Our economic and social system is increasingly being called into question by crisis-ridden developments, and there is no answer in sight. The political and economic powers that be were largely educated at the best schools and universities. Their helplessness is clearly noticeable, and a long-term perspective has been replaced by short-sighted actionism. It is now becoming visible with frightening clarity that the limits of our thinking were set too narrowly for us from childhood. No matter which school we have attended, we move in patterns of thought that date back to the early days of industrialization, when the aim was to train people to become well-functioning cogs in a production society based on the division of labor. The content of teaching has changed a lot since then, and school is no longer a place for authoritarian drill. But the fixation on normative standards dominates teaching more than ever. For of late, a rough wind has been blowing in schools. "Achievement" as the fetish of the competitive society has become the relentless measure of all things worldwide. But the one-sided focus on technocratic learning goals and on the error-free reproduction of isolated knowledge content is stunting precisely that playful creativity that could help us look for new solutions without fear of failure.