Most teens in traditional schools are required to learn in ways that are inadequate for meeting the challenges of University and the challenges of being an adult. The reasons for learning are too often disconnected from real life needs and problems. The goal of education in so many instances has been reduced to scoring well on standardized tests, and focusing on a grade, rather than on learning how to learn. A high grade point average becomes the goal so that admission into a prestigious university is achieved, so that a well paying job is assured, with the assumption of financial security.

This very progression is based on a system of competition. Students are not adequately learning the practice of collaboration and teamwork and are instead being conditioned to live as though competition is necessary for their very survival. When in fact, long term survival and the ability to sustain ecosystems and societies is dependent upon humans learning to cooperate with one another to collectively solve the problems we’ve created by not cooperating with one another. Most real-world working environments are social structures themselves where co-workers are inter-dependent – they rely on one another and success is dependent on their ability to support and work with one another. A portion of Synergia’s ropes course clientele over the past twenty years has been with the corporate and business sector, teaching teamwork and cooperation in the workplace. And most struggle enormously with these basic qualities because their education did not adequately include them – they literally don’t know how to do it well.