Fix the System

The poltical system of the USA is facing major issues of which the average citizen is unaware. The power to fix these issues lies solely in the hands of the public.

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Location: Peabody, Massachusetts, United States

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Solutions to "Why Nerds are Unpopular"

In his article Why Nerds are Unpopular, Paul Graham identifies what is clearly one of the biggest problems with secondary schools in this country - the lack of purpose. Schools are primarily designed to keep kids occupied and out of trouble.

What we ought to be helping kids do at this age is figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Taking a required set of classes is not going to do this. So, how can we best help them? I would suggest much more access to internship type programs, more possibilities for independant study and work study programs, and greater flexibility in required standardized test scores and college entrance requirements.

Additionally, it would be nice to help kids prepare for life ahead by offering more practical courses such as "accounting for households and small businesses," "the political process of <insert city name here>," "understanding the media," and "health and nutrition."

We need to give young people a reason to learn, not just a curriculum. If we can do that, we may find that many of the other problems our schools are struggling against fix themselves.

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