Education should continue honoring achievement and success, but on all levels. Celebration should not be limited to the best of the best, giving attention only to those who excel past the threshold of what a biased system determines to be gifted is unrealistic and stupid. Students should be celebrated for grasping any concept at their own speed. Every child is different and can benefit from learning in their own way, but they are all taught and tested in the same manner, which automatically eliminates some without the capability to prosper in a traditional school environment. Ignoring the students who don’t do well in one program shows that teachers won’t do their job unless it is beneficial to them and how they will appear as an instructor, there should be no “bell curve” of average grades with a few failures and prodigies being the norm. All students should pass with flying colors instead of being told they’re stupid because EVEN WHEN THEY TRIED they were told they still weren’t good enough. And then people question why students become slackers or nonchalant about their grades and look down on them, but how would you feel in that situation? Wouldn’t you feel like giving up?

Criteria establishes judgment for others to live up to, but it has a negative effect as well. Someone who worked their whole lives and lived paycheck to paycheck supporting a family may not come out of it feeling accomplished because they didn’t achieve a level of education or status that another man did, by saying one thing is better or more important than another, we promote healthy competition for people to better themselves, but we don’t factor in the little things or finer points of a situation until we are asked to. A father of 3 who dropped out of high school isn’t deemed as successful as a young upstart lawyer with his own house and car. What if the former had to drop out because he lost a parent and had to work to support his family? What if the latter had a silver spoon in his mouth where finances were never an issue. Creating criteria and standards are beneficial in encouragement of the public, but hurt everyone when it tells them they didn’t do the great things they should have.

People see mediocrity as settling for less. I don’t believe people should settle for anything less than what they truly want in life. The freedom of life pursuits and having a dream to work for is central for humans and is protected in the Constitution of our very nation. Leaving things to lie isn’t what the pursuit of happiness is built around. You have the right to go out and find what makes you happy. What’s “fair” is that everyone is happy.