Conformity: to comply with standards, rules, and laws, or a behavior based on socially accepted standards. My education has been a system of pushing formality and standardization all my life. When we write papers, we have to conform them to a specific format, or risk a grade reduction. We train and study to pass a standardized test, instead of focusing in on understanding the material, because the educational system says we only need to know specific information to pass. I have been limited in the knowledge I could have received due to time restraints and the pressure on the teachers to only teach the criteria given for the test. This is information I could have grasped to better understand the base criteria, instead I struggle to even memorize the facts I need to pass the test. I fear that we have gotten away from the purpose of educating the general public.

Founding fathers of the educational system understood that to educate the masses, would thus create better workers, business owners, and smarter individuals that would lead to an enlightened society. Public education was designed in the height of the enlightenment, and the creation of factories, so it is understandable why it developed into such a standardized system. However, the idea behind it was to stir in people intelligent ideas, backed by facts, to invent, create, and produce almost anything. Now, we live in a different age, an age where technology and knowledge is at our fingertips, and the problem is it has become so difficult to control what information students receive, we result to standardizing, and ultimately conforming as a means of organizing how much students are required to know. This base amount of learning gives us many facts to memorize, but no strong evidence, or firm foundations to help us in our future, yet this education we are given is the very basis of our future. It is almost as if we have set ourselves up for failure in a sense; we are given such little time in the hands of our educators to get things accomplished we act as drones copying notes, or writing down details the teacher has said, completing an assignment, collecting our homework and repeating for every class we take. Then, when we get home we are so overwhelmed with homework, we have no time to investigate into other interpretations of the topics we are taught in school, so we can only take the education given to us for face value, and assume it is the only correct answer. In our minds it is constantly standardized to accept an educator’s words as true, without question, so this is how we grow up. I ask you, is that what education is supposed to be about? I cannot agree that knowledge was just meant to be accepted. If knowledge was not to be challenged, we would never have known that the earth revolves around the sun, or that a machine could allow us to fly like birds.

Knowledge was not meant to be a stagnant lake of ideas that could never be changed. Education is supposed to be alive, a functioning organism that is constantly changing, adapting, and morphing into new ideas as individuals add to it. In school we are taught the opposite, we are given information and expected to generate new intelligent thoughts out of facts we should not change. I say the only way to learn is to challenge the knowledge that educational systems have attempted to set in stone. Once long ago, a system inspired individuals to challenge the idea that people cannot fly, and now we have jets that can dart across countries in minutes. Our educational system, although it is a descendant of this old system, rarely inspires us, it’s only goal is to ensure all citizens know the base value of all the knowledge available in the world today. 

Educational systems in America have specific code of conducts and character expectations that conform students to behave in the same manner. When a student behaves in a manner that is contradictory, whether it be a dress code violation, a behavioral issue, or a attendance issue, students are pulled out of class time, sometimes for extended periods of time, to be reprimanded. Thus enforcing a higher value on conforming a student's attitude over the education itself. While the system has good intentions with these consequences, by attempting to make us into more responsible adults, the consequences remove the importance of education that the educational system was designed to create. My entire educational life I have lived within these rules, afraid to go out of them,  but most students do break these rules, and the result is that their education is more hindered than mine. They become in danger of failing classes because of their behavior, but this doesn’t make sense. Why is their education threatened because of their attitude? Conformity is the answer. Educational systems believe that students need to be standardized through their attitude first before any educating can happen because without the proper attitude, learning cannot take place.

While I cannot say I have enjoyed my education, or even say it will help me in my future, I can say it has made me who I am. I’m not sure I can say I am happy with who it has made me, but at the same time I can’t ignore the impact it has had on my life. I am more organized, structured, outspoken and respected by my peers, and mentors; so perhaps that conformity has given me a better chance in society to do well. But, it has taken away from me my child-like happiness, my compassion for others, most importantly my individuality that I fear gets further away from me each day. I wish more than anything for the day my education story is over, so perhaps I can find the individual that is trapped behind the conformist I have become.