The American Education System is defective. Lack of sleep, and higher depression and stress levels among middle and high schoolers. Schools also do not cater to a person's personal interests and goals. We built our system on the fact that most kids would be going into factory work, with the repetitive schedules and how we are instructed to eat at a certain time every day. Yes, there have been many changes over the years but it still stands that kids work better at their own pace.

Although kids feel as though they are learning and retaining knowledge they are not, it is only a sense and standard they are trying to live up to. Students might give fabulous evaluations to an amazing lecturer based on this feeling of learning, even though their actual learning isn't optimal, says Harvard professor Louis Delauriers. This could help to explain why study after study shows that student evaluations seem to be completely uncorrelated with actual learning.'" In the article he talks about how lectures and more traditional ways of teaching are not optional for most students. Another such example would be how teachers make students talk in front of a class. This is an outdated method of teaching, even if people think it will build the students confidence, that is incorrect. It can be a traumatic experience for some kids who have high anxiety levels.

Another major problem with our schools would be the early start time. The average teenager has a circadian rhythm that makes it so they fall asleep around 10 or 11pm. Then the obvious fact that we need at least 9 hours of sleep when we become a teenager. A research from The National Library of Medicine states; “Delaying school start times for adolescents has been proposed as a policy change to address insufficient sleep among adolescents, a largely sleep-deprived population, and potentially to improve students’ academic performance, reduce engagement in risk behaviors, and improve health. . . Later school start times also generally corresponded to improved attendance, less tardiness, less falling asleep in class, fewer depression symptoms, and fewer motor vehicle crashes.” This gives the fact that we fall asleep around 11pm, then with 9 hours of sleep we would wake up around 8am. Then an average of 30 minutes to get ready, not counting transportation. This would also let kids have time to eat breakfast, which increases the brain's function and allows people to focus and retain more knowledge throughout the day.

All of the previous enforces the point that we need to reevaluate our ways of teaching and recreate the education system. For the better of our community and the newer generations, think about the future of our economy.