While there has been a trend to decry post-secondary education at colleges and universities in favor of trade schools, continuing education beyond high school is still an important part of our modern economy and continues to move the world forward in every area of human endeavor.
School districts around the United States have endeavored to churn out educated students, well-informed about current events, real-world issues, and traditional subjects such as math, reading, writing, and science. Post-secondary education, however, is an important part of moving forward in all sectors of our economy.
Below is an outline of various subject groups in our modern education system, and presents the case for each to establish the best learning experience possible for our students to prepare them for college.
STEM Programs
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Science is a broad subject spanning hundreds of different disciplines from meteorology & chemistry to geology & physics. Technology helps our economy grow in many different ways, and helps us progress in every field. Engineering – a combination of science, technology, and design – doesn’t happen without intelligent, experienced individuals who know science, technology, and mathematics related to their field, and nothing happens in any of these subjects without some kind of mathematical calculations involved.
Thousands of secondary education schools throughout the U.S. have implemented STEM programs into their curriculum. High schools in our local area – as well as many others – have purposely built a STEM center to improve education in these subjects and help students reach their full potential in these fields.
Many in the education community agree that STEM programs are absolutely critical for our educational institutions moving forward in the 21st century. We as a society must foster these subjects in our students’ curriculum, and implement modern learning environments to ensure STEM is a core part of our students’ learning.
Liberal & Creative Arts
Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer or lab technician. Many students prefer the abstract, creative side of human nature, and these are the individuals who give us our television shows, perform on stage, write in-depth articles about current events, and entertain us in our free time.
Music and art programs have notoriously been a subject of school board budget cuts, with some programs being dissolved completely. This is, in our opinion, one of the biggest mistakes an educational institution can make.
Without musicians, we wouldn’t have new soundtracks for our movies, performances to see during football halftime shows, or albums to listen to while on our commute to work.
Without artists, we wouldn’t have new perspectives of beauty. Artists of all kinds – painters, sculptors, dancers, and actors – give us a dazzling array of variety in our daily lives. Students involved in these activities are destined to become the next generation of creative thinkers.
Writers are those who make us think about various topics, and consider a different point of view. They write news articles, opinionated blogs, magazine columns, fiction and non-fiction books, and many other written pieces of work. In fact, all artistic disciplines help us see people, places, things and events in a new light.
There are dozens of subjects in the liberal arts disciplines, and must be nurtured in students who show promise in these areas by building and creating creative classroom environments for them to learn their craft.
Sports & Athletics
As one of the most popular subjects in our modern world (arguably for thousands of years, in fact), the sports and athletics world continues to amaze by showing all of us what the human body is capable of.
The subject of human health is at the forefront of the U.S. economy, a multi-billion dollar industry that requires highly educated medical professionals to help all of us stay as healthy as possible. Nobody is physically healthier than the modern athlete who participates in sports such as track and field, football, soccer, baseball, basketball, and so on.
Our sports programs receive a lot of attention because at the end of the day, human competition is at its core entertaining and fascinating, not to mention profitable for many organizations. Aside from its financial benefits, however, human beings cannot function if we are not healthy – it is the only true wealth any of us possess.
Nurturing Pre-Collegiate Education
While many students are well-suited to enter the trades, the rest who wish to continue their education attend post-secondary institutions. It is important that students are given the opportunity to diligently pursue the aforementioned subjects that they find the most interesting, as well as most suitable for their intended career paths.
In fact, none of us would be in the careers we are today without fantastic teachers and classrooms that molded our educational experiences. By ensuring that students are ready for a college career through tailoring education to each student’s aptitudes, we are investing in both our modern economy and the health of our educational institutions as a whole.
In short, the future belongs to the next generation of well-educated students who have been given the best opportunities possible during their schooling years. When your students have achieved the confidence and skills to move forward in their intended area of study, they will be ready to start the exciting journey of college life!
