Why Your Education is Important

Students exiting Watauga High School after the school day on November 18. Students at Watauga have 4 classes a day, each lasting almost an hour and a half, where they learn a variety of subjects and skills. Photo Credit: Aspen Hickman

Aspen Hickman, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn

We’ve all said it. In math, science, history, english. Why do I need to learn this? When will I ever use this in real life? When you’re doing endless worksheets with imaginary numbers or sitting through hour-long lectures on the Crusades, it can be hard to see the point. Who needs to annotate 500-page novels once they leave school? And really, who will ever use what they’ve learned about geology or cell structure?  

“The chances of all of the students that I teach needing to factor a quadratic in the real world are not very high,” said Sumer Williams, a math teacher at Watauga. “But every one of my students is going to, every single day, learn a new skill and have to solve a problem with it.”

Math is the subject that students universally find the most pointless. Who cares if you can do long division? Everyone has a calculator in their pocket, with every function you could ever need. But math teaches students to overcome challenges, even if the challenges they’ll be overcoming in life aren’t math-related. 

“It's training your brain to learn from mistakes and to persevere through things that are tough,” said Williams. 

Many teachers view their classes as an opportunity to teach students important life skills, beyond the literal facts that they’re being tested on. Students may not understand why they need to learn what they learn, but it isn’t always about the notes they take or the projects they submit. In many classes, what students learn is how to navigate an overwhelming adult world.

“To be able to parse what's true and what's stretched is very important, to understand how to be a good citizen, to understand what's happening in the world around us,” said Andrea Decker, an English teacher at Watauga. 

Media literacy is more and more important in an era of constant information, much of it coming from less-than-accurate sources. Without the understanding that some sources can be wrong or intentionally misleading, students are at a disadvantage when analysing information to make decisions or form opinions. 

“I like to focus on historical thinking skills, because that teaches you how to evaluate, to look at different perspectives, really consider how things affect everybody,” said Brittany Maggard, who teaches social studies and advises the student council at Watauga. “And if you have those skills, you can apply that to anything.”

Maggard believes that learning history allows students to better understand politics and the modern world. Similarly, Decker thinks that when students examine the themes and events of the novels they read, they are also investigating the world around them. 

“[Reading is] a great escape from the struggles of our daily lives,” said Decker. “It gives us time to think and to gain some clarity, perspective, and to empathize with others by looking at the lives of characters. I think it broadens our perspectives and lets us see the world through other people's eyes.”

Education of all kinds prepares students for the future, even if they don’t plan on entering a field like math or history. Adult life is hard, and what kids learn today makes them ready for the world they’ll live in tomorrow. 

“A literate student population will eventually be literate parents who can help their own kids in the future as they go through school,” said Decker.