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The problem with education
is that we don’t learn anything.
I am not speaking from the
point of view of some adolescent who just dislikes school and will
badmouth it as much as possible, nor am I just trying to create some sort
of outlandish hyperbole to get the attention of others. The fact is,
through my observations, we have been shuffled through the school system.
We are measured in
intervals, similar to a visit to the doctor measures our weight and
height. But with a doctor, the height is a qualitative measurement. An
inch is an inch, no questions asked. The problem is, the school system has
taken upon itself to measure us the same way. Inch for inch. A for A. So
they have to measure us in the qualitative respect too. They don’t care
amount how much we learn. They care about how many facts we can spit out,
and how fast we can do it.
Impressive.
The inner psychology of the
school system is pretty simplistic to understand. Random facts are the
easiest way to measure students. You get it right, or you don't. Yes or
no. A by A. You can mark the intelligence of a student by their GPA. In my
humble opinion, it doesn’t really matter what your grade is. That doesn’t
show anything about intelligence. But you really didn’t need anyone to
tell you that.
I hope not, anyway.
The irony is, knowing the
year Napoleon didn’t conquer Cuba will not help us in life. Bottom line:
No one wants to hire someone who knows a bunch of facts they are already
aware of. It makes sense, if you think about it. They hire for the new
ideas, for the analysis, or at least for the basic labor. No one will need
you to find square roots in your head all day. They have computers for
that. And while it’s great to know exactly where to put an accent on a
word in Spanish, good luck trying to buy a perro caliente in Mexico
if you can’t string sentences together. I am not saying nothing we ever
learn in school will come in useful later on. Some of it probably will.
But most of it won’t. We learn it for the test, scribble it out, forget it
later. Then we are graded based off of a few marks on a page that don’t
actually mean anything to us, to anyone.
We can’t keep waiting for a
good teacher to come along and teach us something we can’t spit back. Most
teachers are it the same cycle we are, had the same education. Our lack
of learning now contributes to the way society runs, which, judging by the
news today, is not all that satisfactory.
Those with a passion for
mathematics memorize equations, and go no further. They are not expected
to ponder anything deeper, are not measured that way. By the time they are
done memorizing the equations, they have no energy left to come up with
some of their own. Sounds crazy? Like no high school student could ever
accomplish anything anyway? Maybe they could, maybe they couldn’t. But the
way education is going, we take that away from them. Any chance they had
is gone by now. And they are less likely to be able to come up with their
own conclusions in the future.
It didn’t always used to be
this way. People learned their craft from their professionals. They
weren’t really graded, least not to the extent we are today. If you wanted
to become a cook, you cooked. You didn’t memorize the surnames of all the
famous cooks in your past. Which is really the equivalent of what we are
doing now. If you were a scholar, you studied and talked with experts on
subjects. Again, no report cards. I am not saying this is the best method
of education, but it provides some insight into difference throughout the
ages. And it gives us the idea that this isn’t the only way.
We never think about what
we learn. Doing bits of “analysis” here and there does next to nothing.
Our brains are rotting from lack of learning. While they were fully
working in kindergarten, they have since shut down. The echoing chambers
of what used to be a great metropolis is now a ghost town, haunted by
scraps of unusable facts here and there.
You know something is wrong
when education gets in the way of learning
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