but rather, to stay alive. There is one force at work here, and it is man-made. The culprit is not a gun, or anything that exists in the concrete world, for that matter. This feeling or idea is more deadly than any bullet or bomb ever could be. Popularity is the virus that infects America?s schools, and this virus is killing the school system, and in effect, America as well.
Popularity is a nurturer and an eliminator. Popularity decides where students fit in the rigorous caste system that is created by the students themselves and by the teachers that support, knowledgeably or not, popularity. Popularity cannot conventionally be destroyed, not that many would want to obliterate the feeling anyways. Many students are addicted to popularity because they feel that popularity empowers them and makes them feel important and loved. Other students are at the undesirable end because they are not popular material. These students are hated, mocked, and harassed by the ?popular? kids because that is how the force of popularity rewards those chosen few. Popularity is paid back by evil and discriminative deeds and popularity demands to be paid back often.
Popularity hashes and schisms the student population of a high school. The groups, or castes, that are formed by the schism are numerous, each with their own rituals, practices, and beliefs. The common factions include the Jocks, the Conformers(Whore, Wannabe, Groupie sub-gangs), the Middlemen, the Nerds, and the Anti-Socials(Skater, Punk, Rebel, and Nonconformist parties). These special interest groups have their own alliances and enemies in the highschool war. Each group is complex and separate, and popularity affects each caste differently.
The Jock group consists of mindless, yet charismatic and egotistical meatheads that crave the taste of power that popularity gives them. The Jocks are the most ruthless and barbaric caste. The current school system caters to the Jocks most. The Jocks are popular for one real reason: They are good at sports. Jocks defend a school?s honor, pride, and reputation against meaningless rival schools. The football field is where popularity nurtures the jocks. The school system by itself is damaging to the learning process in a school.
The school system favors a good throwing arm over a high IQ. The system speaks for itself when deserving honor roll students that do not play sports get their name in a paper and Jocks that win a football game get an hour long assembly where everyone has to show them respect. Schools aren?t measured by their academic accomplishment, but by how their sports teams measure in the local area rankings. Full-ride scholarships are given to athletes far more often than to students that will not play on one of that university?s sports teams. School is more into the sports than the books, and tax money is wasted on new uniforms and helmets when it should be spent on new books, computers, and other tools of learning.
Jocks, being set up by both the system and popularity are brutal and they blatantly abuse the power that accompanies their undeserved stature. Jocks make everything a popularity contest, and people are damaged, emotionally obliterated, killed, or retaliate with deadly measures of their own. The Jock caste is a prime example of popularity?s poison and stranglehold. The Jocks demonstrate why popularity needs to be removed from America?s school system better than any other student faction.
Jocks, as in the world of sports, need and build teams up around them for support. This ?team? is simply called the Conformists. The Conformists are no better than a flock of sheep, and they overwhelm all opposition by mere numbers and the support of the always nearby Jocks. This group consists of the groupies, prostitutes, and wannabe students. Popularity blesses the Conformists by making them feel like a member of ?The Team.? Popularity gives the Conformists fake and superficial feelings of love and importance from the caste that they support, the Jocks. Conformists are no better, but are more cowardly than their companion Jocks. Conformists will really only strike out when a Jock is attacking a member of a lower group and it looks like the Jock will win.
Conformists best resemble swarming insects with the Jocks as the Queen Bug. Conformists rarely have a mind or an opinion of their own and exist merely to serve and please those in power. Popularity makes this caste the back-up for the Jocks merely because the Jocks need the support of a time to strike out and give them confidence. The loyalty of the Conformists gives the deceitful image that Jocks have a natural leadership ability, when in fact no leadership qualities exist. This sets up incompetent leaders in the adult world and there is hard evidence today, if you accept to see it.
The middleman caste employs what their name means. These students are in the middle of a conflict. Students in this caste are not picked out by popularity because there is nothing special about them, or they are ignorant of the ensuing battle around them. This caste is the majority, but it?s members are loosely affiliated with each other. The middleman has friends from each of the castes, but is strongly influenced by both the Jock and Conformist parties. Members rarely interact with members of the lower-castes at the cost of being contaminated and shunned by the force of popularity. Middlemen have little to do in the game popularity plays, and this group is the one most untouched by popularity.
Nerds are the scapegoat of a highschool. The Nerd caste is an outlet for rage and frustration by the upper castes. Nerds often have tastes and qualities that are considered undesirable, like being smart. The Nerds are targeted by popularity and popularity feeds off their demise. Nerds rarely stand up for themselves and accept their oppression as a fact of life. Nerds are used by Jocks and Conformists for their intellect and brilliance. Nerds are the minority and are the most harassed of all the castes. Nerds usually stick together with little or no mingling with the other groups. Popularity uses the Nerds as a battery to support it?s dark power.
The last caste, the Anti-Socials, are the most hated and feared group. They don?t take as much punishment as the Nerds for one reason: Anti-Socials fight back. This caste doesn?t buy into the team mentality that most of the other castes worship and practice. Most Anti-Socials want to see a change and think differently. They are idealists and are infamous for asking ?Why?.? Anti-Socials are Skaters, Punks, and Anarchists. Anti-Socials aren?t afraid to fight the Jocks or the system and are an unpredictable variable. Anti-Socials as a whole view school as a waste of time and are held together by the threat of a common enemy. Anti-Socials are seen as scum and a threat by Jocks and are treated as so by the basic student population in a school.
Anti-Socials are what feeds popularity the most be being the largest target of conflict
between castes. Anti-Socials aren?t popular because they don?t conform with students and aren?t willing to whore any part of themselves. This group values their individuality highly and could care less what others think about them. Popularity is the Anti-Social?s greatest enemy, and he has to face it everyday when in the school environment. This makes the Anti-Socials the strongest of all the factions.
Teachers usually support the force of popularity, knowingly or not. Teachers will look at the classic Jock and see the person that they had idolized when they were in highschool. Teachers will mistake the need forged by popularity for the Jock to have a team and the Conformists to need a Jock as true leadership. On top of that, most teachers are somewhat involved in the sports system at their highschool and reward those who uphold the school?s honor and purge those who don?t do anything extracurricular and ?disrupt? the system. Another reason teachers are at fault is that most teachers are not qualified for their jobs. Most teachers enjoyed their highschool years and come back to teach so that they can relive those lost years. Teachers can?t be all that bright anyways to accept a job that ?is so hard but pays so little? as quoted by most teachers. Teachers are just as counter-productive to a decent education as popularity itself.
There are many ways to combat popularity. The Anti-Socials and the Nerds pay little attention to it, and thus they don?t let popularity have much control over them as an individual. Another good way to fight is to surrender completely, and let popularity run it?s course, like the Middlemen. Or you don?t have to fight it, you can embrace it and reap the rewards, if you qualify, like the Jocks and Conformists. There is one good and untested method that could eliminate popularity altogether.
The removal of school organized sports from the system could do nothing but good. Removing sports would eliminate the largest factor for popularity. If you can?t play sports what?s the point of being any good at them? Removing sports would make school more academic and less barbaric. People would actually be able to learn something and worthiness would be determined by your academic prowess, not physical strength. Deleting sports defeats the need for sports equipment and eliminates the waste of funds on non-essential materials not relevant to a school environment. Removal of sports could eliminate meaningless school rivalries that are at the cause for numerous crimes.
If sports went away so would the entire caste system. With no Jocks there are no Conformists and no Anti-Socials. The Nerds wouldn?t be so weird any more and the Middlemen wouldn?t be in the middle of anything. The removal of sports could very well destroy the school shooting fad that is sweeping our nation by storm. With no sports America?s schools wouldn?t be the weak link in America?s chain. We as human beings with the power to reason must stand up and realize that the threat to our well being doesn?t come from guns, but popularity. Stand up and say no to sports. Just say NO!

Interesting opinion there Spy...
I could type a page or two rhetorical but I've got this nagging thing called a job and it requires my time during the day, hehe.

I would just like to say one thing however about the classifications of Jocks in general. Yes there is a certain Clique of "Jocks" who do show that popularity and conformity are often times demeaning to others. However you can not classify them as a whole. Within the "jocks" are anti socials, nerds, pot heads (sometimes, darn random drug testing) etc.

I think many times sports can help a troubled person find some sort of satisfaction and goal to obtain.

I think "Labeling" is more of a problem to be honest. Most cultures have some sport or physical activity incorperated in their system and I dont see this a basis for reasoning. If anything its just culture and where people put their priorities.

Bigest problem in American society? Its called the Blame Game. We too often look for lenthy explanations of how and why something went bad or some reason to blame others for what has been done when so often the answers can be found in ourselves.

No one is what people say they are...unless you believe them.

The caste system that you've described isn't created by sports - it's a product of feeble-minded American youth who have been corrupted by societal expectations of the American Way. They've been brought up to idolize their screwed up heroes - The Mark McGuires that take the easy way out to x number of home runs in a season by juicing it to the top with a synthetic fix; ah, but all that doesn't matter because McGuire can draw the crowd who brings the money. They've latched onto twisted goals - becoming the president of the united states (i'm weird, i think rulership should be handed to someone that doesn't lust after power), or miss america (ugh! I prefer a woman with a complete set of ribs, thanks); but that doesn't matter, either, because sex and politics sell, too.
Whatever... I'm a geek. I like my corny books, I like a good game of squash. My heroes are humanists. I'm proud to have lived outside the labeling system in high school, but still saddened by the fact that I lost the student council vice-presidency to a popularity game in which people living within the labeling/caste system held the majority of the votes. Stop being sheep. Punks, skaters, jocks, nerds, whatever... sheep.
People are shooting each other because others have forgotten how to be sensitive to each others' needs.
As for vaunted intelligence... Are you assuming that the shooters are smart? If the kids that are shooting other people are feeble-minded enough to go through with a quick fix like that, I can hardly think how intelligent they are.

hmm...
First off I want to say you hit that popularity theme right on the head... this essay is only good to explain this stuff to adults. To HS children this stuff is painfully obvious, I don't believe parents know what their children feel like when they go to bed.

But in high school I don' tthink the jocks ruled with such a iron fist. Grade school (kindergarten through 8th grade) god damn they were little hittlers. I'm consciosly repressing memories about those years, I'm sure its broken alot of people. And I mean broken and deal with it for the rest of your life never get over it type of broken.

I'm sure its made alot of people anti social, and I don't mean in a freakish way like punk hair colors and leather jackets. I mean the people who go to school because they have to, but while they have to be there they avoid communication with others as much as possible. They aren't smart, but will get called nerds anyway. In the 3 high schools I did attend, the smart people like class presidents student councils were are very very popular. They did have just as much charisma and adoration as the jocks. They were also the teachers pet. I know they would let them get away with sleeping in the class and asked their opinions by teacher in front of the class as if they were extra special.


Its sad that today in america, sexual harrassment, outright verbal abuse, profanity, physical battery, several forms of hazing and any other means of abuse is not tolerated in the work place, in public, in social areas...

but it is allowed to go on unchecked in schools where we send our children.

I cannot stress that this is something adults never know or willfully forget, but is painfully obvious to children. Adults have to hear it on the news before they believe it... (yet they say children with their videogames are the ones in danger of confusing the fantasy on tv with reality).

Lastly one thing I think you should have mentioned was hazing, explicitly state it not just undertone it. Every child knows that this goes on alot, and it goes on to demean, degrade and break down a child to his breaking point...
then push him past his point for the amusement of others.

the other problem with schools is that they only teach how to follow rules, they're building employees little more. I attend UCLA where I met mental giants, who would tell me "I'm going to be a doctor" or "I'm going to be a engineer, lawyer, graphic artist..." etc.

But on the mouths and lips on everysingle student were the words "I'm going to be a good employee..."

my problem with your assumption is exactly this, school is a place for growth and development not just learning and that cutting the sports program for all of the high schools in america is at very least a backwards answer to a forwards problem the recent rash of shooting in american high schools is a problem with lack of nurtureing and proper growth that were not inspired by sports programs, but by human nature's tendancy to react violently when something dosent go their way. The students whom commited these crimes had the tendency to be labled "dorks" but i think there pent up frustration could have be avoided if they had proticipated in sports and learned that when you lose you shouldnt shoot up the student body...