University School’s mission statement begins with the sentence, “University School inspires boys of promise to become young men of character who lead and serve”. However, in pursuit of this goal, the administration has put restraints on students’ choices when it comes to their academics.
For a school that wants to create men who lead and serve, it is oxymoronic that we are putting restrictions on students’ academic choices. We cannot put limitations on such things if we want students to develop a sense of self and to find their own paths. That is not to say that teachers should not provide opportunities to their students, but, too often, many are unwillingly forced to participate in competitions such as the OHML and the AMC, which leads to poor performance overall.
Indeed, honors math students are all required to take the OHML every month. Teachers argue believe that said contests are a good way for students to expand their knowledge. This may be true; however, when students are forced into participation, students lose an ability to dictate where they want their education to go, and, overall, performance drops. For example, a student who excels in humanities should not have to participate in a math contest that would not help this student embrace his strengths. Therefore, he may not think that he needs to try in that math contest because it most likely will not help him in the long run. Students are being put into a restrictive environment where they are slowly losing their ability to dictate their own educations.
Situations like these end up doing harm to our school because people no longer feel they have control over their own paths. When students are forced to follow a path that has already been drawn out for them, they become closed minded and become unable to develop their own thoughts and opinions.
Boyhood is an essential time to make one’s own choices not only because we are learning to do so as adults, but also because our futures are not yet set in stone, and the decisions we make in the future may have less far reaching effects. Eliminating mandatory engagement in competitions will help students to mould their own unique futures. This will help to achieve the mission statement of the school, as students will be more fit to lead and more fit to serve when they can develop their own thoughts and opinions because they are not forced along one path.