“You can be whoever you want when you grow up. A firefighter, or an astronaut, or even the President of the United States!”
If America had Pinocchio's nose, it would have long been chopped off by angry Americans awakening to these fictitious lies they’ve been fed since the dawn of time. This statement filled with optimism and dreams is echoed and engrained in the minds of students from the moment they set foot into elementary school. Teachers rave about the American Dream of equality, freedom, and the liberty to pursue dreams. Yet, the same institution that cultivates young souls’ inspirations is the very poison that kills their aspirations. The American education system fuels the fallacy of the American Dream and it is time we finally realize as a society that this system is paving the road to a graveyard of lost thinkers, inventors, and innovators.
Curbing Individualism and Innovation
The American education system is Pavlov and we are his dogs who salivate at the sight of a shiny medal while cowering in fear at the thought of failure. From scantrons to regulations, high achieving students have been programmed to cram, memorize, and follow regulations to a tee. They are robots who can perform well given the command and when left to their own devices are rather uncomfortably uncertain with paving their own path because of their intimacy with direct instructions. Gone are the dreams of becoming an astronaut and here are the dreams of becoming an accountant. Millennials will no longer opt for the road less taken, but rather the proven method of success because we are stricken with fear at the potential failures of chasing our dreams. We are glorified slaves; some of us will be lucky enough to live out our mundane lives in an office for forty years, while the rest of us will be manual workers all thinking the same thought, “Is this it?”
One day, when it’s too late, we will ask ourselves, “Where are America’s thinkers? The ones who step outside the box and ask questions that shake our very foundation? The ones who create unimaginable devices that revolutionize our world?” They were the kids whom teachers forced to color within the lines. They were the students whom teachers would command to stop asking “dumb questions.” They were the students who were curious about the world whom teachers would complain about during parent teacher conferences. They learned to follow rules instead of questioning them and slowly, they left behind a trail of criticisms leading to a forsaken dream.
Crushing Debt of Higher Education
College is no longer sought after to indulge our knowledge, but a necessary prerequisite for success. According to The Pew Research Center, 24% of Millennials are college graduates amassing over one trillion dollars in loan debt. Those who are fortunate enough to pursue higher education will feel the wrath of their education strangling them for years to come. For all those who do not have the luxury to pursue higher education or choose to pursue an alternative route are automatically deemed less capable than their college graduate counterparts.
With the fear of uncertainty rising among parents and students alike, the urgency to attend a brand name school is the ultimate shiny medal that students obsess over. Colleges take pride in their nosediving admissions rate, not due to a rising competitive pool of applicants, but due to the insecurity and fears of high achieving students applying to an absurd amount of top universities. The following year, students will stalk the statistics and admission rates will drop while insanity rises. We will mold ourselves into the people we think society will accept and deem a success while relinquishing our true selves before we even figured out who we really are.
Financially and Politically Illiterate
When we finally relieve ourselves of educational institutions, we lack the capabilities and knowledge to become fully fledged members of society because what the hell is a 401k and what the heck are politics?! 76% of Millennials will not attend college and a high school education is the only knowledge that will prepare them for the real world. Should we not be educated about taxes, benefits, economics, voting rights, and politics? We are a country boasting about our freedom to vote, yet only 57.5% of Americans voted for the 2012 presidential election. We are a country that can barely speak one language properly while hosting the best universities in the world. We are a country that speaks of entrepreneurship, yet we offer no formal education on personal finance along with a string of tremendous debt. Most of us will not question where the huge chunk of our paychecks go every month and most of us will have given up the hope that change is possible so we don’t bother to vote.
I’ve seen many empty people, all whom are intelligent and attend the best universities in America. When asked about their dreams, they reply with a dream to make big money sitting in an office. When asked about their political stances, they reply with a meek smile that they are not well-informed and will not vote. These are the crème de la crème of America’s next leaders. These are the products of a broken system that do not think we stand a chance to make the world a better place. Well, isn’t that sad...
