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I admit that this author done rather well at school. I won a couple of awards at prize evening and swept through college with good grades. There was something very appealing about this at the time. At primary school you were bullied for being too bookish and later on you were honoured as the hero.
If I could meet my past self I would probably slap him hard on the bum. Harsh I know, to hurt such a beautiful thing, haha :), but highly necessary. As now, years later after the whole experience and moving onwards with my life, I realize just how wrong I was and perhaps how wrong we all were for believing that school was anything but good for us.
The truth is that school, college and university teach us very little. Education for me is as follows: you sit in a classroom while a teacher reads from a textbook, not teaching but repeating what other teachers have written before him, does examples on a larger board and then sends you homework, usually to do more of what you have "learnt". At the end of the year you have an exam which is a chance for you to soak up all of the information like a sponge and then spit it out onto a page in the fastest time possible. The more accurately you can spit out this information the higher grades you will get. It is all about mindless parrot memorization not intelligence or innovative thinking. If you find the subject boring, or you would rather be doing something more exciting and fulfilling with your life then you will most likely fail which consequently leads to bullying, disappointed parents, poor reputation, zero employment and zero opportunity. Most of all it is societies opportunity to call you a "moron" or "stupid" which quite honestly is the most stupid thing of all.
School does not encourage personal growth and development, it strangles it. It propels you forward along a very different, narrow level of thinking filled with subjects that you will never need nor use in your future career. Algebra, ancient history, chemistry and even religious education which taught me absolutely nothing. Let me tell you a simple truth. What we learn at school and what was most valuable to us were the friendships we made, the social skills that were able to flourish and the personal discoveries we were able to make by being surrounded by other like minded people. What you miss from school if anything, were the people you were acquainted with, not what we were graded for.
From the age of 4 we are plunged into a world where imagination is frowned upon. Where twitching in class, singing in the room, being too loud gets you a punishment and a name in a black book. It is a place where drawing outside of the lines in coloring books is messy and incorrect affair and the only stories that are valid are those told in the classroom at the end of the day, and not the stories that we make up with our friends. It is a place where children are denied the opportunity to find creativity and potential talents. Instead of being original we all encouraged to follow those before us, where there is a roof to our potential and not endless possibility. As the best we can do is what the book says is the best we can do, and not what our heart says.
Those who did well at school are not smart. They are good at following orders, they are good at believing what a book tells them is fact and fiction, and they remember it well. Certainly it seems that the most successful people in the world did the opposite of what school told them to do. They said no to the system and consequently found a utopia in something they loved and became innovative pioneers, creative in their work and fundamentally, free. There are many types of genius: I see them music, in art, in sport and even in the eyes of the old, the young and in animals too. The genius at school is the most common type of genius which unfortunately doesn't make him a genius at all.
What school is, is a work training camp. It is conditioning the human mind and body to adjust to the working regime. School starts at 9am and finishes on average at around 3-4pm, just under the normal 9-5 that most adults work with. Also notice the school uniform, once again killing individuality and preparing us for the working world of the suit and tie. Also notice the role of the teacher in the classroom, preparing us for the big boss employer who will punish us if we step out of line. Bleak, grim? I know, I know :), but come here you snuggley thing, give me a hug.
Here is a great idea for some educational reform. A great man once said that wouldn't it be wonderful if we went to school to learn how to be happy. Or, that we went to school to learn how to be more fulfilled. Or, better still, to learm how to make this world a better place for all of those people who live in it. That would be a lesson I'm sure you would never forget.
A dream dear reader, nothing but a dream. Though we can always dream together. Know that education should ideally be a means to an end, a way of surviving in the machine that is society. Underneath this means to an end, whatever you do always fuel your life with your passions and hobbies, and take your memories back to the playground during recess or the break and find what made you truly happy. Those were the times that we have to re live, so go ahead and re live them now.
Until next time :).
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