Why school?
Introduction:
We are sent to school to be educated. We spend the most precious moments of our lives behind desks while listening, taking notes, asking and most of the time daydreaming. Why? We don't hate to learn. Our life is tangled with change, and change requires adaptability which itself requires learning. None of these processes are resentful or editable. So there must be something wrong. What is wrong has nothing to do with the concept of learning, but with the educational system which has failed in reinforcing our desire to learn.
The most common definition for learning must be a process in which we acquire a knowledge we didn't have before, whether practical or theoretical. As we enter the school system the learning process shapes into a hierarchal order. Everything is arranged for us beforehand and we have to adapt to the system, whereas before entering school learning was more about what we wanted it to be. One good example can be language acquisition of a child. In this process, learning happens in situations where the child puts himself into it and no arrangement or curriculum is formed for him to learn to speak. In the school system, the child is put behind a desk and is told:" hey! Now you are learning!" No wonder he might just think for a while:" what the hell is going on?!" surely they do not find the answer until they drop out of school, a place where they thought they could never fit in. One reason for that can be the categorization of courses, math and science on top and humanities and art at the bottom. This sort of arrangement raises expectations for those who take math and raises pity for those who choose art. The worst part is yet to come. Now that you have chosen either of them, you should be careful not to make mistakes.
As a child, we all have been through awkward moments when we uttered out something funny which made everybody laugh, but at the same time indicated some aspect of our creative potentials. Children are not afraid to make mistakes and to be judged, that's why they always come up with something original. By the time they turn into adults, they have lost this capacity because mistakes are stigmatized. In public education systems, mistakes are the worst things you can make. The result is educating children out of their creative capacities.
Earlier we mentioned the hierarchal order of courses and its consequences. But what is left is the reason for such order. Following the industrial revolution, the whole concept of public education was providing the needs of industrialism. Useful subjects were on top and are still on top. Now that the world is engulfed in revolution, universities and schools cannot design the system in their own image. If they do what they do, many creative, smart people may think they are not because things they liked were not valued. So what is the whole output of education?
It seems that the whole goal of education is to produce university professors. Many consider them as the mere sources of knowledge, so available. One reason may be that education is predicated on academic ability. Now, degrees do not worth anything. For instance, years ago you could find a job with a B.A degree, unless you didn't want it. Now, people get their degrees and go back home to watch T.V. The academic inflation is shifting beneath our feet.
Conclusion:
Our learning facilities are changing rapidly. New terms, such as open-source learning has emerged as a result of digitalization. Textbooks are fading and the on-line world has made reaching out to up-to-date knowledge much easier. All these developments are making the gap between the learning process inside and outside the school system much larger. Children are not satisfied with an indoctrinating system which holds the teacher as the only one in charge of the learning processes. Globalization has shortened the distances and as we open new doors of communication, criticism follows naturally. Self-criticism has given us the chance to get prepared for evaluating our mistakes as a means to get creative. Just like the language acquisition process, we look for situations where we can fit in and learn. Now that we have adapted ourselves to these changes, the whole concept of educating in public schools seems just a waste of time and energy on subjects which might never matter for us.
by: myself
reference: Sir ken Robinson TED speech