High School Matters

         By the time a student reaches high school, families become so focused on credits, GPAs, and whatever the next step is beyond graduation that we often forget how valuable the knowledge presented in class really is. School staff is certainly guilty of this as well. The fact is, the education we receive prior to high school graduation serves as the foundation for everything else we do in life. Sure, we’re probably going to learn the skills that provide us the income we need to live after high school, and that education is enormously important.However, so much of our knowledge that we use outside of our career comes from grade school.

I was reflecting on this the other day when I was talking with my young daughter and telling her the names of all the major bones in her body. I only know them, and so much more about the rest of the human body, because of the anatomy and physiology class I took in the 11th grade. If I’m doing a home improvement project, I can calculate area or volume because of my high school geometry class. Every four years, I know just how the american presidential election process works from my US Government class.  I can format a cell in a spreadsheet thanks to a computer class I took. There are countless other things I know, or at least can figure out, just because I made it through high school.

The point I want to make here is that a high school education counts and is valuable. It’s hard to connect those daily lessons in school to real life for a young person, but they do connect. That week I learned about the properties of gas in my chemistry class, fumigating a rental property I didn't yet own for termites would have seemed like a far flung idea. But, 20 years later when I had to talk to the exterminator and then explain what was happening to my tenants, I was so thankful I understood what I did about the way the world works.

Elementary, middle school, and high school are important. The things we learn there might not come in to play every single day, but they will at some point. Those little nuggets of information we somehow dig up from the deep recesses of our memory, years later, are so valuable to our everyday lives and make us better and more productive people. Don’t lose sight of that value as you pursue college and bigger and better things. Remind your students that the stupid little assignment they don’t care about serves the purpose of reinforcing a concept, that maybe, just maybe, will be something they really need to rely on way down the road. At the very least, they’ll be able to answer their daughter’s question when she asks what the bones in her foot are called.