High school should be a place where teenagers are able to be treated as young adults and find themselves as individuals while getting an education. More often than not, however, high school students are treated like toddlers. Very few students get the responsibility they deserve and need in order to succeed after they leave high school. Students in high school are coddled when they should be treated as adults and should be using applicable skills before college and the real world. That is why high school teachers and administration should give high schoolers more freedom.

Many high schoolers are not given the responsibility that they deserve. This is apparent after they graduate, because there is a huge culture shock when entering college and the work force where they are required to think and act independently, rather than having everything mandated to them. Students in high school are forced to abide by every single rule that their teachers give them, and have no freedom like they would in the outside world. For example, at the Carver Collegiate Academy in New Orleans, there is a penalty for falling asleep, which was 10 demerits, which triggered a detention and skipping detention could warrant a suspension. They are expected to stay in their seat, not chew gum, or use their phones in class for non academic purposes, but in college it is the total opposite. College professors are often uninterested if a student is chewing a piece of gum in class becaue they are there to teach the students, not micromanage them. They give much more freedom than high schoolers are used to. When people get too much of anything it can become bad, and if students are given too much freedom they start to think that they can do anything they want, like outrageous partying or cheating in school.

High school classes fail to foster independent young adults. This is because they hinder the growth of skills that students need when they are about to enter the workforce or move out for the first time. High school teachers and administrators can often be categorized as helicopter parents, or parents that constantly monitor what their kids are doing and do mostly everything for them. These traits can do great harm to a teenager because it does not allow for the treatment of teenagers with the maturity and respect that is needed for them to develop into functioning members of society smoothly. According to the New York Times, when children have helicopter parents, they lack problem-solving skills which are necessary once they move away from their parents. Schools are generating a generation of helpless students, which are precisely what colleges, and in turn workforces, do not want. Micromanaging students by instilling harsh guidelines, such as bathroom passes, are not conducive to the goal of creating independent individuals whatsoever.

Although many people may think that schools are helping the students to learn how to function like adults, they are not. High schools believe that the tight structure is beneficial, but students need to be able to see what the real world is going to be like. Students need to learn to do things for themselves and have the independence that they will have going into college and the work force. High school administration needs to ease off of the constant management and give students a way to show that they can be mature and in control of things themselves.

High school students are constantly being controlled and treated like children, and for them to succeed it needs to be stopped. The rules at high schools need to be less stringent and students need to be treated like they are young adults, with respect. Until this happens, college freshman are still going to be shocked and utterly surprised when they get to college.