Today, education is geared toward testing, achieving, and aiming to be someone ultimately recognized for talent, position, status, and/or wealth. Youth and parents are perpetually bombarded with messages that they must climb certain very particular ladders to be successful.
Lost are the days when each person was valued for the part he or she played in the local community: the baker, the seamstress, the plumber, the doctor, the grocer, the mechanic, the engineer, etc. Outdoor playdates and neighborhood parties have often been replaced by a web of disconnected people staring at flat screens. Stories of success now mostly emphasize celebrity or wealth at the expense of effort and ethics. Communication is rarely about the quality of true face-to-face connection; it is a lightning-speed affair where the fastest ping rate and the number of “friends” and likes” are what really matter. We have moved from the excellence of presence and service to a consumer-driven frenzy to acquire status and power.
Consider the trajectory of the youth who are sent to and through the educational institutions, with their measures of achievement tied to these markers: