When my college students were asked to write about ways to improve the high schools, a number of them suggested that we should make them more entertaining.  We should make them "funner," as one student put it.

These essays were written in response to an article by Anita Garland, which proposes such ideas as abolishing the prom, discontinuing intermural sports, serving healthy cafeteria food, instituting school uniforms, and – most important of all – expelling chronic troublemakers.  Many of my students disagreed with Garland, raising such logical points as the suggestion that Garland obviously hated the prom because she couldn't get a date for one when she was in high school, that skill in sports is the only way that students with mediocre grades could get scholarships, and that expelling troublemakers would seriously damage their self-esteem.

Instead of Garland's silly ideas, many of my students wrote that the way to reform high schools was to make them fun, places that kids would want to go to.  Indeed, one student wrote that "we should ask the kids what they want, and do that."  School should not consist of boring subjects taught by boring teachers.

The chief problem with my students' viewpoint is that they didn't support it very well.  Since I have a rather old-fashioned approach to the personal opinion or argument essay, I insist that arguments and opinions must be supported by specific reasons and that suggestions must be developed in detail.  Although a small chorus of students proclaimed that we should make school "funner," few suggested how this goal might be accomplished.

To help my students, I'm suggesting how they might support this idea by offering proposals for reforms that would make school more entertaining.

First, abolish all traditional subjects.  For example, replace English with a course in chat room behavior and instant messaging abbreviations.  Let students practice the art of communicating exuberant but meaningless messages via abbreviations and nonsentences.  Eliminate science classes (too often they conflict with students' religion anyway), except perhaps to have labs in which the kids learn how to manufacture drugs or build stills for making alcohol – and then have ample opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labors.  I'm not sure what we would do to replace math.  Since numbers aren't very entertaining, we probably should toss math entirely, though perhaps we could take students on field trips to a casino or race track where they could have fun gambling and calculating the odds.

Academic classes would be replaced by a curriculum of informal bull sessions.  Subjects covered would include cell phone use (with units on topics such as "How to Select a Cool Ringtone"), computer game and videogame strategy, and making out on dates.  Regarding the last, we would replace "Sex Education" with "Sex" – a hands-on laboratory course.

Reading, of course, would not be required.  After all, nobody reads much anymore, and certainly nobody except boring teachers reads the kind of stuff currently assigned in high school.  Those nerds who want to read could dig into youth-oriented magazines that report on the lives and loves of the current teen idols.  The school library (such as it is) would be well supplied with these materials.  Until they are used up, we would burn any books that are classified as "literary," "serious," or "educational" at the bonfires during pep rallies.

If we must have classes, the teachers should be properly trained to entertain.  Nobody should be certified to teach without some experience in stand-up comedy, and every school of education should equip future teachers with an extensive supply of jokes and knee-slapping one-liners.  We would also require teachers to be able to sing, dance, and play a guitar.  The school day would begin with a concert (no earlier than 10 a.m. because kids don't enjoy getting up too early), at which some of the faculty would perform a rock version of "Let Me Entertain You."  Students would sing, yell, clap, dance, or do whatever turns them on.

Far from requiring uniforms, we should abandon the dress code altogether.  It denies students the right to express themselves and is therefore probably unconstitutional anyway.  Students would wear what they like.  We might even have some fashion shows, thus putting the overwhelming importance of personal appearance into the curriculum where it belongs.  As warm weather approaches, lingerie and swimsuit competitions could be a big hit with kids who have just entered puberty.

We must discard the stupid idea of homework. Statistics show that kids are doing less and less of it anyway.  Those who do hand in homework (social misfits!) are just burdening their parents with an extra chore or are swiping stuff off the Internet.  Homework ruins kids' social lives, taking up many hours that could be spent hanging out with their friends.  Furthermore, there's a self-esteem issue here.  Students who are criticized for not doing homework or who get poor grades on it are marred for life by developing low self-esteem.  The best way to have a child achieve high self-esteem is to set the bar as low as possible, preferably at the level where the child does not have to accomplish anything.

If we were to put these reforms of the stodgy school system into effect, we would not need to require attendance.  Kids would go to school because they wanted to go.  It is time to discard the thoroughly misguided view that the function of schools is to educate.  It is time to make them funner.