For the same reason kindergarten was created, high school was first opened for the goals of teaching moral values and basic skills. However, the goals of high school quickly started to shift. High school was a place to develop your human capital and train for a job in the future.
Also, they started to wonder about the purpose of high school and faced issues of the focus of education to the rich and the poor. They believed that the poor should utilize high school education to prepare them for life. However, they believed that education to the rich should be focused on preparing them for college.
I feel like high school now is a place where you strictly prepare for college. I feel that the pressure to get into a good college after high school motivates students to study hard. I feel like students are more focused on preparing and applying for colleges, that they rarely prepare for life.
While reading this section of the book, a question that came to mind was:
Who would really benefit more? Someone who received education to prepare them for life or someone who received education to prepare them for college? I feel like sometimes students lose the real point of learning. They are more focused on getting that “A” instead of really learning so that they may be able to apply it to life. It’s not unusual for a student who got straight A’s in school but is not able to apply the things he has learned in the real world.
I thought vocational guidance was a pretty good idea. For the students that knew their abilities and interests, it could be quite beneficial for them to get a head start. However, I feel like high school is still pretty early to train them as a worker through vocational schools.
Some questions came to mind while reading this:
How about the high school students that didn’t figure out their passion yet? Wouldn’t having a general education be more beneficial in the long run so that they may be able to explore different studies instead of pushing a student to a vocation school?
The book mentioned whether the development of high schools, the shifting of focus of education, and vocational schools were for the public benefit or corporate greed. In my opinion, I think the focus of education shifted because of the corporate greed. However, I feel like even though the intentions were selfish, I feel like it really did benefit everyone.