Tyranny of the Shoulds

However, junior year of high school changed that: I was given the opportunity to take either AP Psychology, or AP European History. I felt that the obvious choice would be to take AP European History, since I’m European and therefore already had a solid foundation for succeeding in the class, but something inside me told me to take a blind leap of faith and choose AP Psychology instead. This choice proved to be one of the greatest decisions I have made in my life. Through this class, I emerged myself into the world of psychology and fell in love with it. I didn’t complete the assignments to get a good grade. I completed them because I cherished every minute of it, and I started applying the materials learned in class to real life

The statement is also important because it is true that many high school graduates are not ready for college. The academic and financial challenges must be taken seriously, and the new college student must realize that he needs to be responsible in order to succeed in college as well as be able to financially support himself throughout college. The last part of the statement is perhaps the most important because it is true that many college students do not have the desire to learn, instead many attend college because of the social aspect, or simply because of the pressure to attend by the parents. The desire to learn is what determines how much effort one puts into his schoolwork. If the student does not want to learn that will reflect on his schoolwork and it will make it hard for him to succeed.

Getting an education is the main goal for everyone, although it is easy to obtain there are some obstacles to it. One of the main obstacles students face at the beginning of their education is standardized tests. Schools have started to adopt this type of tests as their main way to evaluate students’ intelligence and teachers’ effectiveness to educate the students. The way students used to learn has changed, in order to get them ready for the tests they have to spend much of the school time preparing for it instead of learning something they can use in their future life. According to Bruce Jacobs in No Child Left Behind's Emphasis on 'Teaching to the Test' Undermines Quality Teaching, a 2007 study by the University of Maryland teachers were put in much pressure and had thoughts to teach the test […]. This shows that teachers have also been affected by standardized tests in a way they have more pressure to make students pass. Having teachers ‘teach the test’ means their way to educate has been corrupted. In most cases when teachers’ ability to educate has been changed leads them to practice methods not convenient for scholars. One of these methods is memorization, in Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea by Hani Morgan describes how students start to adapt to an “inferior type of learning, based on memorization and recall students gain when teachers

Students are not taught important and necessary life skills when they are preparing for a test. They study the material so that they can be informed to regurgitate the material on paper for the purpose of passing a test. Test taking students are not encouraged to think outside the box because their answer might be incorrect.

Tyranny is an awful thing in our government, without our constitution we would have a tyranny. Thankfully in 1787 many of our country’s leaders were dissatisfied of the way our government was structured by the Articles Of Confederation, which had been in effect for six years since 1781. The purpose of the constitution was to make a new federal government that would be more powerful whilst protecting the rights and liberties that had been won in the revolutionary war. They separated the powers to avoid tyranny, the powers were separated into four ways: Federalism, Separation of power, Checks & balances, and big states and small states.

As an English teacher at Wellesley High School, in the accomplished community of Wellesley, Massachusetts, David McCullough, Jr. confronts the paradox of reality versus the popular assumptions perpetuated by well-meaning parents and delivered a shockingly poignant attack on the Wellesley High School graduates’ self-perception and preparedness. In addition, he outlined the parents’ role in creating and maintaining this deception. Mr. McCullough used his knowledge and insight of the Twenty-first Century youth culture, humor, and steadfast opinion that his target audience of high school graduates is aphoristically, NOT SPECIAL. However, Mr. McCullough limited his audience’s sensitivity to his assertion using ethics, logic and pathos and later provides a positive, passionate and humanistic world view of how to have a well-lived life.

Another point that Ms. Bird makes is that the colleges do not want to interfere with a student’s life (Bird 17). I agree with this analysis. They expect college students to take full responsibility for their lives in addition to acting like adults. Furthermore, by the time students get to college they should be acting with maturity. Like my daughter, some students have not come to terms with the idea of being an independent adult yet. Maturity is a major factor

In the year of 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to write the constitution. Tyranny, a type of government with an absolute ruler, was a fear. Central and State governments are Madison’s compound of government. The two governments are federalism and federalism guards against federalism by giving each government equal powers (Document A). James Madison wanted to make the three (legislative, executive, and judicial) branches to have equal power.

In the year of 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to write the Constitution. Tyranny, a type of government with an absolute ruler was a fear. James Madison realized the fear that people had and understood so he wrote a article in the ”Federalist Paper” in 1788. In it he described how he believed if we had a three branch government system that could perform checks and balances on each other it would prevent tyranny in the colonies( Document A).

This essay is fairly accurate when it talks about how our school system has relied too heavily on test scores and they’ve made it almost all about memorizing. Most of the time people will memorize the information for the test and after the test they never end up using the information again because it’s not some we need in the real world. Especially after the invention of the internet there really isn’t any reason to have to memorize again since any question you could ever have could simply be answered by using the internet. The only part of this essay I don’t agree with is that the writer makes it sound like all schools today are focused on great test

The ACT and SAT were created to accurately measure the knowledge of our children and make sure they are prepared for college, yet often times it seems to have the opposite effect. Due to the tests, some students are deciding not to go to college just to avoid paying so much money when they do not think they can do well in college courses. Even if students do decide to go to college, they may avoid taking classes with large tests due to test phobia developed from the ACT or SAT (Paul 42). Seeing such low scores in certain subjects can lower a student’s confidence and willingness to take those classes in college. By not taking certain classes, a student is limiting what major they can complete which will lowering their career options (Paul 42). We can’t let this happen to our students! We can’t let one stupid test destroy the careers and futures of hundreds of teenagers. The long term effects of the trauma created by the ACT and SAT are detrimental to today’s students.

The United States, fighting to not be under England’s rule, feared falling back into a monarchy. The governmental power in America is separated into three different branches or "departments" of government, modeled after Greek political ideas. The government was divided in this way to prevent any one entity from containing all the power. Thusly, keeping any form of a monarchy from coming into power. “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” (201-202).

Students are stressed. But, what is the goal of these tests? Are we trying to make students compete with one another to see who gets the higher score? Or are we preparing them for life outside of school? Maybe at one time these tests were used to measure how well the future leaders of our countries were learning, but now it is no longer like that. These tests seem to show no post-school value except to find the most successful kids and give them scholarships to college. Going along with this, everyone, depending on their grade, is required to take the same exact test. Despite their different ways of thinking, students are grouped together and the ones who are different are “wrong” simply because they were unable to learn it due to the way they were taught. Holding every single student to the same standards avoids the fact that everyone has a different mindset and each person may excel in different subjects. This poses a question: when will the system change? Students are held to such enormous pressure that when they meet the standards, they are convinced they’re stupid, and I struggle with this, too. However, it would be easier if all of the intimidation encountered when we are testing would just be withdrawn and students can be able to take a test, try their best, and if they don’t succeed, they can continue to work hard because, after all, a test shouldn’t determine how

Living a life free of “shoulds,” to the extreme, is an unpredictable life, a life with no direction and a life that provides minimal success. Someone who doesn’t believe that they should do anything, most likely don’t have

To challenge this idea, I would like to argue that exams have caused many students to lose integrity and motivation in their learning. This is evident in the habitual procrastination in schoolwork. Rather than pursuing their work in an academically inquisitive, comprehensive style, they choose to memorise and study purely for the sake of getting good grades. This shows that students can achieve good grades even by studying for short term remembrance – thereby defeating the whole purpose of an examination. Albert Einstein also