At graduation ceremonies, we applaud the honor student endlessly, gift them an embroidered certificate and a shiny medal, capture the perfect photo with them. Yet inside… they have no idea who they are. They have never once been asked: What is your idea? Your cause? The reason you woke up today?
Is excellence the ability to memorize everything… without understanding anything?
Is success about answering quickly… while thinking slowly?
Is achievement saying the right answers… in a borrowed voice that isn’t yours?
In a symbolic scene, a “successful puppet” stands on the stage. She smiles as instructed, waves as rehearsed, and repeats the standard success phrase: “I thank my teachers and dream of more.” Yet she does not know… more of what? For what? For whom?
A 2023 study by The Learning Agency found that over 60% of high-performing students in U.S. schools had no clear vision for their future, and nearly 50% could not describe themselves beyond the sentence: “I’m good at school.” So are we raising outstanding minds… or obedient replicas of the system?
The puppet doesn’t make mistakes… but she doesn’t create. She doesn’t ask… but she doesn’t learn. She doesn’t disturb anyone… but she doesn’t change anything. Thus we manufacture “market-ready achievers”… not life-ready thinkers.
We teach them to answer… not to dream. To please the teacher… not to discover themselves. To excel in the race… without knowing where they are running.
How many certificates of excellence have been rewards for obedience? And how many free minds have been sidelined—because they don’t memorize, don’t repeat, don’t flatter? We praise answers… and fear questions. We honor performance… and ignore awareness.
We are not graduating thinkers… we are programming repeaters. We hand them a document of distinction… without ever asking: Did this outstanding student ever have an original thought of their own?
So, O makers of “excellence,” do you dare ask the puppet: What do you think? And can you handle the answer—if it turns out to be the very first free sentence of their life?
The puppet may rank first in her class… but she cannot step outside a written script. She excels at repeating phrases… but does not know how to craft one that is hers. Yes, she knows the rules… but was never given time to make a useful mistake.
So what is the worth of excellence… if it is not profound?
What is the use of achievement… if it is not human?
Is success measured by the certificate? Or by the graduate’s ability to change something in this world? Or is the desired success one that disturbs no one… and rattles no idea?
Every year, we hang the names of top achievers on honor boards. But we never pause to ask them: “Have you thought? Have you doubted? Have you ever said no?”
Schools that fear questions… graduate students who excel in silence. Curricula that forbid objection… produce minds that apologize for awareness.
The greatest danger of a certificate of excellence… is that it drugs the self into believing success exempts it from questioning, experimenting, or tasting the beautiful pain of searching.
So do not judge the puppet by the shine of her certificate. Judge her by the first question she asks when left alone:
“Who am I… without being told?”
