am an educator quite by accident. This was never a career I envisioned for myself, nor planned on sticking to in the early years. However, there is a small package of letters from former students in the drawer of my work desk that keeps me coming back to school, year after year. I find myself laying the blame for my seemingly endless predicament on those letters—entirely.

Most conscientious educators would tell you the purpose of schooling is to help students discover and actualise their potential. The truth could not be farther from this noble ideal. Unfortunately, in my experience in working with a range of schools and systems, I have come to understand that the underlying goal at the core of the modern education system is rotten. The heart of education should be learning; instead, it is achievement.

Where the right to education is enshrined in most international conventions in idealistic terms (UNDHR: “Education shall be directed to the full development of human personality...”), the design of modern education systems is centred almost entirely on an achievement culture.

The principle behind mass public education seems inherently fair. A standardised curriculum taught to all and assessed via summative standardised testing. This should, at least in theory, allow everyone, regardless of their class or origin, a chance at improving their lives through educational attainment by allocating the highest achievers to the highest paying jobs. Each part of the preceding statement is flawed.

There is a mountain of evidence on the problems of standardised curricula and testing. At the very least, standardised education is reductive and culturally unbalanced. It greatly limits the range of what can be explored in the course of teaching a class and actively discourages independent learning and exploration.

However, even when given set curriculum guidelines, teachers have some room to explore a wider range of issues leading from those outlines. This would mean that teachers and students use the prescribed curriculum as a starting point and be encouraged to openly question and discover—in other words, real learning can take place.

This, however, would be curtailed by the atrocity of standardised testing, and yes, I say that with real feeling. As someone who is a seasoned expert in training senior school students on getting top grades, I can assure you that if I were to teach to the test alone, my students would come out with top grades and minimal understanding of the subject in less than half the time I spend with them. Standardised examinations test little outside of test-taking skills. They most certainly do not assess for competence in any subject.

Criticisms of standardised examinations are very well researched and reported and have also come from within the community that designs college placement tests, such as the SAT. However, this has led to little change in how we deliver education.

The primary reason for this is that standardised education can be rolled out en masse at the lowest cost. However, this is when we look at it only from the perspective of the agency offering the education—public or private. Less needs to be spent on training teachers; you can have larger classrooms and, at the end of the day, you can claim all students had a fair chance.

The real cost is paid by the learners who are deprived of the opportunity to develop and showcase their real skill. Outcomes are not determined by effort alone. They are determined by a student’s ability to pay for better schools or private tuitions, resources such as coursebooks, laptops, even a quiet place to study with freedom from chores and work, their physical and mental health; the list goes on.

The culture it produces is focussed entirely on achieving the best possible grade outcomes. There is such great anxiety around achieving top grades amongst students and parents that all other learning experiences are sidelined. To an extent, the anxiety is justified because as attending and completing school becomes a possibility for a larger number of children, this growth is not matched by a corresponding growth of places in either higher education or employment. The world over this congestion at the top leads to ever-tougher criteria for entry. The achievement pressure on students today and in the future is unenviable.

Personally, I find it very unfortunate when I see young people defining their self-worth in terms of their grades. And yet, who can blame them when everyone around them, including their peers and teachers; even their parents do the same. Berkely recently published a review of a book by Wallace on the toll that achievement culture takes on a student’s mental health. This is not even the latest in the range of studies that have come out with dire warnings on the rise in anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies amongst high school seniors. We may think we are preparing them for the real world where they will be valued in terms of their net worth; it is a tragic world where that becomes the measure of a man.

I persevere in the field of teaching because the letters that I saved from former students over the years have some common themes: they had fun learning; they felt challenged; they felt like someone cared; and they felt better about themselves. Those last two are the reasons I stick to this profession and will continue to push for change.

The writer teaches sociology and politics and has an interest in writing and photography