Problems

The first thing I would change about Henry Clay is parking. Parking is a major hassle in the mornings and trying to find a spot is nearly impossible if you arrive any later than 7:40. Most schools don't have this problem and actually have plenty of spaces for students and faculty. But apparently, Henry Clay has a problem with parking spaces and likes to make their students park in five different streets around the school, which not only makes the neighbors angry, but also the students who have to walk in the winter weather for five to ten minutes every morning.

The second problem with Henry Clay is the intercom system. For every other school, it is unheard of for the intercom system to come on during every class to call one or two people down to the attendance office. Instead, they just look up what class that student is in and then calls that classroom and asks the teacher to send them down. But Henry Clay insists on being as inefficient as possible and interrupts every class in the building just to get three students to come pick up a piece of paper they dipped in the hallway.

One Word: Change

I would love to see the change from petty homework assignments to homework that actually challenges me mentally. Kids cheat on their homework and other things because they do not want to take the little time out of their busy day to do it. No one is challenged by little worksheets or lameo assignments so they do not do them until the next day. And if they do not end up getting it done before the due date, they end up copying someone else's homework. The copying lends to students not actually learning the material and they end up forced to cram a day or two before a test. And if a student does not study for the test, they end up cheating on tests. It all stems from A) the laziness of students and B) the pettiness of the homework assignments they are given. If given the choice between playing video games, watching Glee, watching Kentucky play basketball, or doing their lame homework, almost all students are going to spend their time doing on of three besides homework. Students play video games because they find a challenge in doing so and are rewarded by gaining a level/beating the game. Students watch Glee because they would rather try to sing like Lea Michele then do an activity that takes 5 minutes to do. Students would rather watch the Kentucky game because there is always an element of surprise in the outcome; Kentucky might actually lose. The biggest change in Henry Clay need to be eliminating homework assignments that are boring, easy, and take very little time. With that one change, many of Henry Clay's troubles will be solved.

Changes

Of course I think that people should stop smoking in the bathrooms and that traffic jams in the hallways are too abundant. But the Henry Clay faculty presumably tries to stop these problems from occurring. Obviously, this has been to no avail, and I'm afraid that the students are doomed to these annoyances until we graduate our senior year. However, I think that some changes can be made to ensure a healthier school experience, particularly in the more rigorous classes. Primarily, I speak of making AP classes more AP-oriented. If these classes are designed to gauge the student's preparedness for college, then shouldn't they be more reflective of the college experience? AP courses shouldn't be about assigning six times more homework; it should be about letting the student exhibit his or her independence and learn the material themselves, with the teacher functioning as a catalyst. Two classes I can think of that really put the responsibility in the student's hands are Mr. Pope's AP U.S. History course and Mrs. Minor's AP Chemistry course. Most days, the classes simply involve taking notes and digesting whatever the teacher says, similar to college. However, you will not score highly on the exams if you don't read the book or some online notes, also similar to college. These classes effectively mirror college education, and as such, they serve as accurate determinations of the student's college readiness. Fewer AP classes should utilize the "beat-the-material-into-their-skulls" approach. Only then will they serve their true purpose: to measure college aptitude.

Sex-ED

American Society and Education in the Age of Project X

The sight of an average, in-session classroom bares testament to all that is wrong with the education sytsem today. Namely, the room is dimly lit. Half the kids are asleep dreaming. The other half are texting way. Nearly everyone of them looks like they just rolled out of bed, wearing baggy sweats and sporting matted, frizzy, or greasy hair. They've given up on not only school, and their life, but their own physical appearance. It is a Hell of not pain but insufferable boredom. The sound of the bells mark temporary respites from the drudgery, from the overwhelming urge to sleep. But even that is not enough. For the bell in the course of the year rings nearly 1,700 times, only to be repeated anually from Kindergarten to Senior year. The volume and scope of this boredom is too daunting for any one man or woman to overcome. To the average student, a class period is a challenge, a prison-sentence without the exhilarating thrill of gang-fights and prison-paraphernalia. Nothing is learned. Every moment is detested. The only kids who even vaguely enjoy the school day are those who show up high, reeking of the scent of marijuana.

And it is this boredom which motivates kids to be unmotivated. This boredom crushes the spirit of every student into the deepest and darkest bowels of Hell until the only pillars of enjoyment they can mount are founded upon the ingestion of chemicals, and the exercise of illegal behavior. 

One cannot deny that school, and its boredom, is destroying the future of our society.

Thank-God that last night, at 1:00 A.M., alone in my bed, after a fairly disappointing date with a ridiculously attractive girl, did I conceive the solution to all of this.

Yet, for my solution to make any sense at all, I must first and foremost explain the context of my night.

I drove thirty minutes to pick up the girl, another thirty minutes to dinner, another twenty minutes to the movies, and then another forty to drop her back off at her house. And if you drive a Hummer, that is nearly half a tank of gas. The whole time, I exhausted myself mentally making jokes, being funny, smart, and charming (contrary to popular belief, it doesn't come naturally to me). We had zero in common. For she herself was less adequate at making conversation than Siri. Yet, unlike Siri, she was a total Dime-Piece with a body that could make the Pope, in all of his Pontificating glory, quit his job. So I enjoyed every moment of the date, regardless of how intensively it demanded extraordinary effort and intelligence.

I must also mention the movie we saw—Project X. In short, the movie is about these three guys, who are total losers. The protagonist, Thomas, is having a birthday, his parents are out of town, so they throw this humongous party, demanding incredible attention, planning, organization, pain, cost, and effort, that burns down an entire street, for the sole and explicit purpose of having sex with the hottest girls at their school. Despite all of them facing criminal charges in the end, they all conclude it was totally worth it. And I suppose too did everyone in the theater. For right before the credits started to roll, a guy and the back let loose a cry of, "Let's rage!!!" which won the applause of everyone there.

Thus, in my bed, I realized that everything we do, man or woman, black, white, or yellow, is for sex. No if, and's, or but's about it. For if it wasn't for the purpose of attracting a mate, I, nor any other man, would shave, dress, diet, work-out, or leave home.

You might argue that some people are motivated by things other than sex. And I would agree. Over-achievers in high-school, for instances, are motivated by letter-grades. Yet, I would say even that desire is in some form sex, a fetish of sorts. Because, the sexually-unsuccessful academics (of which I proudly consider myself one), whether they know it or not, substitute the pleasure of a killer report-card, with a night in bed with Kate Upton. In the back of their minds, they only earn the grades so they can get rich and score night after night, and essentially pull a Jeremy Lin off the basketball court.

And it only makes sense, given that evolution argues that it is all about attracting a mate, passing on our genes to as many people as possible. For those most sexually virulent and motivated have the most kids. And their sexually virulent kids have the most kids. So on, and so forth. Thus, over millions of years of natural-selection,  humanity has come out on top, as the single most sexually motivated form of life on Earth. That is all we are, and ever will be. All we do is for sex. Evolution has not made us smarter than jungle-monkeys. Or more caring. It's only made us better at getting-lucky.

This also explains why married men sit around all day, doing nothing whatsoever, like hopeless eunuchs. Because nothing (save for an extra-marital affair) can get them laid.

Thus, it is evident that school has failed everyone of us. It denies us what is natural, and whole. What is beautiful, and inspiring. What is ours, and ours alone. It denies us our sexuality. Thus, I have devised a highly-formulated system of what I call Sexual-Education. What is below, are the revolutionary steps the education-system must implement to reinstate a high-level of learning in this great nation. This system, if implemented. will benefit society to an extent only rivaled by the assembly-line and the agrarian-revolution. It is what we must do.

The Tenets of Sexual-Education 

• The co-education of boys and girls from grades K-8 will remain the same as it is today.
• Upon entrance to the ninth grade, the population of students will be segregated. The top 10% academically performing group of boys, will be combined with the top 10% most attractive girls in a single school. The attractiveness of these girls will be evaluated solely upon looks by a state-level panel of experts.
• The curriculum of the smartest 10% of boys will be academically demanding, focusing on the conventional subjects.
• The curriculum of the most attractive 10% of girls will not be academically demanding. These girls will spend all day exercising, dieting, and grooming themselves to be at peak hotness.
• The incentive for the smartest boy is that the ones with the highest class rank will be paired with the attractive girl of an equal class-rank. In other words, the hardest working guy, gets the hottest girl. The hottest girl, get the smartest and most economically-viable guy. It's a match made in heaven.
• To prevent boredom, the most attractive girls will wear next to nothing as they exercise and groom themselves. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will be bikini days. Tuesdays and Thursdays, however, will be topless (individuals with an ethical aversion to this measure can note that this code is unquestionably justifiable and righteous given that the words "Tuesday", "Thursday", and "topless" begin with the same letter and must therefore be wonderful).
• Guys, however, can wear whatever they like.
• The remaining 90% of girls, not blessed with quality of good-looks, will receive a traditional education. Yet, as incentive, those girls graduating in the top 10% of their class, will have their hard-work, and sacrifice rewarded (because looks aren't everything) with intensive plastic-surgery. These girls will be crafted most expertly as to look like the divine Pamela Anderson circa 1989.
• The 81% of girls who are either not that attractive, or that smart, will enter the work-force as normal women. Yet, given that they competed so intensively, they will be highly educated, and highly successful, such that they will fare fine and perhaps achieve marrying an attractive gigolo.
• The remaining 90% of males, will compete academically such that the top graduating 10% will be allowed to marry a girl, either artificially, or naturally in the 19th percentile of attractiveness. As to stimulate their libido for academic exertion, and prevent boredom, the walls and hallways of their classrooms will be plastered with with the most desensitized and debauched pornographic images of girls in the top 19th percentile of hotness.
• After high-school education is completed, secondary education will be offered for the smartest males and the hottest and/or smartest girls.

Some may call these measures prejudiced and discriminative. Yet, I rebut that these measures hold the best interest of all parties involved, smart, or dumb, sexy, or simply repulsive. For I know not a boy that likes to be around another male who is superior in intelligence. Nor do I know an ugly girl who enjoys being compared by a girl infinitely more attractive. In separating these individuals into groups of their equals, none of them will feel inferior or worthless. I would wager that rate of suicide would plummet as with reports of bullying under this policy. 

Moreover, I ask to those in opposition to this plan one simple question— "Could our education system be any worse? Could it be any more miserable, or boring? Could any greater amount of students be more unhappy than they are now? Could they be anymore unmotivated, or hopeless?" I think not. Desperate times call for desperate measure. And these are desperate times. Our nation is at the bottom of the pack of education and it is time for a change. No more shall our nation be subservient to China and India. No more should our student be any less educated or any less-motivated. Now is the time for Sexual-Education! We must begin now!

Thus,  for the sake of the state of education of the United States of America, in the immortal words of Costa, I demand all the ladies at school tomorrow to "wear something tight."

I'm Gonna Make a Change

If I could change something about Henry Clay, it would either be the parking situation or the nasty smells/ trash in the bathrooms or cafeteria.

Okay, I know I can’t drive by myself yet, but I will be able to by the time I am a senior. The student parking lot doesn’t even have enough spots for the whole senior class. There needs to be a way for Henry Clay to make more parking spots available for students. Yes, some people will have priority over others next year because they have their mentoring project during the day, but people shouldn’t have to fight for a parking pass at their high school against their peers, there should automatically be enough for all seniors, maybe even some juniors.

The other issue I would change would be the smells coming from either the bathroom or cafeteria. All of us have that problem. We pass the bathroom and it reeks of smoke or crap. Install something that sprays out air fresheners smelling like a field of freshly grown flowers or just freshness. And for the smells in the cafeteria, open up windows on nice days or install and freshener in there as well. Now with the trash. In the bathroom, don’t put a something random in the toilet. Like a bagel. Just don’t. We could have big trashcans placed in the bathrooms so people don’t throw their trash either on the floor or in the sink. And for the cafeteria, we should hire more custodians so attack the messes made there. This would allow more job opportunities as well as a cleaner cafeteria.

Changes

The biggest change that needs to be made in the school system is availability of choices to allow a student to delve deeper into the topics that interest them. The school system currently has strict requirements that force kids to take classes in topics that might not interest them. Kids need more freedom to study want they want, in order to make school more interesting and better prepare them for future jobs. Forcing a student to take a math class who wants to become a writer for a newspaper or magazines, is not an efficient use of their time and energy. Not only is it a waste of time but the student will most likely be unhappy in the class and get a negative outlook on school and learning. If kids were allowed to study topics that interested them then they would be more excited to come to school and more likely to seek some form of further education once they graduate. Of course a student that does not know what they want to do can still take a variety of classes, but if a kid knows they want to work in a certain field, they should be allowed to focus on that field.

"And still I see no changes. Can't a brother get a little peace? There's war on the streets & the war in the Middle East. "

If there were to be something that I could rid Henry Clay of it would be all the hate, judgement, and cruelty. Sounds like a Miss Universe Pageant answer doesn't it? But they're all there in their entirety. You see it in the classroom and you see it in the halls. People bringing down other people so they may somehow put themselves on a pedestal of petty unimportance. For what, the praise of their peers? Kids bully kids and that's what they are, still kids. The kids create outcasts who keep their feelings cold and contained. Until one day the cap comes off and the crying cant heal the pain anymore. This has never happened to me but we see it in the news when somebody breaks and suddenly we're all singing the blues. It should never resort to that, the rat-ta-tatat, when all they really needed was a pat on the back. We've all had those days where we felt really crappy, so just do the Mcferrin and "Don't Worry Be Happy." Nobody's perfect, but would it be worth it to send somebody on a hurt trip, just so you can feel better on the surface? Some things never change but it starts with you, so stand up and be one of the few.