Fine Isn’t the Goal

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When I talk to parents about school, I hear three responses.

1. A small group loves their child’s school. They got lucky.
2. A larger group is dissatisfied. Their kids are bored, anxious, disengaged.
3. But the most common response is: “It wasn’t perfect, but I turned out fine.”

I used to say this too. I defended the system that raised me. 

But here’s the problem:

We have no idea what we might have become.

Think back to what you were curious about at 8 or 12 or 15. 

What if school had said let’s go deeper instead of that’s not on the test? 

What if instead of memorizing dates, you had explored your own questions? What if instead of filling in bubbles, you had solved real problems that mattered to you and your community?

Saying “I turned out fine” is like owning a Ferrari and never driving it past 30 miles an hour. Sure, you got where you needed to go. But you never saw what it could really do.

When we talk about school, we too often mistake endurance for endorsement.

Finishing school doesn’t prove you thrived. 

It just proves you survived.

This Isn’t the School You Remember

Yes, the desks and bells look the same. But the culture has changed.

• Phones: In 2007, the iPhone launched. Today, 90% of middle schoolers have one. Anxiety and distraction follow them into every classroom.
  
• Mental health: In the early 2000s, 1 in 10 teens reported persistent sadness. Now it’s 1 in 3.
  
• AI: Essays, worksheets, tests aka the old proof of learning, can be generated in seconds. Now, even the illusion of learning is gone.
  
• Teaching: Burnout is epidemic. Many who leave say the same thing: “This isn’t why I became a teacher.”
  
• Scores: Reading and math for 13-year-olds are lower than a decade ago.
  

Two out of three kids have checked out.

This isn’t the school you remember.

And it isn’t working for your child.

Maybe It Wasn’t That Great

We cling to school because it shaped our childhood. 

But let’s be honest: most of us weren’t deeply engaged. 

We were obedient. 

We learned to suppress curiosity, follow directions, and wait to be told what mattered.

We were told grades and test scores mattered (aka trinkets of subordination¹)

But now think about what you actually remember:

• Worksheets you forgot the moment you turned them in
  
• Asking permission to use the bathroom
  
• Memorizing “mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” and never using it again
  

Again, that’s surviving. Not thriving. 

The good parts of school were almost never the learning. They were your friends. Your extra-curriculars (sports, theater, etc).

So why keep defending a system we barely survived ourselves?

A Less Certain Future

The old bargain was simple: do well in school, go to college, get a stable job.

That bargain is broken.

Loads of debt. 

Unclear job opps for new grads².

And here’s the bigger shift: the jobs of the future will look different. And that means the only way to prepare them is to build skills that transfer anywhere: curiosity, problem-solving, adaptability, initiative.

Your child is spending their most formative years preparing for a world that no longer exists.

And what they need is preparation for a world we can’t yet predict.

What Are We Aiming For?

“I turned out fine” might have been a defense twenty years ago.

Not anymore.

The real question isn’t whether you turned out fine. It’s whether your child is becoming more curious, more confident, more capable each year they’re in school.

If the answer is no, it’s time to stop defending “fine.”

Because “fine” is just another word for resignation.

Your child deserves more. 

Imagine a school where:

• A 6th grader studies traffic flow at school pickup and drop-off, uses math and observation to propose fixes, and then leads a team to convince administrators to adopt their plan.
  
• A 7th grader learns ratios and percentages by modeling the profits of a small business idea, instead of grinding through abstract word problems.
  
• An 8th grader sharpens writing and persuasion by pitching a proposal to local city council, instead of filling out worksheets that go nowhere.
  
• A tenth grader designs a public health campaign for a disease he cares about, weaving together biology, data, and storytelling.
  

Kids like this don’t count down the days until summer. They can’t wait for the next challenge.

That’s not fine. That’s extraordinary.

And it’s possible.

Just not in the system we keep defending.

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sources:

¹ Source: Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto

² Canaries in the Coal Mine: Six Facts About the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence by Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, Ruyu Chen. August 26, 2025.