“College is the new High School.”

Does that make high school the new middle school? This would explain why my graduating class had 4 valedictorians, 4 different students who achieved 'perfection' for four consecutive years.

Considering the small class size I graduated in, if an unscathed GPA was attainable for 4 students, then 5.6% of the population would have achieved what one would call absolute perfection.

Obviously our sample size, as small and far from random as it is, does not adequately predict any attribute for an entire population. This still leaves us with a striking figure to deal with. Either I attended a fairly elite school, which I didn’t, or some other forces are at work here.

Numbers don’t lie. That is, if you simply perceive without making any judgments. It would be illogical to argue that 5.6% of my graduating class did not achieve a perfect academic record in high school. Numbers don’t lie. But it would also be illogical to argue that 5.6% of my graduating class did obtain a wholly perfect knowledge of the subjects traversed through high school. Judgments do lie.

I’m not blowing the lid off of a well-kept secret, by any means. It’s fairly obvious that the academic standards of the typical American high school are laughable. Here’s an example. I’ve always been told that a “C” meant “average”. Then what does a 2.0 GPA get you? I don’t know; truthfully, I didn’t quite make it that high.

But a C average isn't good. Not only that, it’s actually shameful. This is an unsettling result of the narcissism epidemic. Don’t tell a child he is average! But show him something that you call average which a truly average kid can beat, put him above that, and now you’ve nurtured this false reality.

There are so many narcissists that each individual one need not work to delude themselves into thinking they are above average. The system has been overrun and now it is changing entirely to accomplish this itself. The end result? Completely external, spoon-fed delusions of grandeur. No internal manipulation necessary. Just look at this:

How are kids not supposed to become narcissists? The problem is the mentality being generated.

But how well would this frame of mind survive if a perfect GPA was unattainable, just as perfection truly is? What if there was only one valedictorian in a class, and he or she didn’t earn all A’s. How painfully realistic.

The degradation of our school systems is not the only force at work here, though. See the Oversimplified Cause. Here’s an idea for those who are willing enough to admit that American education isn’t nearly what it should be, but delight in settling on the system as the solitary cause.

It’s also your kid’s fault. Worse yet, it’s your fault, too.

This is a fairly selective proclamation, as I did admire the dedication displayed by at least one of our valedictorians and a few other classmates. Some students truly engross themselves in the act of learning, not simply the acquisition of the end goal (i.e. a grade).

For the rest, there are always the hallways before class, where one person’s work becomes 15 people’s grades. There is last minute cramming simply to regurgitate information, retained nevermore. Why? Because that is all one needs to make the grade. That is simply the most time-effective method of achieving the best grade possible.

But the reassuring thing is those who work diligently, desiring to learn and grow intellectually, will win out in the end. After all, they have worked harder and improved where others have simply created the façade of doing so. Right?

Do you remember when I said the system has been re-wired solely to facilitate the narcissist? I didn’t mean the school system; I meant the system that is all of American culture.

No, our assiduous academics are no better off than their far less studious counterparts. In fact, they are probably worse off, oftentimes sacrificing social time for study time, potentially establishing less of those much needed social contacts.

But who is going to accept any of these recent graduates? After all, that was just

high school. Now it’s off to the university where students need to rush through those useless gen eds so that ‘real’ college courses can be completed.

That doesn’t seem right to me.

First, let’s look at the word “university”. The familiar prefix uni- commonly means “one”, as in unite (to make one), uniform (one form) or unique (one of a kind). However uni- also means “the whole of”. Consider the word universe, taken directly from the latin “universum”, literally meaning the whole world.

Coming from the source of Latin’s widespread influence, the Roman Empire was naturally the beginning for the word “universitas”, literally meaning the whole or entirety of something. But early institutes of learning in the Roman Empire weren’t called anything of this nature. Rather, they were called “academiae”, taken from Greek. In English, we would call this an Academy. This was an institute of specialized learning.

Universities, as we know them, weren’t present in the Roman Empire for some time. The “universitas magistrorum et scholarium”, or community of masters and scholars, is more akin to the modern universities. In fact, the English word “university” comes directly from the shortening of this term. Its meaning comes directly from the official title of these early European institutes, “studium generale”. The idea was not to simply churn out workers, but rather to create more rational, intellectual members of society through academic enrichment in many areas.

That is the idea with studium generale, *general studies*. Sure, you are going to be a political science whiz once you get your degree, but that isn’t anything a little bit of hands-on grassroots organizing and a few text books couldn’t accomplish. No, the idea is to make you a smarter, more critically thinking, well-rounded individual that also comes out in the end with a particularly honed skill. But then you have to write a couple of papers along the way. And then you have to use correct grammar, too. It seems as if, for a nation full of people saying “learn English!”, we aren’t too keen on the idea for ourselves.

And worst of all, you might have to learn some math. But there is a stigma against learning math, against actually enjoying it.

Why? Because this threatens the perfect image of the narcissist. They don’t want to identify that they aren’t as skilled at something as somebody else. How do they deal with it? They debase the subject. They constantly talk about how math isn’t a useful skill in the real world, because if they can convince themselves of this, they are going to preserve that pristine self-image. Truthfully, no one needs any level of math higher than basic arithmetic. Every bit helps, though. Every bit enriches the experience of the day just a bit more. Deeper levels of math give deeper understanding of the universe which surrounds us.

Blaming the college system is futile in this case, because they are, after all, profit-bound organizations. If more people are paying to use them as a tool for diverse learning, they are going to facilitate that. If more people are paying to use them as tools for very narrow acquisition of skills and an expensive piece of paper for their resume, they are going to facilitate that.

The question is, how many people treat our institutes of higher learning as universities? And how many people treat them as academies or trade schools instead? In doing the former, it would seem to solve a lot of problem for the typical person. One, they would still get the reinforcement to their ego, the acknowledgment that they attended the highest institutions of learning available. Plus, they would get the luxury of doing so without the hassle of truly enriching their minds.

Because why should they have to enrich their minds? They’re already above average. They know this; they didn’t get any C’s in high school.