Wondering what the point of high school is? You're not alone

In New Mexico, a high school study skills teacher asks her sophomores and juniors to write down what they want to get out of her class. One writes “Can you help me give a shit about school? I want to, but I just don’t know how.”

In Pennsylvania, a junior questions her mom about the usefulness of school. “What’s the point of these classes? Why does it matter if I learn this stuff?” Her mom, frustrated, replies “Ask your teachers; they should be able to tell you why it matters.”

In North Carolina, a senior asks his math tutor why he has to learn Algebra II to graduate high school. The tutor googles what jobs use advanced algebra skills – and is startled to realize only 6% of jobs do. “It helps with logical thinking,” she says, hoping she’s right.

In New Jersey, a father acknowledges that his sophomore is doing “just fine” academically. “But it just seems to be about compliance,” he opines. “I don’t care if he gets all ‘A’s, I want him to learn how to learn, and it doesn't seem like school is doing that.”

In Florida, a soon-to-be freshman questions whether he wants to do the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, a rigorous four year course of study that is available at his high school. He’s done well in his classes in middle school, but doesn’t have a particularly strong academic drive. His mother worries IB could be too much pressure – she’s read the stories of how teens are increasingly stressed out and overwhelmed – but also worries he would get bored and even more disinterested without a challenging academic curriculum. “I don’t know what to encourage him to do, honestly,” she confides.

Online, a parent asks a “parenting of teens” Facebook group why their kid is so apathetic about school. “Is there something wrong with them? Is this just the effects of Covid lingering? Or is something else going on?” Another parent responds that her son became so miserable in high school he basically withdrew to the basement of their house. “He graduated six months ago, but he still doesn’t know what’s next. I’ve tried to get him to see a range of options, different kinds of colleges, work, service – I don’t know if I’m pushing too hard or not enough.”

If any of these stories ring true, you’re not alone. While it’s nothing new for students – especially teens – to dislike school, the cumulative effects of the last few years (Covid lockdowns, teacher and student burnout, staffing shortages, political tensions, rapid technological change, and the ever-increasing cost of college) have made school somehow feel both highly stressful and mostly irrelevant to many students, families, and educators.

For the lucky students, school only sucks occasionally. For the unlucky, it’s a miserable experience. Every. Single. Day. Though it may be most visible in the students who are struggling academically, or in those who are visibly depressed, withdrawn, or anxious, even the students we spoke with who were academically successful and not struggling with their mental health felt like school was very rarely about engaged learning and far more often about simply performing well enough to either get by or meet expectations.

This aimlessness and suffering is not due to a lack of effort, from legislators all the way to individual students:

• Legislators passed No Child Left Behind decades ago, revised it with the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, then made further efforts with federal Covid-19 recovery funds beginning in 2020.

• Administrators and school boards put in extra hours to navigate new initiatives, like those coming from federal or state mandates, while responding to emergent crises, like staffing and teacher shortages and student mental health needs.

• Teachers undergo days of new professional development every year on the latest teaching methods and curriculum, from teaching “new math” to cultural competency, and most put in extra hours to try to make that new material relevant and engaging for their students.

• Parents drag themselves to late night marathon school board meetings, help their kids navigate situations juggling school, work, and, for many, the overwhelming college admission process, plus the mix of texts, emails, robocalls, apps, and school software tools like Schoology, PowerSchools, Classdojo, and more.

• Students, meanwhile, juggle everything from the challenges of early start times, extracurriculars, homework, multiple software platforms, and difficult and/or boring classes. They do this while in the midst of massive brain and identity development that increase the stakes when navigating shifts in romantic interests, friend groups, social media norms, local and international politics, and decisions about what to do with their lives after high school.

No-one has it easy in this equation. And no wonder – we want school to accomplish a lot. School should be equitable and safe, physically and psychologically. This is a crucial foundation, yet it remains out of reach for many, especially for schools with the least resources, and for students who are furthest from the mainstream. On top of that, school should prepare young people for college, work, and citizenship, despite an increasing rate of change in technology and society that makes it harder and harder to predict what skills will actually be useful even five years down the road. School should challenge and set high expectations – but also be differentiated and provide the right support for each student's abilities and goals. And somehow, school should do all this affordably, as a public system paid for by our tax dollars.

Whew. It’s not surprising so many adults and young people alternate between hair-pulling stress and overwhelmed apathy when we think about school, our families, and the future.

This is excerpted from the upcoming book Can You Help Me Give a Sh*t? Unlocking Teen Motivation in School and Life, which will come out this spring. You can download the rest of the sneak peek and subscribe below to be notified when the book is ready for pre-order