We Raise Robots, Not Children
“I felt it was better to take my life than to accept failure,” recalled Christine, a Harvard student who recently reported her suicide attempt to Harvard’s student newspaper, The Crimson. Christine toiled in high school to gain admission into Harvard, believing that an education at the prestigious institution would make her happy. Instead, the high pressure environment turned what she saw as failures into suicidal thoughts (Hatoff). This mental instability hides under the veil of many high achievers, who must hold themselves up to the ridiculous modern standards of success in order to feel any self-worth. Personal growth, which allows for creativity and a sense of direction, and relationships, which …show more content…
On top of that, prestigious colleges, hubs of stress and anxiety, release propaganda that tricks many high school students that admittance into prestigious colleges leads to happiness later on. Many students believe this propaganda, and they sacrifice immediate happiness in order to work to gain admittance, only to be disappointed when they come to an even more anxiety-ridden environment. The toxic educational environment brought about by contemporary standards of success limits people’s ability to achieve happiness.
Contemporary education aims to indoctrinate kids with the goal of achieving extrinsic success at the expense of personal development and relationships. Self-reflection is a very important part of personal growth in adolescents. In an interview with The Atlantic, William Deresiewicz, a former Yale professor, revealed how contemporary education can stunt an adolescent’s growth. He stated, “The fact that we’ve created a system where kids are constantly busy, and have no time for solitude or reflection, …show more content…
Elite students grind their way through their studies in uncreative and oppressive institutions. William Deresiewicz, the same former Yale professor who was concerned about how the education system damages children, noted in an interview with The Atlantic that an education at an elite university further stresses high-achieving students. He explained, “[Elite] students are made to understand that they have to be perfect, that they have to do everything perfectly, but they haven’t turned to themselves to ask why they’re doing it… Of course they’re stressed,” (Bruni). A prestigious education does not truly educate its students. Instead, it puts stress on them by forcing them to jump through higher and higher hurdles, instead of telling them to express their creativity like they should. This grind through coursework is justified by elite educators for the future happiness that it supposedly brings. A recent poll conducted by researchers from Podunk University suggests otherwise. It questioned college graduates on whether they were “thriving” or “engaged with their work”, signs of a happy adult. “When you ask college graduates whether they’re ‘engaged’ with their work or ‘thriving’ in all aspects of their lives, their responses don’t matter one bit whether they went to a prestigious college or not”,