I Hate School
1. One reason why I hate the current education system is because it often punishes with no reason.
People without external support (or people whose supposed support – teachers, parents, classmates are even abusive) may get punished by bad grades or being expelled for something that they actually wanted and tried to do right with their whole heart.
I think teachers should be mindful that one instruction that may look to be the same for all pupils is actually perceived quite differently by each of them, and is of different difficulty for each of them depending on their capacity, background and interests and environment.
This is why it was deemed impolite to keep asking people around you for small favors that don’t mean much to you, from the beginning of time in our culture already. It is assumed that the school system is not subject to this, but i want to argue it is.
Something that seems small to one person may actually cause a big hassle to another. This is why many cultures evolve into praising behavior that is helping, and frowning upon behavior that is needy.
2. Let me close this by a story i heard recently, maybe some readers may link to the correct story; i will tell it as i remember it.
A monkey one day decides to organize a race. All animals are invited, and there is a big price to be gotten by the winner, for a small fee to enter the race. The rules will be known in time, and will be the same for everyone.
Animals from far and near gather for the race – hippos, horses, dogs, snakes..
Then the rules are announced: “The one who shall climb the tree the fastest will be the winner”.
Is Wikipedia the Best We’ve Got?
1. Knowing the way we learn has become more important. We no longer live in a world where we would spend more time trying to acquire the information (we, exceedingly, no longer need to go to expensive schools, be born in or travel to a certain (social) place etc.) then we take to understand it (that is, work ourselves through the material).
2. When i went to grade school, the way people learn wasn’t discussed. The assumption was – we give you access to the information, you will deal with it. But now, with internet, we all have access to the information. So the question should be – how do we efficiently present it, making the best use of the medium (this now being a computer with ever-advancing software)
3. We tend to still think in terms of traditional media – we were thought what a pencil can do; but few know how to actually use the advanced tools a computer brings. Sometimes we use the ‘fake’ markers, brushes, animation. But few can actually present something well in an interactive form – something peculiar to the medium.
It is like we did not develop the ‘fine motor skills’ to use the computer. We fiddle with software like young kids do with pencils, we are unsure what to do with the new tools. We write text, we stuff the gadgets in things resembling pencil cases. We look at whether their cover glitters or doesn’t, or looks like it has been blessed by the latest (now geeky) celebrity. We show our friends how our tools – computers, smartphones, look on the outside, never having a real clue about what they do. It is a good thing that the tool is similar enough to our old one that we do not try to eat it, like small children would try to do! Often we never realize that the new functionality we think it has, was really possible in our old one too. We buy them, ‘sharpen’ them, lug them around in bags for awhile, and throw them away when our friends no longer seem impressed by them.
This time, there will be no grown up teacher telling us what to do, and no parent making sure we attend and listen – but still we should all take some time and learn to use the tools we got as best as we can. The computer will always be a bad pencil. We should learn to use it as its own tool, not as an emulator.
4. How do i present what i know if i don’t know how people learn? The science is getting there, but i have this impression that this issue is most often showed off as of inferior importance, mostly of the ‘grade school’ assumption that is still made by the majority of people.
5. Literacy of today is not the literacy of yesterday. A program has substituted the word. We cannot read if we cannot use software, nor can we really write if we cannot program. Today’s new illiterate are tolerated, but this is only so because they are the majority. It is something we, as people and as a society, will have to overcome. How will we teach the use of the new medium? How long will we postpone and reserve it for the ‘blessed’? I wonder, how long the majority will have to ‘work in the fields’, to gain the time (as money is no longer an issue much) for an education?
Questions, Answers, Improvement
I.
Some books contain questions, some contain answers. Reading one with answers to a person without a question will leave him disappointed. Reading one with questions to a person full of them will make no change.
They will be asking themselves “When does the author shut up already”?
The one is not better then the other. We make use of different kinds at different times in our lives.
Kinda like kids – suddenly a child is all questions; or sometimes they just keep telling and showing you stuff you don’t really care about. They intuitively know how growth, learning and improvement is done. Adults should learn from them.
To often, people push the question kind of book on others, telling them it is art or faith.
To often, people push the answer kind of book on others, telling them it is science.
But they are really not apart from each other: human experience is both art and science – first, it is great to come across a great question; then it is great to come across a great answer. Both are equally needed for us to improve.
II.
If you look at the design of most textbooks, you will see how they try to force this process (which is not bad in itself, since it makes people learn fast). They include both the question, and the answer. If the problem is not specifically posted, the titles are usually actually questions. For example, they will say: Principles of Biochemistry; meaning “What is it, that Biochemistry is based on? What concepts will i find most often in any problem in the field?”.
The many people having problems focusing on their schoolwork (or people who tend to worship “experts” too much) should try this if they don’t do this already – make the title into the question. It may often make the answer more intuitive and easier to learn.
Leaders, Supply, Demand
It is unlikely that you should ever become rich without opening at least some resemblance of your own company at one time or or another.
Working for someone will nearly always mean you will do tasks the other person does not think worthy of his time to do, and as such needing to pay the worker less then what the employer gets payed.
No matter how ridiculous and low-education the work of what the person above you does, in our world the supply (employers) are not as many as those who want to be employed by them (demand); thus, the work of the employer will most often be worth more as the work of the worker.
–
When a government takes a lot, or makes a lot of demands on employers (most of rich people are actually in the category) – it is even less likely that the average, low-wage person should start their own company. This is because loosing money when you don’t have it is much worse then loosing the money you don’t mind that much about. Thus at the same risk of succession of a new enterprise, the more that is taken from the rich man, the more likely it is to keep the poor man in his situation.
Less employers means less job options for the employed, making for a vicious cycle of poverty for many people, forcing people to work and not be able to go to another place should the situation become adverse. Thus, high taxes are actually a load put on the worker to carry, regardless on who is taxed on paper.
Sometimes, employers will pay a good amount of money to the worker. This is by no means impossible. But it will often happen, that something will go wrong, and a person in the company will be fired; and you should keep a job you like, but you should also keep this understanding in mind.
Occasionally, with such a thing happening, the employer becomes the enemy. “All they are after is money” is often heard, behind it a person devastated by what just happened.
Personally, i have had a hard time understanding this – would you base your livelihood on a job that is most likely to take money from you, instead of earning you money to buy the groceries? Would you work if you knew you would be payed less than you thought your time deserved? The absolute amount doesn’t matter. Either it feels enough or it doesn’t.
The employers thinking is the same.
Sheep may put blame about their situation on the shepherd. You are men (or women), you have the power to be both the leader of the led.
–
Partly, i blame today’s lame education systems. Not following is punished since childhood. By the amount of children that break the rules, you may see that leadership is actually as natural to a man as is being a follower. In a world of physical labor, you want the person to follow the leader (teacher); and let the most persistent people (who still refuse to follow) lead in the future. This would be in a world that requires a lot of work, and little thinking.
The problem is, in this system, the amount of people not wanting to follow is considered too high to such a degree, that it is often even considered acceptable to ridicule the person into submission, even if it means the person will completely give up any productivity because of it – possibly ending in drugs, or even suicide. The absurdity of this is in that in the real world, there is actually a lack of people who are willing to lead and risk for a better future.
It should be understood that most education systems still in use in the world today, are designed to produce large amounts of workers and a small percentage of leaders. The sad thing is, many people take this as the ultimate reality – some people are smart, others work for them. This is ludicrous.
Just looking at the curriculum and compare it to what sells in the real world. The education you got in elementary or high school is random and often worthless, so do not base the value of yourself as a person on it.
In the real world, everyone may open up their own enterprise. How good you were in school is completely independent of that (apart of the perception of people that was just described).
zacione 