As someone who has seen the inner workings of the educational system, I can’t help but feel like standardized education is a pandemic that is infecting our children and by extension, our country. It’s time to take a hard look at the way we educate our children and consider how it’s affecting their mental, emotional, and intellectual growth. The Problem with Standardized Education Standardized education is based on a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t take into account the individual needs, strengths, and weaknesses of each child. It’s a rigid system that values conformity over creativity, memorization over critical thinking, and test scores over intellectual curiosity. Children are expected to learn the same things at the same pace, and those who don’t conform are left behind. The pandemic of standardized education is visible in the numbers. Children are increasingly being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and studies have shown that standardized testing