Jordan Groll

American Society: Urban Legends in the Classroom What is it about America that causes students and people to crave an education? Could it be the intense pressures of society, or could it even be the simple fact that we want to educate ourselves? For centuries people were fine with being un-educated and life was simple and laid back, but when John Cotton (a noted Puritan Minister) established the first public school in America, people began to eat it up. And thus was the start of a race to the top and an obsession in today’s society about education. We are now living life in the fast lane, and most people don’t even have the time to stop and smell the flowers along the way. The Urban Legends, “Open Book”, …show more content…

And then it slowly worked its way up to where you needed a degree of some sort such as a Bachelors degree in order to get the good higher paying jobs. And now we are so engrossed in the education of society that in order to get those top notch jobs, you need to stay in school longer and get you master’s degree. Now, it could be that society has just been paying more attention to education over the years and they keep finding great value in it. So as a result they put more and more emphasis on it and they only start to hire people with master’s degrees. Some of the effects from the messages which these urban legends are trying to send to people are really bad for teens. The urban legends send out a message of how important education is, when teenagers already take school seriously and know how important it is. By sending out a double message like that, it causes the younger generation and eventually society as a whole to place a greater emphasis on the education, which in turn puts a lot more pressure onto the students. The students or teens then go from carrying a couple of heavy weights, to carrying the entire world on their shoulders. The teens are put under so much pressure to do well in school that in those rare occasions where the student doesn’t understand a subject they resort to cheating to get the good grades which will make their parents really proud rather than thoroughly disappointed. Now what exactly is an