Should We "Let Teenagers Try Adulthood"

The essay, Let Teenagers Try Adulthood, was written by Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College. The essay states that we should send teenagers out into the world earlier to get jobs and/or continue their college education. This would allow the students to learn to contribute to and join the  society.  Botstein also wrote that the current education system is outdated, both culturally and biologically, and that is why he suggests that students instead graduate at the age of sixteen. I do agree that the education system is desperately outdated and needs reform, but I do not completely agree on his new education system setup.

Is sixteen too early for students to be sent out into the world? Maybe. Some students need the two extra years to mature. Others are ready to start their lives separate from their parents. Would changing the graduation date, two years earlier, change how we, as a society, look at who is an adult? Would a teenager, at sixteen, be legally an adult? Changing our education system, so that students graduate at sixteen, would be a huge change to our society and even to some of our laws. I believe that we should keep the graduation at eighteen, but allow for more freedom and exploration into the future. It would allow for the teenagers to have more time to mature and prepare for their future.

In the essay, From Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Horace Mann wrote that the people with the higher education get the majority of the wealth. Botstein wanted to forgo middle school, add 6th grade to the elementary schools, and lesson the amount of time spent in school by two years. I do agree that middle school was rather like a place holder and not worth the time and may be eliminated. Would our students, with less time in school, still get the same knowledge, will they leave high school with a better education, or will they leave with less than those who are using the current education system? I would worry that with a decreased time limit, the students would obtain a lesser education. This could also effect our wealth, with so many people obsessed with their own wealth, it would be something to address.

Both Botstein and Todd Gitlin, author of the essay The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info- Glut, complain that the education system is outdated. Gitlin wrote that it is because of the thousands of images that a person sees a day, by television or otherwise, that the majority is garbage and it causes a disregard for the liberal arts. Both also addressed that the world is different and our education should resemble that fact. This is something that I completely agree with. The times have changed and so have we.

While Botstein's idea of students graduating at sixteen is not the most appealing, his thoughts on modernizing the education system is ideal. Also allowing teenagers to 'try' adulthood is a great way to create a brighter and better future. Reforms are necessary, but more thought should be put into our ideas before we make any changes.