We, the free-thinking teenagers of America, wish to express our views of the high school environment. It is our belief that the current educational system is at a major slump in its development. We believe that high school as we know it needs a drastic change. First of all, look at some of the teachers that have epileptic fits when they spot a poor, helpless soul chewing gum in class. What does chewing gum have to do with the teaching environment? Will it distract other students? Or is it a health hazard ( "You might choke on it while trying to catch up on your Algebra II homework." )? It is understandable that you have to draw the line somewhere, but the way some of the teachers act towards some subjects, it makes you wonder if you are going to school to learn something, or just to be there for a teacher to show of his/her power to you ( "This is a down staircase!" "But... there's no one else on it!" "It doesn't matter. Go back down and walk around!" ). And the funny thing is, most of those teachers can't even TEACH. In their class, you'd expect them to be good at the subject they teach, but they tend to concentrate more on whether you have enough points in the gradebook rather than if you've learned something. And if kids DO learn something, but don't get the points, their bad grades discourage them. The ones that get good grades but don't learn anything get scholarships and turn out just like the teachers. Not all teachers are like this, but all it takes are a few to ruin the "teaching environment". We think that less seriousness in the enforecement of a student's extracurricular activities and more stress on actual TEACHING could not only help today's high school youths, but also tommorrow's leaders. We don't want a world run by a group of rejected, mentally confused people, but by organized, calm individuals that can take pride in themselves and their fellow man. Maybe those teachers are right and the rebellious students are at fault. It very well could be that those teachers are the ones teaching us a very important lesson in life, and we are the ones that should be listening. Who knows, maybe it's alright that 42.7% of all students graduating from most high schools today can't even get admitted to a halfway decent college. If that's the case, modern education can go on without us. Who needs the student anymore?