In President Obama’s State of the Union Address last Tuesday, he touched on myriad topics, including education. I was neither particularly impressed nor dissatisfied with his speech, but one line stood out as rather troubling. Speaking about the importance of education, Obama said, “Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.” Although parents certainly do have an obligation to encourage their children to complete assignments, they are no by means the only people responsible for doing so, and are even less responsible than another party: the students themselves. Ultimately, we all have free will, and no one can force us to do anything we are truly repulsed by (at least not in our country, thankfully). We are accountable for both our actions and inactions, and — while success is affected by a jumble of factors that may or may not be a function of our own efforts — no other individual can influence a person’s future more than that person himself.
Granted, our environment — including our parents and social circle — does set us on a somewhat predetermined course, but we do nevertheless have the ability to deviate from that path and forge our own. As much as society tends to see children as extensions of their parents, mom and dad deserve neither complete blame nor complete credit for what we decide to do in life; only we can turn the TV off.
Unfortunately, too few high school students embrace this responsibility. Why is that? Many teenagers think they have better things to do with their time than study, and others don’t want to be labeled as a “nerd.” Here at the Academies, we are among the most privileged teenagers in the world; yet, because we don’t want to work or would rather do other things, we abnegate this privilege of an education that children in other nations are eager to take advantage of. We groan at assignments that require in-depth analysis, and roll our eyes when teachers don’t sympathize with our complaints. Meanwhile, we should be thanking them for putting up with us in the hope that we might actually become better people. Because isn’t that the point of an education in the first place — to make ourselves better people by gaining a greater understanding of the world around us? One would hope so. However, while doing homework just to earn a grade, to please parents, or impress colleges is unsatisfying, these are unfortunately the primary motivations for many. Inevitably, students stop caring so much about the true purpose of the assignment, fail to see the value in what they’re learning, and eventually stop looking all together. Whatever happened to learning for the sake of learning?
Some may claim that the fault lies with teachers who fail to inspire us (not only is this blame wrongly placed more often that not, but it is appalling; at our school, we are fortunate to have teachers who not only genuinely care about our education, but who care about us as people), with parents who burden us with other responsibilities, or with additional activities that consume our time and make it difficult to give academics the attention they deserve. However, as Cassius famously declared in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (which, given the upcoming Shakespeare competition, seems especially fitting), “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”