I am going to the store. I have exactly one dollar and five cents. I can buy anything with a price tag ranging from breath mints to potato chips. I pick something out, take it to the cashier; money and products are exchanged. Thus ends my transaction.

How do we assign value? It’s easy to associate products with numbers. The pricing system is founded on a dry estimate of the availability of resources and the cost to manufacture these goods. Applying value to human beings gets more complicated.

The way we denote value in society is driven by economics and politics. Today, professional athletes like Michael Vick and celebrities like Britney Spears get higher wages than high school teachers and sanitary engineers. In a similar vein, Snooki from Jersey Shore was paid $2,000 more than Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison to speak at Rutgers University.

This value system conflicts with common sense.

In my economics textbook, Glenn Hubbard explains this logical fallacy by pointing out that there is a more expansive pool of laborers who can fulfill teaching and cleaning positions, while a much more limited collection of people can act in the capacity of an entertainer.

In addition, the initial net profit made by one sold-out show at Comerica Park can draw in a sum eons greater than any amount a scientist working one day in a laboratory can make.

This makes sense.

(But does it really?)

A similar measurement system is put in place to gauge the success potential of students. Dual-enrollment courses at universities and colleges, a numeric scale for calculating grade point average, and a plethora of academic competitions act as a gridline for determining merit. The objective of these directives is to sculpt a “high-achieving” student; a dutifully contributing member of society.

Our obsession with molding a “paragon of man” has steeped into the realm of high school. In an environment where students are publicly lauded for receiving perfect 36 ACT scores, an unnecessary amount of energy is pinpointed on specific students using standards that are not adequately equipped to accurately calculate human potential.

This cancerous manifestation has sewn itself into the mindsets of increasingly younger kids. Wide-eyed middle pupils across the nation are getting prompted to study for the SATs, while rosy-cheeked freshmen in high school voraciously dig into extracurricular activities and summer math courses.

Measurements have no meaning without units. Naming a unit of measurement provides context and definition. The pillars on which we base our merit system not only provide insight on what we as a society view as crucial, but also streamline the actions of our posterity as they struggle to match the expectations set by earlier generations.

Today, the unilateral definition of a “successful, high-achieving” student points in one direction. It awards the objective while remaining obtusely ignorant towards the quintessential characteristics that distinguish human beings from other animals.

There is a difference between the excellent and the sublime. For example, the concertmaster of the symphony orchestra may have all the technique needed to excel at the violin, but he might not satisfy the principles of an artist.

In Kate Chopin’s famous novella The Awakening, Mademoiselle Reisz admits, “‘To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts — absolute gifts — which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.’"

This is the crux of the argument: although there are certain unquestionable talents certain people possess, the true realization of a person lies not in the realm of the quantifiable, but rather in the shady chasms of something deeper and more inherent than protrusive.

The current merit system distracts our attention away from these intangible traits and channels it to follow the sometimes self-destructive path of satisfying the demands of an external source.

Under this framework, teachers and students contribute to an atmosphere teeming with the stench of hierarchy and rank. Praise and reverence is showered upon kids who meet the stale benchmarks of measured achievement. Kids who fit the profile of a “high-achieving” student are buoyed by their peers and teachers on the basis of such tenets as GPA, awards, and test scores.

Granted, personal pride and self-assurance are necessary. However, what starts off as a seed of confidence can quickly procreate into a tangle of egos. Although not everyone who undergoes extensive commendation attains a larger-than-life vision of himself, a few do. The advancement in imperiousness increases in direct proportion to a decrease in the confidence of other kids.

The truly creepy aspect of this system is its ability to sustain itself without outside prodding. To remain viable, the merit system does not need a nuclear reactor; it runs on the perceptions of the very people it was intended to direct.

The nutrients supplementing this disproportional growth are rooted in the fantastical praises of teachers and other students. Teachers and students who indoctrinate a rigid system of determining merit unknowingly stoke the flames that encourage exclusive selection. Some students burn their own self-confidence at the altar of someone else’s ego.

Furthermore, our focus on this measurement system has bred a new subset of the traditional achievement gap. I’ve noticed first-hand how a single mentality has mushroomed among students to satisfy a singular definition of “success.”

The tragedy to this linear way of thinking is that many students feel discouraged when they fail to meet or exceed the achievements of their peers. A different sort of achievement gap is drawn between the perfect 36s and everyone else.

I don’t have a problem with the prevalence of the current system of measuring merit. It’s remarkably efficient at preparing students for post-secondary education and tailoring their short-term goals to progress society.

On the other hand, I do think there are problems with it. We need to understand that this algorithm for measuring achievement is flawed at best. This artifice can inflate egos and segregate people on an artificial basis.

Further fallout of this plan includes the erosion of a student base: under this plan, a specific genre of student is heralded, leaving a large student body brimming with other talents unaccounted for.

If we represent standardized testing and grades as a tangible cornerstone to a “bright future,” we would be quixotic not to realize that kids will aim to better themselves primarily by focusing on these enumerated points. As a result, the principles of uprightness and strength of character are sometimes left by the wayside.

In the self-esteem nightmare that is high school, I think we should sway our emphasis away from pure objective achievements and realize that gadgets such as academic competition, standardized testing and course scheduling are not authoritative when it comes to assessing other merits that articulate human character. We should also revoke the “get-out-of-jail-free” passes slipped to people who suffer from personality diseases contracted in part by their success in the system.

Ultimately, we buy too deeply into the stipulations of this measurement scheme. Instead of getting dazzled by the awards and perfect scores, we should evaluate the confections of this system with a grain of salt. We don’t need to act as a herd of blind sheep led by the intoxicating aura of an elusive Pied Piper.

Even though the current merit system is an efficient way of tracking student potential, by no means does it account for the intangible traits that make us decent human beings.

Jing Chai is a student at Huron High School and can be contacted at promisedalacrity@gmail.com.