by Gabrielle Schrader

Created on: August 11, 2010   Last Updated: August 12, 2010

As a recent high school graduate, I have spent countless hours pondering the educational system. Many teachers, parents and students argue over which courses should be mandatory at school though none can seem to come to a common consensus. This article will hopefully discuss and detail these debates and help form a conclusion as to which courses should be mandatory in school.

"School" is a very loose term. If we take this to mean high school then the courses will be much different than elementary school or middle school. In elementary and middle school, almost all of the courses are mandatory. In other words, students generally take the same courses including the usual English, Mathematics, History, Science and some type of Physical Education class. In some schools, the Physical Education class is made optional, although I find much fault with this idea. Physical Education is an important part of a healthy childhood and in today's world children spend too much time with consumer electronics rather than using their bodies. A Physical Education class can help them discover new and fun ways to be active rather than only finding fun in non-active electronic devices. 

Within high school, the mandatory classes are almost always different. I would say that it definitely depends on the school and what the student is doing. A student at a technical school will not need to take an Advanced Shakespeare class but should perhaps take an English course nonetheless. The most important subjects to continue studying at the high school level are really English and Mathematics. History and Science are phenomenal disciplines but are less applicable to everyday life. Everyone needs to know how to take care of their finances and mathematics can help make this possible. English is another important discipline as nearly every other subject and every avenue in student's lives will require reading. The better you can read, the more you can comprehend, the better prepared for life you will be. 

One class that I have always hoped will someday become mandatory is a Parenting class. Many schools do not even offer Parenting classes but I think it is an important thing. Not everyone will choose to become parents but a large percentage of people do choose to have children or end up with unwanted children. Either way, there are many people throughout the world today who do not understand how to properly parent. Perhaps they themselves were raised poorly or they just feel overwhelmed and are not sure what to do. A basic, one semester class on Parenting would be fantastic. I feel as though many of society's problems would be helped significantly if everyone were subjected to such a class.

The last class I feel that would be beneficial to everyone is an Empathy class. I have never seen nor heard of an Empathy class before, but this is the largest problem within our world today. If everyone was empathetic to everyone else, life would be much better and the world would be a much safer and much more loving place to be. 

Hopefully this article was insightful into the courses at schools today and the potential courses that could be there in the future. It is of the utmost importance that we care about the courses within our school systems. Schools can be one of the greatest ways to change lives, to help people learn and to teach people about themselves. It should be a place of discovery and sadly, oftentimes it is not. We need to change that, to make our school systems once again about the discovery of learning.

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