I love music and I love kids! I was always that way for as long as I could remember, and ever since my first band rehearsal in fourth grade, I wanted to be a band director. It was my dream to learn all the instruments and spread my love of music to the next generation. However, I eventually came to recognize that a teaching career wasn’t going to work out for me. Once I realized how corrupt our public education system is in the United States, there was no way that I could ever be a teacher.

The problem with public schooling in America is deeply rooted in its history.

The model of schooling that we use in America today is the Prussian system. It was created to teach obedience in a fearful and isolated setting. Frederick William I of Prussia implemented the model and his son Frederick II used it to amplify his power by limiting the knowledge of his people.

In the United States, this very system was implemented to create a type of citizen who would work well in factories during the Industrial Revolution. Children were industrialized in school just like a product on a conveyor belt. They were (and still are) treated like products of a factory, as they march in single-filed lines from one step in the process to the next. It all culminates in the end of production: The graduation. While this system may have worked during the Industrial Revolution, it is 2016 now and Americans rarely partake in industrial labor.

As a result of the harsh, outdated and ineffective nature of the Prussian model of education, individuality is now a relic of the past. Students are expected to conform to the system and at times, are even forced to conform. I assure you that the system does not improve students’ abilities to learn, but rather forces beliefs upon precious young minds and destroys their intellect. If a student does not fit the mold, it’s a sink-or-swim situation. If their learning style is not compatible with this model, they either slip through the cracks or end up with an incredibly miserable life experience.

Every child is different and not one is the same as another. To use a “one size fits all” model is not only harmful to their confidence and well-being, but also to the future of this country. As I stated before, it is no longer the Industrial Revolution, so this model of schooling is unfit for the year 2016.

We need less conformity and more intellectuals. We need thinkers who can solve poverty, world hunger and find cures to diseases. Using a system that generally frowns upon such creative thinking is making it more difficult than it should be to solve these problems. It would be much easier to solve these problems if children could, from the very start, be encouraged to use their creativity and intellect and not be so contained.

I applaud every teacher and aspiring teacher who stands up to this terribly oppressive model. I cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it must be, especially for teachers of “non-core subjects,” who must deal with the instructional time that is taken away by standardized testing. This largely compulsory testing is stressful for not only the students, but also the teachers. Because of this standardized testing, students are taken away from the classes they enjoy the most and teachers are taken away from teaching the subjects they love the most.

For a student who is already superior in reading but wants to be an astrophysicist, taking a standardized test in reading comprehension is pointless. For a student who wants to become an artist and has no interest in biology whatsoever, taking a standardized test in the subject is just as pointless. Students should have more freedom to learn what they want to learn and teachers should have more freedom to teach what they want to teach. I know it’s not that simple to make a change, but that’s how I feel, and I hope to see such a change happen within my lifetime. I no longer wish to see so much control over standards and I no longer wish to see the system as compulsory.

This general mindset that led to such a compulsory system was disturbingly familiar since the very early days of this country. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, essentially stated that compulsory education should begin in Pennsylvania and that students should have no rights and belong to the government. Specifically, he said, “"Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property," in his "Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic.”

All of the American implementers of common education enforced the school system not only to turn them into ideal factory workers, but also a means of stripping Americans of their rights. Compulsory schooling isn’t exactly what I’d call “the pursuit of happiness.” The implementation of such a system totally contradicts the liberalism of which our country was founded upon, and it is not appropriate in 2016.

Now that most everyone alive today in the United States has been taught by the Prussian system, many of us don’t question why we use it. I, however, am one of the few people who question it and after an extensive amount of research, I’ve concluded that the whole basis of our system is flawed and that American schools promote civic–as opposed to individual–pursuits. I don’t believe that the system is proper in this day and age, nor do I believe that the state should have the right to control innocent children.

Today, students in America face depression and anxiety because of school and the forceful compliance to a system that they don’t benefit enough from. Antagonists of freedom and liberty built this system. As protagonists of freedom and liberty, it is our job to get rid of it and establish a new system to pave the way for the youth of tomorrow.