Despite being a high school student for the majority of three years, it wasn’t until this year, my junior year, that I finally began to appreciate the teachers at SHS that avoid giving their opinions during a class discussion. 

Sometimes, a teacher’s opinion may add to the discussion between the students in a class, but I feel that it more often than not turns into a teacher pushing their opinions on students. 

Teachers should provide students with opposing ideas and viewpoints and the sources needed to explain each side of the argument. By doing this, teachers are able to spark conversation and critical thinking in their classroom, rather than change the opinions of their students. 

Sure, I will always be willing to ask a teacher to chime in on a discussion for a little bit of guidance or to see whose side they agree with. But, this truly becomes an issue when a teacher begins adding this idea into their everyday lessons. It can create controversy in the classroom and may even lead to teachers holding grudges against students for different opinions.

Without giving high school students a chance to learn and think for themselves as they are growing up, they are wasting useful development periods in their minds. 

According to CNN, once people reach middle age, neural connections can weaken not only from not being used, but also from increased age. As these neural connections become weaker, it is harder for older people to learn and retain new information. 

This is why it is so important for students to learn how to form their own opinions throughout their years in high school. By doing this, they are using these critical development periods in the best way possible. 

When students make their way through high school, they have a lot of room to grow. In my experience, high school was truly the first place I began to grasp the concept of critical thinking. I finally started to form my own opinions, but every once in a while that trend was stopped in its tracks by a teacher or adult telling me that I should be thinking something else. 

This idea of pushing opinions on students must come to an end. Everyone understands that critical thinking is a needed skill for our everyday lives. It is by far one of the most important concepts students learn throughout their high school journey. 

But if teachers continue to push opinions on students, this skill will eventually disappear completely. Granted, society losing the skill of critical thinking is extremely unrealistic, but this skill could certainly be weakened by adults who do not allow students to think for themselves.