Canada is high on the list for countries with the best education systems; but its "support services" and importance placed on mental health and well-being that are reasons why they are high on the list, don't even result in anything actually helpful and effective from my experience and observation. Why would it? School vice principals and guidance counselors, social workers, anyone with the duty to support students, don't understand or know many (actually, countless) crucial things, which in turn affects their attempts at helping you. Another thing to consider in the first place is that the world itself with its people is extremely, unbelievably problematic and cruel and sad and flawed. That is important here obviously. They simply don't get it and therefore students (who may not even understand many of the same things themselves) feel unseen, unheard, misunderstood, not understood, confused, and angry. Those people with their roles think they are being of help or that they are dealing with the issue but they simply don't see, they don't see a lot of issues and things, they talk about the wrong things and say the wrongs and think and assume the wrong things, unintentionally cause harm, etc. Those wack mental health and crisis helplines/hotlines are exactly that; wack. Useless. There are so many problems with it. I have direct experience and I am speaking based on that, and my experience was far from..."helpful". It simply just doesn't work. They act like counseling or therapy and mental health support services like those hotlines are a big fix, a solution, or significantly or genuinely effective and helpful. But none of it is what they think it is. There are various issues, a ginormous, complex web of interconnection that is always, at every moment, present everywhere, many of which I am not even aware of myself. Those hotlines are just ridiculously unimpactful (well, positively) to the point that they're laughable.
Besides from all of that, students have to go to school early in the morning and finish around 2 or 3 of course (that is, if they don't have extracurriculars after), and they have assignments and projects to complete at home. Additionally, they have to do 40 hours of mandatory volunteer work that, obviously, they don't get paid for. On top of that, they have to work or get/have a job so they can save up money in order to make paying for their next step easier, and living on their own if they want to move out (probably because they loathe their family) easier (and this is extremely common). Kids as young as 15 work a job to do that. Teenagers also have to participate in extracurricular activities and invest time and energy in that if they want to increase their chances at getting into a good university. That's not exclusive to Canada, in fact, none of what I am saying is.
These school systems (including colleges and universities), in the first place, are not even designed to suit, adapt and adjust to, support, and work for individuals and individual needs + differences. Differences in learning styles, capabilities, (natural) skills, talents, potential, circumstances, problems, etc. Psychological differences as well. But people don't even have a clue about that (yet?) unfortunately. The systems are not built that way, and they were not set up for the students or the public, with the people that will be participating within it in mind and being prioritized. They still follow the old traditional system, which has many problems of its own. College/university is absurdly expensive and leave people with debt. They expect us to fit into one big box, and to function well. Sure, inside that system they may be apparently "improving" things and may include and offer certain "options" and alternative pathways in order to support and help us somehow individually. But it is barely much. It's almost nothing. And oh, the illusion of choice. We don't realize just how little control we actually have over our own lives and paths, just how controlled we are [instead], how in actuality, we have very little choice and even every single one of those choices that we make are not free from the influence of a billion things, and the illusion of "options" and "choices" and "paths" that is created to give us the idea or false sense that we have freedom or control (funny) and the power to choose/decide when in reality, only it is withheld that it is determined and decided for us by others what choices, paths, and options we receive or have in the first place, and what those even are. We don't decide that. Within those meager sets of options, we pick. We have choices, albeit a very narrow set of them, but what those choices are is predetermined for us. We don't decide what we choose between/among; not that I am saying that is what we need or should have necessarily, either. But we are so deeply entrenched in this order of things and have been for so long, we barely realize any of this. Even if we become aware, we easily forget or it slips away, and it is difficult to truly grasp and internalize it or incorporate it into our viewpoint. And that is, of course, just a result of this very large and complex system.
We don't decide whether we pay for water or not. We don't decide to not work. Even if you do, you have to rely on others and somebody else who does work, to survive. Everybody depends on everybody, all the time. We don't decide to participate in or not, be part of or not, this unfair, cruel, harrowing, tormenting, and torturous system. We have no choice but to live and participate within the broad systems and structures we are existing in; that is what we have and that is what we have to accept. We don't decide how we are shaped and impacted every moment of our lives since birth by the people around us, and our parents and siblings and family and routines and structures, or the words we hear and the tones with which we are spoken to, the facial expressions we are shown and the ways we are treated, the actions that affect us and what we observe, what we learn and are taught directly or indirectly, the various forms of media we discover and consume and absorb, and the narratives and stories we are fed, and the information we are told about, what we experience and what we see and what we watch and what we read, and anything and everything that ever happens to us or is done to us. We don't control how any of those things mold us and impact us, and we also don't control or decide the "what" (what those things are and are like, etc). You don't choose how you are influenced and you don't choose what influences you (which is everything, in some way) and what those things are like or all the processes [by which you experienced/read/watched/found/saw something, for example]. Behind something is another thing, behind everything is another thing, and another behind that, and that, and so on. There are various things behind anything. Everything is behind everything. Everything is behind every decision you ever make. When you choose a movie to watch, there is already an entire complex history and web of events, occurences, influences, processes, ways you were impacted and shaped, things you read or heard or found, everything, that led to that moment where you pick that particular movie. Many of those things were chosen by you, and many weren't, and the things that were chosen by you, had everything behind it. Your choice of the movie and the very fact that you even decided to watch a movie — that whole complicated history is behind that.
It probably would be very difficult for these school systems to 'tailor to' every individual or be able to support and work for them personally according to their needs and who/what they are, and I don't have any ideas about a better system myself due to my lack of knowledge, but that doesn't mean the status quo cannot be criticized. In fact, it is very much in need and deserving of scrutiny (as well as insults). I can still criticize and question it even if it would be difficult to achieve something greater, or there is no obvious "better" alternative, because it is still severely harmful and just tragic, honestly. It collectively causes serious harm and damage, a lot of which isn't immediately obvious or recognized [at all, or ever].
Perhaps Canada is just high on the global list because it really is still better compared to most other education systems. You can't even trust the information you read, or the sources where you read them, it can give you a positive impression of something if you haven't experienced/seen/had/used/it, etc., but who is writing this information? Who are the people gathering the information and how? What do they know? What is behind it all? Aren't there things they're missing? Aren't there problems and issues they can't see? What is the process, exactly? There are things they aren't considering and aren't basing whatever they are writing on. There are things they are basing what they're writing on, that shouldn't be used as foundations. There are various things they are misunderstanding. There are things they think are true or right or good, when they aren't those things, at all. This just makes you more distrustful and skeptical of official and established things, lists, information, and descriptions. Remember, "official" doesn't [always] mean true or good or correct/accurate.
