Many students, adults, and even the occasional hip professional dismiss what is learned in school as useless: an avalanche of sludge to fill up your head instead of crucial information, like taxes. This take is lazily unfounded, and is rooted in not the truth but in pessimism. Now, after spending a seemingly endless sentence in school, with math and science and all the recurring subjects, the average student might be disillusioned about the information they’ve learned. But to immediately claim what’s been taught by the schools as baloney, it’s a closed and judgemental mindset. Now, perhaps there’s been teachers or parts of your own school that just suck, but a bump in the road shouldn’t make you hate every roadway in the whole world. The belief system of what’s being taught in schools as a redundancy and meaningless is a pessimistic and bad faithed mindset.
There’s a legit thinking that schools maybe don’t properly convey why the information taught is important, and there’s also a strong argument that there is a problem with how schools operate and are structured. This discussion doesn’t include the subjects taught: learning these subjects teaches you about the world around you, and it gives you the tools to maneuver through life. The information learned in school is the building blocks to various other key pieces of information and skills that keep you functional in adulthood. For example, measurements, literacy, and writing emails are all skills that started with school.
The information in school isn’t the end; it is the informational makeup of the world that allows you to have basic cognitive abilities, and it’s meant to be a branch for you to go on and do greater things, acting as a prerequisite. A misconception is that the information learned is functionally as it appears; an equation is an equation, with no greater purpose. But that’s mistaken. An equation is an equation, and that’s still important, as it helps give you the ability to perform the math you’ll meet later in life: taxes, finances, and even knowing the amount of food needed to be brought at a social event. But that equation also teaches you critical thinking skills and problem solving skills. This train of thought could be applied to other subjects. Information learned is not operating in a detachment from the world, it’s the skills and facts allowing you to have the legs to walk down the pathway of the future.
The value of information extends far past just the extent of the information itself. Its value can also be applied to practical skills such as time management and communication. Being on top of classwork and studying alongside any job and extracurriculars requires time management skills, and communication is also something that students will learn over the course of 4 years.
Social elements of information are also a part of its value. Students are introduced to each other, students interact and study with each other. Information allows the minglement of many different types of kids, and it blossoms and strengthens friendships.
Information shows the student a world outside of their own, and it’s a world many other people will also be familiar with. A basic export of information allows people to be equal to some degree; the basic breadth of what we all know is on a similar ground.
Overall, the information learned makes you a functional person in society. It allows you to benefit society, and for you to be benefited with the skill you’ve gained. School isn’t the end all of information, but it is a starting point. It allows you to be empowered with the baseline of what you’ve gained from it. Information is important in all forms, and what’s taught in schools is the building block for something greater.
