As someone who hadn’t set foot inside a grade school for decades, I knew something was amiss when I visited my former Canadian high school for a craft fair.

“Where did all the photos on the walls of the atrium go of all the top achievers from academics and sports throughout the years?” I wondered, wanting to laugh at my early ’90s-style hairdo. Turns out they were taken down, perhaps around the same time that rainbow and native tribal flags went up beside Canada’s national one.

The high achievers that previously adorned the walls were replaced with evidence of successful collectivist cooperation. Teams seemed to matter, while individual success was boxed up and hauled away from public view. Heaven forbid their mere existence make anyone feel bad about themselves. Personally, I used to love seeing those faces. They were inspirational for someone growing up in a small town and aspiring to do great things outside of it. “We Pursue Excellence” was the school’s longtime motto. But now, on the wall, was the result of a student survey showing that 75% of students felt “uncomfortable” to even use the washroom. One might think that the first step in the pursuit of excellence would involve mastering whatever went down in the toilet stalls.

The participation trophy generation now has to have a portable safe space in the form of a bubble around them at all times. Everything is seen as a potential threat – especially standards of excellence. Which would explain why the entire province of British Columbia, on Canada’s Left Coast, ditched standardized tests in subjects such as math, physics, chemistry, and languages – which allowed for a form of ranking and comparison among all students in the entire province — in favor of just two types of tests: general........

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