There’s something about college in my 40s that has genuinely shocked me.
It’s not the workload.
It’s not the pace.
It’s not even how much of my life I had to dismantle and rebuild to be here.
It’s the policing.
And for the record, this isn’t about my college specifically. It’s about the strange, inherited habits of institutional education everywhere.
Not teaching.
Not mentorship.
Policing.
The kind that feels like we’re fourteen again, trying to sneak out to smoke cigarettes behind the gym, instead of adults who deliberately signed up for this and paid dearly for the privilege.
Because here’s the thing.
We are not children being forced to attend school by law.
No one dragged us here. No one is calling our parents if we miss a day. We are adults who sacrificed so much to be here. Money. Time. Stability. Proximity to our families. Careers paused or ended. Bodies exhausted. Nervous systems stretched thin.
My tuition alone was $36,000 Canadian. That doesn’t include all the additional fees, books, supplies, uniforms, storage, transportation, lost income, or the emotional cost of starting over as an adult. This isn’t casual. This is commitment.
And yet, adult learners are often treated as if the default assumption is bad faith.
It shows up in familiar ways.
Group projects instead of papers to prevent AI use.
Logbooks that require extensive proof instead of professional trust.
Mandatory discussion posts graded on participation rather than insight.
Rigid submission rules that punish timing and formatting more than understanding.
Endless mechanisms designed to make sure we “care enough.”
And to be clear, group projects are not the villain.
Collaboration matters. It’s essential in our profession. Learning to work across difference, communicate clearly, and problem solve together is real preparation for clinical practice.
But sometimes the stated reason matters.
When instructors openly say a group project is assigned to prevent AI use (especially in online classes with students scattered across time zones and languages) it stops being about pedagogy and starts being about control. You can feel the difference immediately.
And here’s where I want to be very clear.
This isn’t an argument against standards.
Of course we don’t want under trained practitioners graduating and going out into the world doing a terrible job. That does affect the profession. That does matter for patient safety and public trust.
But blanket policing is a lazy substitute for real accountability.
The students who truly don’t care shouldn’t make it through clinic. You can’t fake hands on skill. You can’t outsource presence. You can’t bluff your way through patient interaction, palpation, or pattern recognition.
Lack of care shows.
Avoidance shows.
Inconsistency shows.
And the students who are invested (the ones integrating the material, staying late, asking better questions) they don’t need to be surveilled into competence. They’re already holding themselves to a higher standard than any checklist ever could.
Blanket policing doesn’t stop disengagement.
It just exhausts the people who actually care.
Maybe it’s the unschooler in me talking but I believe this whole approach comes straight from a system built to manage children. Children who didn’t choose school. Children who needed structure, monitoring, and consequences for compulsory education to function at all.
That framework makes sense there.
But adults pursuing a calling? Adults paying tens of thousands of dollars to learn something that will shape how they care for others?
That requires trust.
I didn’t come back to school to be babysat.
I came back to be accountable, to myself, my future patients, and the profession.
Real accountability isn’t about hovering.
It’s about meaningful mentorship, real clinical exposure, and allowing adults to experience the natural consequences of their choices.
We are not kids practicing our fake coughs for a sick day.
We are adults who sacrificed everything to be here.
And adult education should finally start acting like it.
A Gentle Note: I’m a student of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and this space reflects my learning as it unfolds. TCM is deep, layered, and complex, and I’m still finding my footing within it. I will refine my understanding over time. I will make mistakes. That’s part of doing this honestly. What I share here is my current perspective, shaped by my teachers, clinical training, lived experience, and my own biases. It’s not absolute, it’s evolving. I welcome thoughtful conversation, shared insight, and respectful correction along the way. I humbly welcome your insight. Let’s learn together. You can always find me over on Instagram to keep the conversation going.