School: The Start of Life’s Treadmill
How we all got duped
School is the start of life’s treadmill - we hop on, ushered on by our parents, and before we realize it, begin to mindlessly chase the next hurdle we need to clear. Pre-school, to kindergarten, to elementary school…. all the way to university: school really is the start of life’s treadmill. And the treadmill continues on after school at work, and on and on until one day - the treadmill breaks down and stops working. But what are we really chasing at school? Is it knowledge? And for whom?
Ironically, the very first word I learned to spell was “school.” I was locked up in a room and told that I could not leave until I memorized s-c-h-o-o-l. Looking back on that time as a father today, I can understand why I was put up to the task: I was turning five years old and needed to keep pace with a development schedule or be labeled as someone with special needs.
For most of us, school is where we are first introduced to the concepts of competition, deadlines, and work in the name of learning. It is also where we first learn about the concept of failure, and its emotional and academic ramifications. We are trained from the moment our cognitive abilities have developed enough about how to prepare for success and about a system to help us along called “grades.”
Ultimately, it is an interconnected processing plant where humans are tracked on their cognitive capacity and development pace according to a set schedule and with respect to each other. The critical question is, for whom?
A big part of the answer is, for the parents via the school’s reputation. Companies don’t require transcripts to be provided before hiring young professionals - they go by the reputation of the schools on the CV for the academic component of their hiring decision. This branding and reputation translates into the education price commanded and charged to parents, typically at the university level although “prestigious” schools going all the way to pre-school can charge mind boggling amounts. When I moved to Singapore, I was shocked that some pre-kindergarten “franchise” schools charge as much as $4,000 per month!
Due to the core function of “if… then…” that schools and the education systems are hardwired to operate on, students are relentlessly chasing the next step. If you do well in kindergarten, then you can proceed to 1st grade. If you graduate from middle school, then you can go to high school. If you do well on the college entrance exam, then you can go to a prestigious college. And so on, and so forth.
The blinders are donned, the cruise control button is switched on, and we are set on a path where tunnel vision guides our attention as we live out the school’s expectations on how we prove our progress and worthiness in exchange for a ticket to the next stage.
This post kicks-off a multi-part series where we will deconstruct the institution of school, how it has transformed our lives and expectations in unsuspecting ways, and how relationships have soldered in expectations about what success means, affecting us to this very day.
Time to find that cancel button!
First up, the story of school from the Eastern part of the world.
➡️ Read the previous FoFty manuscript article here:
