I’ve been in the system for twelve years now.

For twelve years, you’ve watched me.

Taught me material and tested my memorization of it.

Forced me to come to this windowless block of concrete from 7:10 AM until 2:05 PM.

Some of you have engaged me.

Some of you have worked hard to teach me life lessons alongside the pointless arithmetic.

Others have wasted away my hours in this building

Participating in the latest gossip,

Picking on the quiet kids,

Showing YouTube videos in place of documentaries,

Because why doesn’t a Salad Fingers video belong in English?

You expect me to act like an adult,

Yet you treat me like a child.

You praise me for my hard work and report card propped up on fake assignments,

But scold me the minute I step out of line and question your methods.

When I miss your lecture to sort out a real-life problem,

You trivialize my issues and reclassify your top-notch student as a

Truant touble-maker.

Our relationship was always doomed to fail.

It’s been a ticking time bomb of FCATs and FSAs and ACTs and SATs and APs and AICEs and DEs and

I refuse to believe that this is what Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and Adams and Jay and Franklin and Washington wanted when they founded you.

I stopped trusting the system years ago.

I won’t forget those who taught me not what to think, but how to think.

(They are a rare specimen and I champion their daily struggle leading the Resistance.)

I can’t help but feel I am betraying myself

By remaining in this machine for the next four years.

But I feel I’ve chosen a place that will allow me to think and feel and do and impact.

I hope to use what I learn next to help those coming up behind me,

Because not everything in the system is bad.

But when I reflect on the changes we’ve made to the medical field

Renovating hospitals,

Reinvigorating professionals,

Revolutionizing the doctor-patient relationship,

And I juxtapose that to the state of education

I see one system soaring on the wings of research while the other scrapes by

on politicians’ rhetoric and insignificant “innovative” initiatives.

I believe America’s students cannot succeed until they are set free from the system.

Why am I not leaving it altogether?

I’ve considered it, believe me.

Education and Progress do not coexist at this time in history.

But I am going to keep playing your game, Education.

Because time, I am in the driver’s seat.

I’m choosing what to explore, what to learn, and I won’t waste your time like you wasted mine.

And when I finish my next milestone in four years,

I’ll work my ass off

In the hope that one day, you can be fixed.

I’m sorry you haven’t received the attention you need,

But I promise

I’ll work to make you better.

Because despite your many issues, if I didn’t have you

I wouldn’t be where I am today.

And for that, American education system,

I thank you.