Miseducation: creating a better education system
Our education system is one that most feel lost in. I know I did, most teachers knew I was bright, but at the same time, none had the highest hopes for me. The perception was that I wouldn’t do much with my intelligence and that I was a burnout. To be fair, that wasn’t totally unfounded. Teachers sat by watching as I dropped out of my AP classes and avoided anything resembling a plan. I just didn’t see a future for myself and would rather hang out with my friends getting easy A’s. Despite how that looked, there was a pretty good reason for it. My home life was filled with emotional turbulence and occasional violence. That’s something that I kept hidden from those teachers. Even if I had wanted to live up to my potential, I didn’t have the energy or mental space to try. Years later, I was lucky enough to get to a place where I could tap into that potential, but most kids don’t get that opportunity. It’s hard not to think about what would have happened for me, or other kids like me if we had an education system that worked differently. One that cared for kids and nurtured their interests so that they could find direction earlier on. All of us have potential, it just takes the right support to reach it. We also all have things we’re interested in. I remember writing an essay back then about the failings of the institution, showing the dichotomy of who I was back then. A degenerate and an intellectual. If only we had a system that watered those seeds, maybe I could have found my way a lot sooner than I did. Maybe all the lost kids would find a way.
Saying our system is broken isn’t some astute observation or revelation. Many before me have taken ire with how our system works, doing so through countless documentaries and articles. One thing that those critiques have in common is that many use a similar metaphor of the education system being based on a factory system designed for a bygone era. We’re all treated as inputs, with the outputs being “good” citizens who tick off the right boxes as productive members of the workforce. This worked when there were only a handful of realistic occupations in the country, but that’s no longer the world we live in. Today, most of us will have multiple careers within a lifetime. Careers that for the most part won’t use anything that we’re taught in school. We all need basic foundations of knowledge, but what’s more important is that we learn how to think, adapt, and problem-solve. More than that, we need to be able to follow our curiosity so that we can engage with and navigate the world past the surface level. If you went to an American public school you know that’s not the case. High school is just rote memorization, preparing us for standardized tests. This has only gotten worse since No Child Left Behind was enacted, where school resources have become tied to test scores. That bill was supposed to bring us up to par with other nations’ education. In the end, all it did was leave us with meaningless test scores that do a better job of showing differences in socioeconomic status rather than intelligence.
Intelligence isn’t one thing and the human experience isn’t standardized. Some kids are mechanically gifted, while others gravitate to numbers. Even the ways in which people are good at the same subject varies. Take writing, there are excellent storytellers and then there are technical writers who excel at things like lab reports. None of that is shown when we reduce each kid to a set of test scores. I know this firsthand because I was one of the kids who did well on those tests. Scoring high never felt like it meant anything. I still felt just as lost, and didn’t see how those scores would help me find my way, so I never went the extra mile to do better. Sure, at times I wish I had tried harder because of the opportunities it would have given me, but then I would have missed out on the perspective I have today. When you get placed in the “gifted” bubble, you miss out on the broad range of what it means to be human. The definition of “gifted” or “smart” that the system has is so narrow. That definition largely applies to kids whose parents set them on that track and had the time or resources to teach them how to play the game. They memorize what needs to be memorized, and do what they’re told will lead to success. All of the support is there so they can act the part of the good student. Yet, when they get thrown a curveball, they can’t adapt. Therein lies the problem, we’re just being taught how to fit into a system, not how to live a good life.
Before I go any further, I have to say that I have immense respect for a lot of people who found success by leaning into the system. Many come from nothing and know that’s the only way to make it out. Quite a few are genuinely gifted, they wouldn’t make it as far as they do if they weren’t. We also shouldn’t shame parents who make the effort to ensure their kids are set up to do well. In a more just world, every parent would have that opportunity. That’s why this critique isn’t about the kids or their parents but more about how our education system works and how it classifies us. The issue is that the AP system is largely just a farming system for colleges in the US, while kids who may not have the same opportunities are left to fail. Those kids left behind are thrown into the world with nothing but the random names, dates, and formulas they had to remember for tests that led nowhere. They’re not taught critical thinking or given the chance to develop skills that can help them find direction in life. College-bound kids face a similar challenge. Sure they may be set up for the so-called path to prosperity, but they aren’t happy. Opportunities to learn more about themselves and find direction just aren’t there. Most wind up with a degree that they won’t use or one that puts them in a job that doesn’t suit them.
Despite what my teachers thought, I went to college and graduated at the top of my class. It was a state school but you know that still counts. I did the thing everyone said I needed to and then entered the workforce to become a “professional”. None of this made me happy. I wish I had known that this path would lead to being saddled with debt and sitting behind a screen for 10 hours a day. This life, which is the output of the education system, doesn’t feel like much of a life at all. What has made a difference is what I’ve done outside the system. Late in college, I started what amounted to my own personalized degree. I started reading again and trying to learn about everything that interested me. I pursued different hobbies and tried to actually think about the world around me. Changing my major felt like too much of a risk, so I ended up minoring in Philosophy. My advisor thought I was crazy but that exploration gave me a view outside the system. That view still saves me today because it allows me to be more than just an output. I can try new things and follow my interests wherever they may take me. I’m my own person, developing my curriculum for life. Imagine if that’s what we were allowed to do when we were young. We could explore the things that interest us and maybe if we’re lucky find a career path that truly fits us. Of course, we need money to live. Not everyone is going to pay someone to write Scorsese spec scripts or build mid-century modern birdhouses for owls. At the very least though we’d have a better idea about who we are as people and have richer more fulfilling lives outside of work.
Developing areas of interest and having room to explore wouldn’t just be an antidote for the malaise that many of us feel as adults. It could be an antidote to the crippling technology addiction that kids are experiencing today. I’ve referenced it before but many teachers will tell you kids can’t focus because of how their brains have been rewired by algorithms and the technology around them. The content and social media platforms are undoubtedly to blame for this, but we also need to think about the learning environment. There’s a reason kids are turning to these platforms aside from the addiction piece. Who wants to memorize what’s perceived as useless information when you can just go on YouTube or TikTok? As much as I hate to admit it, kids are learning from those platforms. They’re always doing weird deep dives on random subjects that fascinate them, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. If we had an education system centered on letting kids explore their interests and geared towards teaching them how to think then they might be more engaged with school. We’d be able to put guardrails in place since we’d be guiding their exploration. We could focus their energy away from the dangerous rabbit holes like right-wing conspiracy theories and ‘man-o-sphere’ philosophy. Hopefully, by creating more interest in their own lives and pursuits, they could resist the dopamine traps of social media. Again this isn’t about all kids growing up to do their dream jobs. It’s more about creating a world where they’re seen as more than inputs and outputs. We need a system that’s focused on helping them develop as people and grow into themselves. We need a system where they’re seen as humans.