number 343673246284732842

Maybe I am just a brash liberal who has socialist tendencies, but I am fed up with being treated like a number. Not a living, breathing, trying to make a difference human being, but a number. One person in a class of 32, I am one less breath for yourself in the frozen elevator, and inevitably, one vote in all of the states population, that will not even directly make a difference.
The world does such a spectacular job of making us feel small, unimportant and ordinary. But why? Why are we not capitalizing on our uniqueness, on our multiple strengths and multiple weaknesses?

I think it has much to do with our education system. Our education system that compartmentalizes us at such a young age: these students are good at math, these students are good at sports, and these students are good at reading. And so you go on your entire life believing you are good at math, and not good at anything else. The opportunity to further yourself is stolen because only a certain number of children can be in the gifted math program or the gifted reading program. What about the number of students who are marked average? Are the doomed to a monotonous life of mediocracy?
Yes, I will admit to being a student always fluffed in her reading and writing programs, and shamed within my remedial math classes. As I furthered my education, I could see the repercussions my public schooling had taken on me. It was not that I was not intelligent enough to work out these intricate math problems, it was that I had been told that I was never going to understand it. That, "I'm sorry, sweetie, your brain just doesn't work like that. You are an excellent English student though!" I had been told over and over what I was good at and what I was not, therefore I built psychological blocks within myself that have kept me far away from Math and Science classes. Those general ed classes where I sat in the back, only participated when I had to, and was 1 among 300. Just another number to my professors.
By and by, I chose to major in English...but I can't help to feel that I have missed some opportunities to expand my mind along the way.