Puppet shows aren’t nearly as fun when you are the marionette dangling from 30 strands of thraldom. To make matters worse, your puppeteer is as undiscerning as they are blind.

For a long time, a blind puppeteer was exactly what my education was. It hoisted me up and buffeted me against the ruffled fabric of a familiar stage. It incessantly lobbed my body into a lustrous backdrop repainted scarcely two hours ago.

My education was something I had heeded with immense fondness and fervor. Humankind’s ability to think, to be enlightened, to gain awareness, insight and comprehension had long effloresced in the craters of my mind as something invaluable and beautiful beyond imagination.

Despite all that, with deadlines for college applications sneaking up on me and my high school career almost halfway up, I have found that my education has become institutionalized into something not nearly as beautiful.

Middle school and high school have shown me days of homework and tests and right answers and wrong answers and the black and white of passing and failing. I am expected to take as many AP classes as I can fit on my schedule, regardless of my interest in them, and I am expected to excel at all of them. I am expected to complete hours upon hours of homework effectively and find something I am passionate about and commit to it.

How is it that we tune in for the things that we’ll “see on the test” and tune out anything extra? Why do we eat up facts for quizzes and then purge our minds? What happened to critical thinking? What happened to learning things for knowledge, for deeper-level thinking? Why do we mindlessly fill out worksheets? Why do we cheat?

Answer: because despite my belief that the core of our existence as human beings contains a certain love for understanding and learning, the fact that our society’s education system values grades above knowledge is irrevocable.

My education values grades above knowledge. My education apathetically awards those who work the system, master the art of taking tests, acquire flawless note-taking skills and allocating their afternoons to filling out worksheets. The transcript that will tag along behind me forever and profoundly influence my future careers and schooling won’t “look better” no matter how much I’ve learned or how greatly I’ve grown as a person or how immensely I’ve submerged myself into ideas if I don’t produce the grades.

As a society we’ve continuously been led to see college as the finish line and grades as a sleek racecar destined to be a catalyst to success. We look at a student who received a D in a class and we presume, “they must not have tried hard enough,” “they just don’t care,” “they’re just not smart,” or “they will not achieve anything.” But these people are human beings with intricate, vivid lives. These people have overcome and experienced things, they have desires and interests and personalities. They have value that exceeds, surpasses, eclipses the value of a number or letter. Maybe anxiety diminishes their ability to take tests, maybe they choose to spend time on their music or art. It doesn’t matter. Everyone has different goals. Are we robots to be popped into the workforce? Why are we all expected to go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, have children, retire and die?

These past few years I haven’t been able to find much time to read books I enjoy, to further my knowledge, to delve into ideas and places, to unearth things I’m passionate about, to invest in things I’m passionate about. Perhaps the students who didn’t care about the grade got more knowledge and passion out of the class; perhaps they discovered something that fascinates and intrigues them.

However, when this school year comes to an end, I will be able to stand with my peers and execute the part of “proud, ‘successful’ high school graduate” impeccably.

My education defines good grades as success and I have been enslaved. I find myself planting grades on a pedestal, spending hours worrying about them, absorbing pages of information for tests. I take notes so automatically, so blindly, that I have neither questions nor thoughts during the process. But I don’t want all of that nothingness. I want knowledge and thought and passion. I want wonder and beauty and art and music and I want an education that doesn’t hinder me from thinking for myself, learning for myself. I want one that saturates my mind instead of chaining my flailing legs.