According to Merriam Webster, to "Educate. Verb: To give someone information about something: To train someone to do something." In a commercial released by "The Critical Media Project," two cashiers are conversing with one another. "I can't go out tonight, my parents say I have to be home right after work," says the first of the girls. "That's so gay!" says the second. But gay is not the correct word here. Gay's true essence has been dulled into a blear for some time now. "Curiosity. Noun: The desire to learn or know more about something or someone." states the Merriam Webster Dictionary. If education is to train and to industrialize, and curiosity is the desire to learn something, what defines true knowledge? Is smart merely a coined term for a well-trained dog? Society's misunderstanding of the difference between the verb and noun for of the word "school" in similar to our demonstrably fixed definition for phrases like"that's so gay." 

School is a necessity for every country, especially the one I root for because it creates an opportunity for better lives. According to The Teacher's College at Columbia University, "Increasing the high school completion rate by just 1 percent for all men ages 20-60 would save the U.S. 1.4 billion dollars a year that would otherwise be spent fighting crime." Not only does this save the U.S. money, but Columbia University Teacher's College also found that "A 1 year increase in average years of schooling reduces murder and assault by almost 30%, motor vehicle theft by 20%, arson by 13%, and burglary by 6%." I once heard that the prediction of jail beds that will be needed in the near future is predicted by first grade reading scores. Without an "education," it is harder to find a job. Unemployment correlates with poverty, and poverty is a mere precursor for crime. Without schools, crime rates would skitter to an all time high, but this is not to say that schools don't bereave students of further obtainment. Of true knowledge. Of an exploration to find meaning and life's answers books and phrases that were written by the pioneers before us. 

A high school education has kept many out of trouble, including me. A diploma significantly increased the chance that I find a job one day. With this said, if I end up obtaining a college degree this chance will only be amplified. Schools are needed, but the necessary evil of the system in place is not. Education itself is not what prevents crime. Knowledge of prison doesn't tether its holder far from it. Crime is not a choice, it is a requirement of the poor if they want to fill their stomachs and have a pillow to put beneath their child's head. What truly prevents crime is the 4.5 gram paper that a person receives at the end of school. Only 4.5 grams in weight, but the degree is much more hefty than it sounds. In fact, just these 4.5 grams can bolster a family of 5, bring warmth to one's hands and feet, and summon life saving medical treatment. It is nothing less than 4.5 grams of magic. According to study.com, if you earn your high school diploma you make around $40,350 a year, if you earn your Bachelor's degree you will make an average of $66,150 a year, and if you earn a Professional Degree, you will earn around $116,350 a year. These summations of 5 and 6 figures are decided by only two, 4.5 grams. Schools succeed in presenting material to everyone, but each student sprouts from a different kind of soil.

"The whole art of teaching is to awaken the natural curiosity of young minds." -Anatole France. Anatole was a French poet, journalist, and novelist in Paris. He had many best selling books before dying in 1924. Curiosity, the desire to learn or know more about something or someone cannot be taught. You cannot teach an essence or a nature. You cannot push a bird from a ledge and expect it to fly. Curiosity is fleeting and uncontrolled, it is a bright white dwarf scintillating across the sky. These days, especially in the public school system, schools tell our heads where to look. They write out the path of our nature's exploration which is an oxymoron by itself.  Curiosity has no rubric. You can't tell everyone to desire to learn the same thing just as you can't tell your heart who to love. You just love what you do. School will never be an incantation, we need to be allowed to love the knowledge that we naturally do. According to everytownresearch.org, "Since the Sandy Hook shooting, there have been 94 more school shootings," an average of nearly 1 per week. Many have ceased, many are currently in fear, and further, many have a knowledge that more are likely to come. Hundreds have died in school. Deaths inflicted by violence and enmity, but I believe that guns aren't the biggest threat to the lives of students. There is a silent killer lurking amongst our school system. We have all been nourished with its poison from the first bell of classes. With all due respect to those that have passed and the families affected, I believe that the red pen has killed many more students over time. The reason we haven't noticed these deaths is because a ceased mind still tends to a breathing body, a facade that hides student's malnourishment. Millions of minds have been sung to sleep since our industrial school system was put in place. The fear of a red F is more than enough to send a student's dreams and curiosities into paralysis. If you dare to dream, if you dare to perambulate outside of the normal contour, and if you have the blatant audacity to challenge a belief that isn't your own, you will be persecuted by the red pen in front of all of your classmates. If you are barraged by the red pen, colleges with look down on you, jobs will turn their heads, and the world itself will begin to spin against your position. The real tragedy of our school system is that we are educated with fear. There are two motivators embedded in the deepest roots of human essence. These are love and fear. Fear will teach a lesson adequately, but love will show you the wonders of the world. The earth's secrets will forever be glued to your mind due to the fact that you searched for answers out of love. But sadly this is only a reality of the mind. 

Suli Breaks, a poet and student, posted a video on YouTube in 2012 and since then the video has received over seven-million views. Since his video, Why I Hate School, But Love Education, Suli has toured the world as a public speaker. "Redefine how you view education. Understand its true meaning. Education is not regurgitating facts from a book on someone else's opinions just to pass an exam." Says Suli in his video. Steve Jobs, Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey all dropped out of college. Today, they are all famous for their immense success despite only having 4.5 grams of paper hanging from a wall. They were blessed with the gift individual advisement. Of a plan that suited their individual interests. Their minds failed to acknowledge the cookie cutter system that tends to a population, but excludes the heart of each individual.

I believe I should be given F on this paper if I were graded by our system because I have the audacity to challenge an idea, to swivel my head in whatever direction it chooses. I have never seen an answer on a test end with a question mark, yet the only way we learn is if we question on our own. I should get an F if graded by the system because I have vied with the propensities of the school systems doctrines. In fact, I can assure you that there would be red markings all over this paper, but you should know that these are just the etchings of my heart that have been stitched within this essay. "Examiners have a checklist and if your response is outside of the box the automatic response is a cross." Says Suli. This is why, I too, hate School but love education. "They claim school expands your horizons and visions. Well tell that to Malcolm X who dropped out of school and is well renowned for what he learned in a prison." Schools have potential to be great, to expand horizons and cater to individual interests, but right now they are nothing but a futile, rote version of Simon Says. If you don't play the game that is fostered by the one size fits all rubric, if you don't follow the rules of this rubric, then you don't earn a degree. 

Change hasn't occurred in the school system already because not too many have challenged their fears. The majority of students fret at the thought of choosing their instinctual curiosity over an assured salary that will be issued after they've flowed along with education's billows. Our school system is beyond guilty of malfeasance, of cheating itself from what it can be. A possibility only if it tends to the individual, but this will never happen if the individual tends to the school system. School should be an aid to the students, the students shouldn't be an aid to it. Yes, the school system saves many from poverty and crime, but it hasn't even scratched the surface of its potential. In fact, schools fail to blow the dust that they have accrued on their very own surface. The dust is due to fettering that is imposed by rubrics and the monotony of order in society. We're so blind to knowledge due to the smattering that we have been served, that we don't even know the true taste of learning. 

I believe that I deserve an F because I refuse to allow my fellow students to slog through the mental enslavement any further. A bird cannot fly in a cage, and because of this we have been failing to reach for the sky. I refuse to partake in the floundering that school teaches us. I believe that I deserve an F because I have the bravery to call a spade a spade, to challenge the clandestine system that loads kids on to yellow vehicles before they mill into their classrooms as one mind. I believe I deserve an F because a grade should not wend my own path. I deserve an F because I yearn to sift through knowledge, to grow curious and challenge the beliefs of those that have come before me. To tailor to my love and embellish it with the dusty resources that our country already has. Out of all of the words: the lecherous, the bawdy, the uncouth, the abase slurs, the sacred ...  "Why" is the most cacophonous word you can use in a school in this era. I deserve an F because I believe it is better to learn and be void of a degree, than be perfidious to the revering we should have for true knowledge. 

Curiosity is infinite. It is impossible to learn everything in the world, but most of us don't even try to grasp a smattering of it. Our DNA is long enough to travel to the sun then back to the earth four times. There are over 400 Billion stars in the world. 129,864,880 books have been published thus far. 41,415 species are on the IUCN red list; 16,306 of these animals are endangered by extinction. According to the adaa.org, in the last year 80% of students felt intense stress nearly every day, 34% reported depression, and 9% even considered suicide. Again, we orbit just one sun that sits amongst 400 billion others. We are just one species of sixteen thousand. 129,864,880 books have been published with an average size of 5.5 inches wide and 8.5 inches long. With all of these colossal statistics,  we succeed in only recognizing just two dimensions. A dollar bill is 2.61 inches by 6.14 inches and just these two dimensions have distracted the entire school system. This is the reason my sister will completely die a sheep in the silence of five others. Her mind died to a lack of curiosity a long time ago, but when her body fades too, it will leave the world without a paucity of loved knowledge.

I believe in school, but more importantly I believe in education. School leads many to success. This is not enigmatic, this is a scribed in stone fact. School guarantees better chances of obtaining a job. Less are likely to starve and less are prone to murder when more degrees have been obtained. With all of this said, with all of the embellishments that are already fostered by the classroom, it is beyond mendacious to claim that our industrial school system was put in place solely for learning. Schools are for the nation, learning is of how to serve. You can learn more in a public library for free than you can in college, which costs around a hundred thousand. You aren't paying so much for knowledge that would have otherwise been sacred, you're paying the government for an apocryphal laudability. With this said, you can accomplish more by going to college and can be much more successful in life, but to say that school is most useful to learning is blasphemy.

Exploration is about transcending, art is about creating, but school is about regurgitating. The only art that is emphasized in America's school system is the cutting of corners of an individual's passions. The only exploration is the contour of the academic confinements. According to theatlantic.com, American schools are 21st in science and 17th in writing. However, America remains one of the richest countries.  Our society admonishes the arts even though three of Howard Gardner's seven types of intelligence are the essence of such. Creativity lies in the right side, but according to the school system, the left side is the only right side. 

With this said, a large potential problem with creativity is that creativity can not be measured consistently which would make it hard to grade as well as teach. To the creator of such, it is a picture that transcends all normalities and is a treasure by existence, to the connoisseur it is just a picture of bird poop splattered on someone's windshield. Just because creativity is currently beyond consideration in the public school system doesn't mean that we can't change America's coddling system that strangles many. What America needs is a more individualized system. A server that takes the order of the individual and not just one from the entire restaurant. We need more advisors and guides, we need less dog walkers and babysitters. It is of completely different matter, but in order to receive more individual attention we need more teachers. We also need to grant teachers with an incentive and salary that matches their duty, the most important duty in America. Teachers paint the picture of tomorrow. We must give them the tools they need and give them a reasonable sized canvas to paint. Not one of ghastly size. Overwhelmed teachers make underwhelmed students. The first amendment is to be explored, it is infinite. There should be no bearings.

  Stanford, according to Penelope Trunk, accepts 27% of its home schooled applicants and just 5% of traditional applicants. According to NHERI, "There are about 2.3 million kids that are home schooled." NHERI also states that homeschooling is teetering with the tag of "mainstream". They also go on to state that homeschooled kids actually perform better than those that attend public schools. The NHERI states that homeschooled children score 15-30% higher on state tests than those that attend a state sponsored school. The reason for greater success is more intricate than you might think. Homeschooled children have a very supple curriculum. Not only is their curriculum flexible, but it is also tailored to the students passions and interests. This is why students excel. Homeschooling also allows for students to question who they are and what they love starting at an early age in life. This is much different for those in public school. According to Borderzine, "Over 80% of college students change their major at least once." Once again, you can't tell your heart who to love. You can't tell a student what is and isn't to be explored and this is why home schooled students perform at a higher level.

Another belief about homeschooling was that many of the children grow up to be poor citizens. In August, 2001 Time Magazine buoyed this exact argument and asked America if homeschooling was good for its well being. After studying further, Romanowski states that, " 71% of homeschooled graduates participated in a community service event compared to just 37% of those that attended public or private schools." Other categories where public school students were out performed include, but are not limited to: They are more likely to participate in a protest or boycott, they voted in a city, state, or national election, and they are more likely to give money to both, political parties and charities. If we all learn and explore the same thing then how are we expected to have a part in the whole when the whole is the only part. Home schooled students are able to feel like an individual due to their freedoms and academic flexibilities. Not only does this allow them to explore what they truly love, but it also instills a feeling of contribution. If students had more freedom they would be proud of their education contributions because it would be exactly that, theirs, and their only. 

Our flaws amble from too much structure which is rendered by America's vast population. Ways we can solve our academic problem is by granting students more power and finding a way to improve communication between students and teachers. A long time ago, resources were scarce and students could not access the materials that were necessary outside of schools. Today however, we have an immense amount of sources. The internet has truly changed the contours of education. Michael Nantais from The Digital Pedagogy Lab believes that today, "students are more than just students; their online lives are a part of who they are, and it cannot be ignored. They live a hybrid life; in school/out of school, online/offline." Nantais also states that what he found in an educational study was that, "Regardless of the medium used, the most common response to the perceived effects on the school culture was centred on increased communication. In particular, the most interesting responses were about how social media use led to increased connections with students." The internet is a tool too great to not incorporate into our schools. It truly can solve many of our problems.

"We lead the world in only three categories: Incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults that believe angels are real, and defense spending. [We used to be great. We] explored the universe, cured disease, cultivated the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it. It didn't make us feel inferior," says Will McAvoy in The Newsroom. In Conclusion, it is the pencil that marks a test, but it is what we do now that will mark the reality for our coming posterity. While a choir singing one pitch sounds adequate, a harmony is much more beautiful because there is a coalescing of many different pitches and voices. We as a school system must form a harmony if we wish to convalesce. "The first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore." - The Newsroom

