"Okay,the next topic we will study in this honors biology class will be the leaf. Wewill discuss the parts and the importance of it to theenvironment."

"Why are we learning about a leaf?" asks astudent, with a dropped jaw.

The answer remains a mystery to me. Theteacher claimed it was part of the material to be covered by the end of theschool year, yet the question still stands. When will the structure of a leafhave such an impact on our everyday lives that we are forced to learn more aboutit to adapt to this new lifestyle?

Yes, there are those who go on to studythe leaf in college and end up becoming botanists, but to a ninth-grader, a leafis not important. There are topics in biology that are useful, such as hereditarytraits, but a leaf?

They say that one day you just might be having lunchwith a person who brings up the topic of a leaf, and that it will be helpful tobe able to refer to our ninth-grade studies and share our own knowledge on thesubject. If I am having lunch with someone and they decide to indulge in

conversation about a leaf's mesophyll, I can promise you I will bewondering why I am having lunch with this person, and take it as an insult thatthey can think of no other subjects to discuss with me.

There are someareas of learning forced upon students which are mundane and have littlerelevance in most students' futures. There is so much to learn in the our shorttime in school that there should be more emphasis on the essential subjects thatwill help students as a whole in life. There are so many facts to be learned thatI wonder what I am missing out on while being taught about the stem and petioleof a leaf.