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Aida Raissi

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Should students in high school be allowed to pick any subject they are interested in studying to the exclusion of physics, chemistry...?

Students spend years studying a variety of subjects, of which, only those they pursue as a profession actually stick to them. Why should we force high school students to learn subjects that they are not interested in, rather than giving them the choice of a wide variety of subject. Even if this means they might have very little to no knowledge of physics, biology, chemistry, but a breadth of knowledge regarding psychology, social work, music, sociology going into the real world.

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    Nov 30 2011: At least here in Germany Humboldt's humanistic ideal of education is still quite strong - meaning education is there to give you a complete view of the world, not excluding any fields. That is why up to the tenth class students in highschool can only choose between a second language and a science class (in my class astronomy), except this all are required to take the same classes. It is only after the tenth class that you can choose what interests you more. However, you cannot fully disregard science or languages. In your final exams you are tested in four classes that you choose, and from these four one has to be a science/math class, one has to be a language, and one has to be a humanitarian/social science.

    Now to your question - I don't see this humanistic ideal as a bad thing, it offers students a panoramic view of what they can pursue. I do not disagree that some students eventually feel forced to take some classes, I know many such examples, however, at least in school I favour generalized knowledge over expertise.

    In today's world you don't know what you might need or where you'll end up and "forcing" students to take all kinds of classes may let them discover things that they had not considered in the first place.