Is School Still Relevant in a World Where Knowledge Is Everywhere?

The School System Isn’t Broken – It’s Misaligned with Reality

Before we talk about how school is failing, we have to understand what it was designed to do in the first place.

School, as most people know it, wasn’t created to awaken human potential. It wasn’t designed to build self-awareness, emotional resilience, or independent thinking. It wasn’t even built to educate in the full sense of the word.

It was built to control.

The earliest formal education systems were designed for the elite—young men groomed for the priesthood, politics, or power. Knowledge was reserved for the few, and obedience was expected from everyone else. Later, as factories emerged during the Industrial Revolution, education systems evolved into tools for producing disciplined, punctual, and compliant laborers. Rows of desks, bells signaling when to sit and stand, strict schedules, and standardized testing weren’t based on human development theory. They were based on the needs of industrial efficiency.

Much of what we still recognize in schools today—grades, uniforms, rote memorization, forced conformity—comes directly from the Prussian model of the 19th century. The purpose wasn’t to nurture brilliance or individuality. It was to manage society. To sort people. To train them to follow instructions and not ask too many questions. That model spread around the world. And while nearly every other institution evolved to keep up with a rapidly changing world, the school system remained loyal to its original purpose: standardization over curiosity, control over growth.

We live in a world where knowledge is no longer a scarce resource. Anyone with a smartphone can access the thoughts of history’s greatest minds, learn any skill they desire, or build an entire education without ever setting foot in a classroom. So what exactly is the role of school in this reality? Is it still a place of learning, or has it become a relic of a time when access to knowledge was limited and centralized?

The uncomfortable truth is that for many students, school is not a place of growth but a place where creativity is stifled, individuality is suppressed, and the metric of success is limited to how well one can memorize and comply. The system, as it exists, was never designed to raise self-aware, resilient, and adaptable individuals. It was designed to create uniformity, to produce citizens who would fit neatly into a structured society. That may have served a purpose once. But that purpose is no longer relevant.

Now, let’s be fair—some kids do thrive in this system. They learn to master the rules, hit the marks, and perform with consistency. But these are not the majority. According to the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, over 75% of high school students report negative feelings toward school. Stress, boredom, and tiredness top the list. And the Gallup Student Poll shows that student engagement in the U.S. drops from 74% in elementary school to just 32% in high school.

In other words, the longer they stay in the system, the less they want to be there.

Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” That’s what this system does. It puts everyone on the same ladder, then blames the kid who can swim, fly, or leap for not reaching the top like the climbers. Not all animals are meant to climb. Some have other superpowers—speed, vision, endurance, empathy, imagination—but none of those show up on a report card. So we don’t reward them. Often, we don’t even recognize them.

And here’s the tragic irony: it wouldn’t take much to flip this narrative. Imagine if the system were designed to meet the different needs, learning styles, and abilities kids have. Instead of convincing them they’re not good enough to learn, by giving them failing grades for something they’re simply not wired for, what if the system helped each child identify their strengths and build around those? Instead of standardizing failure, we could be customizing growth. A child who struggles with abstract math but thrives in building or movement-based learning isn’t failing—they’re being misread. The role of education should be to help them recognize their gift, then teach them how to sharpen it and apply it. That’s how confidence is built. That’s how capability turns into contribution.

The tragedy is that many kids internalize the judgment. They think their struggle in school reflects a failure in them, not in the structure that doesn’t know how to see them. And so they shrink. They disconnect. They conform—or they rebel. But in both cases, they stop trusting their own intuition. And from there, it’s a long road back to self-belief.

Today, students can learn math from MIT professors on YouTube, listen to world-renowned psychologists break down the human mind in podcasts, or explore astrophysics through simulations more immersive than anything offered in a school textbook. The best teachers in the world are accessible to anyone, anywhere. And yet, children are still sent to brick-and-mortar institutions where they are often taught by individuals who, in many cases, aren’t particularly good at teaching.

This isn’t a personal attack on teachers. It’s an honest reflection on the state of a profession that has been devalued and overburdened. Teaching, when done well, is an art. But too often, it’s reduced to a job—one with rigid curricula, limited autonomy, and almost no support for creativity or connection. Many teachers aren’t trained to educate—they’re trained to manage. To maintain order. To prepare students for exams that have little relevance to their actual lives. And in that process, we lose something far more important than knowledge: we lose curiosity, critical thinking, and the willingness to challenge the world rather than simply fit into it.

The idea that school is a predictor of success is also deeply flawed. Academic achievement might reveal a student’s ability to follow instructions, but it says very little about their ability to lead, to innovate, or to overcome adversity. Some of the most capable, driven, and successful individuals I know were mediocre students. Some barely graduated. They didn’t fit the mold. They were labeled as distractions, misfits, or underachievers—not because they lacked intelligence, but because they saw through the charade. They knew, intuitively, that something wasn’t right. That they were being shaped into something smaller than what they felt inside. And instead of submitting to it, they chose to step outside of it.

And statistically, they’re not the exception. As of 2024, around 30% of the world’s billionaires—739 out of 2,473—did not complete a bachelor’s degree, according to data from Wealth-X. Even in the United States, where the myth of elite academia runs deepest, only about 24% of the 400 richest billionaires hold a degree from a top-tier university such as Harvard or Yale, according to Forbes. These are not anecdotes. These are numbers. And they dismantle the illusion that academic prestige is the defining path to success. It might open certain doors. But the ones who build the house don’t always walk through the front gate.

We like to tell children that school is important because it prepares them for life. But what we should be saying is: the system will try to convince you that your worth depends on your ability to perform within it. Don’t believe that. You are not your GPA. You are not your standardized test score. And you are not defined by whether or not you’re good at sitting still in a chair for six hours a day.

If anything, the traits that the school system punishes—defiance, restlessness, a tendency to question authority—are often the very traits that make great leaders, artists, thinkers, and builders. But those same traits, when exhibited too early or too boldly, are labeled as problems to be managed. We’re not teaching children to think for themselves. We’re teaching them to get good at guessing what answer the system wants.

And that’s the heart of the problem. If school is no longer the primary source of knowledge, then its value must be redefined. A modern education system should focus on teaching students how to think, not what to think. It should cultivate self-awareness, discipline, resilience, and emotional intelligence. It should develop the ability to focus, to recover from failure, and to move through complexity with clarity.

It should teach young people how to manage fear, not just fear of violence, but fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of being misunderstood. It should give them tools to face life with strength, not just with credentials.

None of this is happening at scale. And I’m not naive—I don’t believe a complete systemic overhaul is coming anytime soon. Institutions don’t change quickly, and vested interests don’t give up power easily. But while we wait, there’s a simple, powerful thing we can do: tell children the truth. Tell them that it’s okay to question the system. That their path may not be linear. That they are allowed to think differently. That learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door—and in fact, it might only really begin once they step outside of it.

We need to stop measuring success by how well someone can conform. Instead, we should be asking: Can they think clearly under pressure? Can they communicate with presence? Can they lead with integrity? Can they stand for something bigger than themselves, even when it’s uncomfortable? These aren’t skills that school teaches. These are life skills developed through real experiences, real adversity, and real guidance.

That’s where mentors come in. Coaches. Guides. Adults who don’t just enforce rules, but who embody something worth following. For those of us who work with young people outside the school system—whether in martial arts, coaching, or mentorship—this is where our responsibility becomes so clear. We’re not just teaching techniques or tools. We’re offering a mirror. We’re showing them a version of themselves they may not yet believe is possible.

Because here’s the truth: many kids are not failing school. School is failing them.

And if we don’t have the courage to say that—clearly, publicly, unapologetically—we are complicit in keeping them small. And they are not meant to be small.

They are meant to lead. To create. To protect. To rise.

Not in the system’s image, but in their own.

Do something amazing,

Tsahi Shemesh
Founder & CEO
Krav Maga Experts

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