Dear American Education System:
Unlike many others, I can remember the last time I enjoyed school. Middle school, for me, wasn’t too bad of a time. By that point, I’d adjusted to being alone and I read during every free waking moment I had. I went to school unconcerned, talked with my teachers, learned fascinating material, and then stayed for the after-school program until my parents could pick me up at six o’clock from their jobs. I went to a small, small school: I had a graduating class of four in eighth grade. The focus there wasn’t on grades, but on learning; it is the closest to a school paradise I’ve experienced, but very few have had experiences like mine, and in the end, middle school’s only contribution to my future was a handful of relaxed memories to carry with me through my next stage of education.
Before going further, allow me to make a disclaimer. I am not speaking for all students; I think that’s made pretty clear from the first paragraph alone. I had different experiences and so did everyone else, and what I write to you today is the result of my frustration and the frustrations of a few I’ve spoken to. I cannot and will never make the claim that everyone feels the way I do. I do not dare. I also do not wish to shout into an empty void: my goal with this is to initiate change, or at the very least, raise awareness. I just want you to listen. I can remember the last time I enjoyed school, but there are countless others who cannot, and that’s why I’m writing this. I liked middle school, I did, but it never prepared me for what came next.
Full disclosure: I hated high school. Some of my best memories were created within that four-year period, some of my best friends were made in that time, but I hated high school because it was my first glimpse, my first lesson, into the education system, where I was first assigned a number and told that was all I was worth. To raise that number as high as possible, I had to run myself to the ground, grind myself to dust, push myself past all limits. I had to actively choose between my health and my GPA—between my mental stability and numbers on a page. I was not alone in choosing the latter.
You have carved pits underneath people’s eyes, have etched grooves into their brow. Exhaustion was never meant to take root in someone’s soul and drag them down again and again. The eyes were never supposed to dull to rusted metal, laughs were never supposed to be edged with hysteria and panic, stress was never meant to ferment so thickly in the air that students choke on it.
Children were never meant to voice their desire for death; children were never meant to have something consume them so thoroughly that when it leaves them for a break, it leaves them empty. The system fills us to the brim with its policies and rules, stifles us so we can only breathe when you tell us to, and when we are given a break from this water-boarding method of schooling, we poke and prod at ourselves, trying to fill the empty space. Where, then, do you suppose we turn? Internet, gangs, television, drugs, video games, social media—anything to relieve the hole. But this is like pouring water into a cardboard box: it is full for a while until someone stops pouring, upon which the water leaks out and damages the container, until the box sags and eventually breaks. That was high school.
I thought college would be different. I was told it was hard, and that scared me, but I’d believed that it was hard only because we would finally be encouraged to think on our own after we’d spent four years being told how and what to think. I pictured finally learning for learning’s sake, for fully understanding the why and how of something and forming my own ideas of how things should be. I lusted after a utopia that did not exist, for college disappointed me in two ways.
The first was expense. Naïvely, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to go to the colleges I’d get into. I applied to colleges I’d spent four long, hard years working towards, had sacrificed health and sleep and social events for; I applied and got into these schools…and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I found that their price tags were too great and their offers of assistance merely empty promises that never came to fruition. That was my first crushing loss, and while it mattered, at least I knew that what you put into a college was what you got out of it, so I still pictured a nesting ground for original thought, encouragement, and education.
You can see, then, how the second blow was much more crushing than the first one because my imaginings of college ended up being nothing like its reality. College not only reinforced ideas of perfection and intelligence, it also narrowed the margins for success. Blindsided, I found that I was a number now more than ever, but that now a “good” number was much less attainable than before. I found that not only does college foster fertile soil for stress, anxiety, depression, and despair, it frequently fertilized the growing roots of distress with a purposefully difficult curriculum. There are subjects that are naturally hard and subjects that were made purposefully hard. Professors upended their prior behavior because they were labeled as “easy;” classes give a chance at an A+, the only grade that doesn’t drop a GPA, at a measly five points rather than the ten we have been taught since grades ever mattered; departments structure tests so that the average is always a B-; students find themselves resorting to memorization rather than understanding more than ever, labelled the “learn and flush” method—and that is only the tip of the iceberg.
So this next part is addressed to my college and all like it: Yeah, you’re a top institution, you’re a good university, as you frequently remind us. I don’t dispute that and I always welcome challenges—as long as they are reasonable. You’re a top institution but you don’t tend to attribute the success to us, instead using the label as an excuse to pile more work upon us. “You chose this,” you chide us, “so don’t complain, because what we’re doing, it’s really helping you, and aren’t you so privileged to be receiving such a rigorous, helpful education?” You chose this—that is not an excuse for squeezing out every single ounce of effort from us; that is not an excuse for crushing us under a pile of papers. We chose this, yes, but we shouldn’t have been given the option of self-destruction. You should never have been given the right to tear someone down the way you are able.
What range of choices were we given? Here is how it was presented: you can go through four extra years of awful hardship and come out with a shiny diploma afterward with a job served alongside it, or you can go to that other school that’s not as good, sail smoothly, and come out with no prospects. Though that’s not true, that’s how it was presented, and so what were we to do but choose the first one? The time for living in the present passed long ago without us even realizing it; since, perhaps, before middle school, we have not had the luxury of doing things because we want to in the moment. Now we choose anything that might seem to relieve the burden of fear from the future. So, yes, we may have chosen this, but that doesn’t mean we deserve this.
We, students, don’t live; we exist. We go through the motions of life because we are meant to, we eat and sleep and shower because we must, and sometimes we don’t even do those. Why do you think we are notorious for skipping meals, famous for getting little to no sleep? We compare sleep hours and missed meals like bullet wounds, swap arduous schedules and classes like battle stories, and those who are the least healthy—who sleep, eat, and shower the least—are treated as war heroes. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?
“Four!” chirps one student around a yawn.
“That’s nothing, I got two!” cries another student, bruises purpling eyelids to validate the claim. Murmurs of sympathy and groans of agreement sound.
“Really? I got eight.”
Eight hours? everyone will exclaim in disbelief. You mean you actually slept the recommended, healthy amount last night? Immediately judgements will fly: this student does not try, this student does not take as difficult classes, this student is not intelligent; and all because they happened to get the amount of sleep maturing, malleable, growing teenagers are supposed to get. And it doesn’t stop there. Hygiene, regular meals—suddenly showering and eating take up precious time that could be used catching up on limited sleep or cramming our brains full of more information. Tell me, when was it supposed to be like this? When did teaching turn into shaping? Like the system is a conveyor belt and all you’ve got to do is stamp out like-minded kids as if from a mold. When did it become like this?
Your system not only harms us, but the educators as well—you know, those people who form the people of tomorrow. Many teachers go into the profession because they want to teach, because they want to pass along their passion, because they want to change lives. You don’t let them. You force them to ascribe to standards that control their classrooms. A teacher must complete all aspects of the syllabus because they’ll be on the standardized test—as if learning, as if intelligence, can ever be standardized—and that standardized test determines the amount of money the school gets and, thus, their salary. You force them to make their classes difficult because we can’t have easy classes at this school, nosiree. You don’t treat educators with the respect they deserve; you don’t even allow them to do what they want to do, which is to truly teach kids to understand a subject on their own, without the help of others.
Perhaps you might have a leg to stand on if it were working, if your deathless destruction of students made us brighter, better, smarter, but all the data are showing that actually, no, we’re not better off going through your shoddy system. We are seventeenth out of forty, and sure that might seem nice, but with the amount of money we pour into our education system, with the amount of time and effort and work we demand and take from our kids, seventeenth is pathetic. Many exit school without a shred of original thought and with no idea how to obtain it. Many go through years of schooling, willing to submit themselves to degradation again and again, and come out with nothing, no job to show for it. So what is it we have learned, then, after years of education? What is it we know?
We don’t matter.
That is what you tell us, with every number you assign, with every indifferent, amused glance you cast whenever we dare to speak up. Adults are notorious for scorning millennials in one breath and then reminding us that we have a huge mess, their mess, to clean up. When we propose solutions to these problems, you dismiss us as too young, too naïve, too idealistic to know how the world works. “You don’t know enough,” you say, “so stop trying to solve what you can’t understand.” Because we’re not in the real world, because we don’t have jobs, because we are weak, pathetic, ungrateful. We do not matter until we grow and we join you where you are, our feelings are not justified until we have experienced true suffering as you define it, our pain is not real until you acknowledge it. We don’t matter.
You confine us with rules and regulations we cannot overcome. How many protests against the dress code must be voiced before someone takes notice? Oh, but what a stupid issue for kids to focus on, what a dumb fight. Have you ever considered that the way they dress is, for some, the only fraction of control they have over their lives, and you’re taking that away as well? Have you ever thought about just what the dress code teaches kids: that girls should stop distracting boys and that boys are more entitled to an education than girls? Way to reinforce the poisons of society. But when we complain, no, we’re just trying to rebel. When we protest, no, we’re just special snowflake whiners and when teenagers in 1945 were our age they were fighting a war, look how pathetic and weak we are. Congratulations: you have taught us apathy, because why should we do this and that when we don’t matter?
You’d think that these injustices would bind us together, and in some ways it does. There’s an overt and covert “us vs. them” thinking in schools, where the “them” is you and those who work for you. But that’s only surface level, and it’s not always particularly harmful to you so you can ignore it. Instead, you’re clever. Rather than allow us to band together against you, you turn us against each other. Competition is healthy, right? Encourages just what we want in kids. Except the competition we go through ensures that we are not happy for another’s success, that we step over others to be better than them, that if we cannot match another student we are failing. Why do people cheat? Why do kids abuse focus drugs like Adderall? Then you’ve got bullying, both in school and online, and it runs rampant all across the country but you don’t do a thing about it. In some cases, rare but present, all of these combine—you don’t matter, competition, rules and regulations, bullying—to form deadly consequences. How many school mass shootings have there been in recent years? Too many. Some of these are perpetrated by the students themselves, those invisible children you thought it was okay to ignore, and why did they do it? Because they’re psychotic? Or because they’re a product of the flawed system you designed?
Countless have mentioned, too, that there aren’t enough hours in the day to complete what you wish us to, but all you say is that we complain too much and that we aren’t grateful for what you provide us. Still, you scorn us. You refuse to listen because we don’t matter. We will only matter when it suits you when you can no longer stifle us, when you need us. It’s funny because you treat us like dirt but then expect us to bear fruit for you. And we do. We will. Because bearing fruit for you means we’ll have something to eat as well, so we will, even while shouldering the heavy burden of your demands and expectations. We don’t matter to you because we are not like you, because we have not yet experienced what you have.
We protest and you’ll smirk and say, “It only gets worse from here, kids”—now, tell me, where is the encouragement to live? If all that is waiting for us is bigger and worse terrors, what will do we have to continue? And you wonder why suicides are prevalent, why anxiety and depression thrive and fester in the fertile darkness and decay that is the system. You wonder, when you tell us that we don’t matter, why we are petty and immature and voiceless, you wonder why we turn elsewhere, why we look for an escape, why we succumb to the whispers of apathy and revolt. You wonder why we scream as you squish us under your foot, you wonder why we don’t look so good as you tighten the chains around our neck. Don’t pretend you don’t know why suicides are skyrocketing, why mental illness is not only increasing in frequency but in strength. This is the monster you have created, the demon you have carelessly allowed to spread like cancer throughout every level of the system. Because we don’t matter, right?
But don’t forget who you’re relying on. Don’t forget that, while you crush us, you’re going to expect us to build you back up again when you inevitably crumble as well. Don’t forget that those you degrade will be in a position, one day, to degrade you. You teach us we don’t matter, but there’s always that not yet hovering in the background. We will matter one day, and when that day comes, you’re going to have to face the music. We won’t be silent and we won’t be cowed. You have spent most of our lives teaching us to be meek, obedient, quiet, modest, and docile. If recent events have shown us anything, it’s that you’ve failed. We are loud, proud, angry, demanding, and determined. We don’t matter now but when the time comes for you to face the curtain call, to hear our demands for answers, you’d better have your lines memorized.
As I said before, I do not dare, of course, to speak for everyone. I speak for myself and the few I have talked to who feel the same way. I do not generalize. If people agree with what I write, then that shows you there is a problem that cannot be ignored. Here is the reality: I spent most of my junior year of high school sick. My immune system is shot, and I was sick, on and off, from November until May. I got, on average, three to four hours of sleep, give or take a few hours. I frequently feel worthless, like the only thing that makes me matter is the grade I receive in my classes, and the only thing that matters to me is achieving that grade. I am crumbling with the weight you have dropped on my shoulders and I am scared because you have told me that if I can’t handle this, I can’t handle my future. I hate the face I see in the mirror and I despise the person I see on paper. I delve into fictional stories, into the internet, for an escape from my reality, which is that I’m not coping with the pressure of your system. I emerge only to go to class, to do some homework, before I must dive again to stay sane. I’m drowning. That’s the reality.
Yet I know I am lucky. I was privileged to go to good schools, where the teachers could pay attention to me. I was lucky to have so many opportunities present themselves, and I was lucky for being able to take them. I was absolutely lucky in a worldwide sense because I could go to school, but also in a nationwide sense. I am lucky upon lucky upon lucky and still, the system has wrought havoc upon my mind. I am lucky but luck, in this case, means I suffer from debilitating depression and anxiety. I am lucky and I know that, I am lucky and I try to remember that because I know I am, but I don’t feel lucky because it still hurts. It still aches and throbs. It still cuts deep, but still, I am lucky. I try to remember that. I know how lucky I am and how lucky others are, but if luck still means these crippling mental illnesses, then we still have work to do.
Still, I have no doubt there will be many calling me dramatic, unappreciative, hysterical, stupid, weak. But I am what you made me, and this black, putrid, festering hatred, anger, fear is so deeply entrenched into who I am, like soot in the grooves of a chimney, that I wouldn’t know where to find myself if it were taken away. That’s what you have made me and I hate to say I don’t know who else I’d be if I weren’t like this, but because of you, I don’t. Maybe in another life, I would’ve been happier, would’ve been strong enough to resist the system. But those who resist are immediately labelled deviant and punished accordingly. Those who submit are rewarded with the same punishment, but one that we can eventually hope to throw off: a number. One in the school system, one in the prison system. Both flawed, only one inescapable.
So yes, I submit. I cave. I step onto the conveyor belt. It doesn’t matter if someone malfunctions; you’ll just toss them aside. It doesn’t matter if someone works a little slower than others and would flourish if they got a little extra attention; you’ll chuck them into the garbage heap. So we hide our brokenness, we bury our pain, and we go ’round and ’round the conveyor belt with minds like ours, ’round and ’round so you can manipulate us. With luck, some will step off whole. Already I am not one of those, but others will be, and I root for them. I have my own goals I know I will achieve, but I will not achieve them unbroken.
Know this: one of those goals will be holding you accountable and forcing you to reform. It won’t be easy, of course, but I’m not asking for easy. I am asking that we don’t ruin another generation of children; I am asking that we work, truly work, for a better future, which begins with kids and their education. I am asking that you listen to us like we were forced to listen to you for our entire lives. I am asking you to acknowledge our worth. I am asking that you improve, transform, renovate. It doesn’t matter if you answer. I will get results.
Change is coming, whether you want it or not. Brace yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Fatima I. Elfakahany