The Stupidity of Quantifying Human Worth

I am so tired of my worth being determined by how many facts I can regurgitate on an exam and then forget as soon as the test ends. What is school but merely a memorization contest? We are defined by numbers our whole lives, but fail to realize that some of the most important skills cannot be quantified no matter how hard we try.

How does memorizing facts help improve our world? Why do we waste our time on this earth inside a classroom, at a desk, doing busywork all day?

The more I go through the education system, the more I understand its fundamental issues. A creative mindset is not fostered in an academic environment. The way our minds function while working on a creative project is completely different from how they work when reading copious amounts of information and attempting to remember it.

If we would like to develop a skill, we must do this by practice. It will not improve if we don’t actively work towards improving it. Unfortunately, the majority of our time – the first 18, or so, years of our lives – is in the hands of a system that wants to create employees. Creativity isn’t encouraged because it empowers people to start questioning things. And we all know the best employees are the ones who go along with the system, do what they’re told, and not start too much trouble.

The best employees are content working for the same company their whole lives, neglecting their friends and families along the way to develop their careers, and slowly working up the ladder.

Really? Is this what we live for? Or is this just the quantification mindset that school enforces in us manifesting itself into our adult lives? Except this time, our worth is not determined by grades, but by money.

We create yet another ranking system. In school, students with all A’s are determined to be the smartest, brightest, hardest workers. And those students who fail classes do so because they’re stupid, lazy, slackers. Then we enter this so called “real world” and the people who have the most money are the new smartest, brightest, hardworkers. And I am sure now you can follow how we view those who make the least amount of money. Yet again, human worth is quantified.

Do we quantify because our brains are not advanced enough to use more abstract means to assess an individual? Or do we enjoy the superiority that comes with a ranking system? Maybe a little bit of both?

These answers will differ through every culture, religion, and time period throughout human history. How we answer these questions in our own society plays in a huge role in our everyday lives. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can change. There is not one way to run a society. But sometimes I worry that our particular competitive and capitalistic culture will touch every part of our planet. Sometimes I wonder if it’s too late to turn back.