The Crisis in Education: What Adolescence Reveals About Our Failing System

The current popular Netflix series, Adolescence, shocked me to my core and left me reeling for days. As a parent of five children—two who have moved beyond adolescence and two right in the middle of it—I couldn’t shake the deep emotional response I had to the show. My passion and energy are firmly rooted in progressive education, and this series exposed, in painful clarity, why our current education system is simply not working.

Episode 2 hit particularly hard. Set in a typical UK secondary school, it painted a bleak but all-too-familiar picture: overwhelmed and ineffective teachers drowning in the sheer number of students, a lack of respect for both staff and the institution, and—most heart-breakingly—countless children lost in a system that does not support their learning. We know that meaningful education only happens when students feel calm, cared for, valued, and seen. Yet, what we saw in Adolescence was a system that breeds the opposite—an environment of stress, disconnection, and disengagement.

The character of Katie’s best friend encapsulates this crisis. Despite having a dedicated school-appointed adult focused on her mental well-being, she remained angry, uninspired, and disengaged from learning. Similarly, Jamie’s best friend mirrored this same struggle. And then there was the DI’s son, a boy with clear potential, yet so overwhelmed by school that he regularly called his father, complaining of stomach pains—physical manifestations of deep emotional distress. How many young people do we know who feel this way daily? How many are stuck in an education system that disregards their needs and leaves them feeling hopeless?

This is the reality for so many of our teenagers in the 2020s. And it raises urgent questions: What kind of future are we preparing them for? What kind of world will they build if their formative years are spent in survival mode rather than in growth, curiosity, and purpose? Are we complicit in this failing system through our silence and inaction?

Education should not be about mere survival. It should be about equipping young minds with the tools, inspiration, and confidence to contribute meaningfully to the world. If Adolescence showed us anything, it’s that we are far from achieving this goal. It’s time to stop accepting a broken system and start demanding real, trans-formative change. Our children deserve better. Our future depends on it.