The Sick Joke of Education

Education is one of the longest games we play in life, and for most of the journey, it’s played under a strange illusion: you must do it alone.

From grade school through graduate programs, the system pushes us to prove our individual worth. Don’t copy. Don’t ask for too much help. Follow directions. Memorize. Take the test. Show you, and only you, can make it through. The message is clear: independence equals success.

And then comes the twist.

For students who pursue a doctorate, the rules change overnight. At the PhD level, you’re no longer judged by what you can produce in isolation, but by how well you situate yourself inside a team of voices.

You’re expected to enter into dialogue with history, to treat centuries of literature as collaborators. You don’t invent from scratch—you build on, refine, and extend.

It’s like suddenly being told, “Surprise! You were never a lone hero. You’ve been drafted into the Avengers all along—now suit up and cite your teammates.”

Even if you never step foot in a doctoral program, the joke continues once you enter the workforce. Almost no job—whether it’s corporate, nonprofit, or self-made entrepreneurship—is truly a solo act.

You join a team, or you build one. Your colleagues, your clients, your vendors, your collaborators—they’re all part of the ecosystem that makes your work possible.

It’s the same reason anime squads and superhero teams resonate: Naruto doesn’t reach Hokage alone. The X-Men don’t save the world solo. Even Frodo needed Sam to carry him when the Ring nearly destroyed him. Real growth is rarely a one-person climb—it’s a fellowship.

There is a place for working alone. Solitude sharpens focus. When you wrestle with a problem by yourself, you build resilience, discipline, and a kind of mental grit that can’t be outsourced. It’s the reason a samurai trains with a wooden sword in the quiet of dawn, or a musician practices scales in an empty room. That solo grind matters.

But here’s the point: growing alone isn’t about staying alone. It’s about becoming strong enough to contribute meaningfully when you rejoin the team. A weak unit can’t carry its weight. A strong unit multiplies the power of the group.

Look at Goku from Dragon Ball Z. For those unfamiliar, he’s a martial artist from another planet who becomes Earth’s greatest defender. He spends endless hours training solo, sometimes in extreme conditions—gravity chambers, remote mountains, even otherworldly dimensions. Those lonely battles with himself build his raw strength. But Goku’s true greatness shows when he joins his team, the Z Fighters. His rivalries, his friendships, and his battles alongside others transform that solo work into something world-saving. He doesn’t train alone to escape the team—he trains alone to be the strongest possible unit of the team.

We see the same truth in other arenas. Michael Jordan shot thousands of baskets alone in the gym, but his legacy comes from how he performed with the Chicago Bulls. Serena Williams drills endlessly by herself, but it’s her ability to bring that sharpened skill into the pressure of a match—with coaches, doubles partners, and a team behind her—that defines her dominance.

The healthiest path is a rhythm: solo training that builds the individual into a strong, capable unit, and collaboration that weaves those units into something far greater. Solo work builds the blade. Teamwork tempers it in fire.

When we hear the word team, we usually picture a group of people sitting around a table, or huddled on a sports field. But the truth is, a team is broader than that. A team is any reliable component of your growth and goals—human or not—that gives you space to perform, to ask, to experiment, and to learn.

Your team might be classmates or colleagues, yes. But it could also be the tools that extend your reach. A 3D printer that helps you prototype an idea is part of your team. An AI that helps you generate drafts or test concepts is part of your team. Even a well-designed process or a trusted mentor counts as a teammate.

Think of Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. Sure, he’s brilliant on his own, but his real “team” isn’t just the Avengers—it’s J.A.R.V.I.S., the AI that manages his lab, his suits, and sometimes even his sanity. It’s the machines, the processes, and the allies that free him to focus on creating and fighting. Without J.A.R.V.I.S. and the infrastructure around him, Stark is just a guy with a wrench and a deadline. With them, he becomes Iron Man.

What makes something a “team member” isn’t whether it’s human—it’s whether it’s reliable, whether it supports your growth, and whether it creates the conditions for you to push further than you could alone. A strong team is a constellation of people, tools, and systems that together create momentum.

Seen this way, building a team isn’t just about surrounding yourself with peers. It’s about curating an ecosystem of supports that lets you focus on your highest contribution. You grow because your team—whatever shape it takes—carries part of the weight, gives you feedback, and frees you to stretch your capacity.

Here’s the irony: the thing that makes us thrive in real life—teamwork—is often treated like cheating in school. We train for isolation only to discover the world runs on collaboration.

History shows the same pattern. The Renaissance wasn’t one genius painting in a lonely studio—it was artists, mathematicians, and philosophers bouncing ideas off each other in coffeehouses and workshops. NASA didn’t land a man on the moon because one person solved an equation; it happened because thousands of minds linked up in pursuit of a shared mission.

The truth? Any student could rewrite their entire educational history right now by forming teams in every class. Study groups, peer-review circles, coding partners, project squads—these aren’t just survival tactics, they’re multipliers of learning.

Teamwork doesn’t dilute knowledge; it accelerates it. The Jedi train in pairs. The Straw Hat Pirates each bring their own skill to the crew. Knowledge, like strength in Dragon Ball Z, multiplies when shared.

The sick joke becomes less cruel once you realize you don’t have to wait until the PhD or until you’re hired at your first job or career to embrace collaboration.

Every learner has the power to build their team now. To treat peers as allies, not competitors. To use group energy not as a crutch, but as a force multiplier.

Because in the end, success isn’t a test you pass alone. It’s a conversation you join, a network you build, and a team you grow with.

Imagine if schools taught this from day one: that you’re not just a lone player grinding for XP, but part of a party headed for a boss fight. Every subject, every project, every challenge could become a co-op quest. That’s not just better education—it’s the truer one.

-Malik

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