Education differs from other popular controversial issues in today’s society because education directly involves the future citizens of our country. It is sometimes hard to think about, but in less than a decade it is for certain that those students in middle school will be adults roaming around in society.  This is why fundamental values, like passion, must be evident in schools so that our future adults will have those values as well. This is significantly important because if students are not taught core values from schools (the place where they spend most of their time in), they will learn values from other sources. These other sources like the media and peer groups can often bring false values and ideologies. Students should learn that school is a tedious obligation because then they will apply that value to life and assume that all aspects of life are obligations.

            It is also important that our students are not taught that school is an obligation because they may take things for granted. This applies to the student’s life in both the short term and long term. Students may feel that because school is viewed as an obligation, it will always be there.  This creates two types of problems. The immediate problem is that the student may not put an effort in school or may stop attending school because they feel that they could always go back one day. The other part of the problem is that when that certain student is an adult they may apply the same logic to their life. They might think that their job is granted and will always be there; however, in reality, if they do not put effort in their work they will get fired.

            Another negative consequence of replacing passion with obligation in the education system is that students do not develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate, reflect upon, and reason to solve a certain problem or to further enrich one’s knowledge. This shortage of critical thinking skills occurs because students are not passionate about learning and they learn to do the minimum because that is all they are obligated to do. This becomes problematic because people who are not critical thinkers often cannot help the society progress. Neither can they help progress themselves (for example in job positions).