In the kids she works with, and their parents, she sees the sense of emergency that characterizes their thinking about education as a permanent crisis.
“These kids have been competing since they were two! They start being coached and tutored at the age of three to get into kindergarten. Kindergarten! They have parents breathing down their necks, telling them that if they don’t get into this nursery school, they won’t get into the right elementary or middle school—then high school will be a disaster, their lives will be ruined. It starts young, and it just gets more and more intense.” Parental panic has reached epidemic proportions
Instead, competition stokes panic and a desperate sense that every student is on his or her own, left to hack a solitary path through a dangerous educational jungle. Parents make strenuous efforts to ensure their children’s success in the fight – and everyone ends up losing in the process !
Notes from “A Bigger Prize” by Margaret Heffernan