Back to school is starting again and so comes the bottom line of consumerism and the perpetuation of the cycle of societal injustice.

Who can get the fanciest pencils to assure their kid is seen as cool, to help their child be well integrated into their class, feel comfortable with their peers and learn in a secure environment? Who can find the best textbooks that will hold kid's attention? Will SpongeBob or PowerPuff Girls do the trick? What Disney character can best motivate kids to learn? How much can parents learn about the new teacher before their child steps in the classroom? How should their child dress, what makes a good first impression? Does the teacher mark easily? In this age of consumerism what matters are outputs, the report cards, whether the child got an A or a B. Real learning doesn't matter, what matters is getting high grades, what matters is making sure that as soon as a 5 year old has stepped into school they are on the path to "success", enrichment classes, prep schools, graduating at the top of their class, honours... What matters is that they are on the road to becoming the next world-renown doctor or lawyer or prime minister. Learning to respect each another is at best seen as complimentary, or sometimes even seen as detrimental to the "road to success" where students need to be competitive.

What society are we building? Is it a wonder that the doctrine of war is the norm where there are only absolutes, winners and losers, right and wrong, good and evil? We are waging war internationally, in society and in the schools, where students are categorized as "good" and "bad" and teachers often look for help to "control" or "reform" the "bad" kids. We are continuing to proliferate a society where "cooperation" and "help" from those in power is a leg-up and an opening to mould oneself into something society has already deemed as acceptable. Support never comes at the expense of challenging the status-quo, or questioning power and privilege. People in power "made it" because they were given access to privilege at a young age, because their parents were able to buy fancy pencils, buy the Disney motivation and set their kids on the road to "success", as for the others, many of them fail in a school system that refuses to acknowledge their value and roadblocks put up to the road to success at such a young age are difficult to break down.