Updating my thoughts on Education

#Updating my thoughts on Education

Ever since word got out that I, a long term adversary of schooling and everything it stood for, had completely betrayed my camp and taken to dwelling in the Ivory Tower (willingly this time around), my DM overflowed with people demanding an explanation.

Indeed, many who were oblivious to my behind-the-scenes college application process, and only knew Kevin—the businessman and outspoken critic of academia—might have found my move rather discombobulating and, as a result, probably marked me off as a hypocrite—or at least one who doesn’t practice what he preaches.

But the mistake these people make is 1) failing to realize that people change their mind. In light of new information, one ought to re-evaluate one’s beliefs and adjust them accordingly (not to say that this is what happened to me) And 2) all beliefs are subject to context.

The first is self-explanatory, but the second might need to be expounded upon.

The Bible says “Do not kill.” Plane and simple. There is nothing ambiguous about that statement and it’s typically not open to debate. However, the same Bible is imbued with tale after tale detailing instances where the Israelites slayed their neighbours and conquered their land—often with the help of the same God that commanded them not to kill.

Context is important.

Perhaps this is not the best example that I could have given, but it’s an analogy we could all relate to(I’m assuming whoever is reading this has some conversance with the Bible).

So whenever I quipped about how useless school was, I was referring to the kind of school where students are constantly stuffed with largely outdated and/or inapplicable information from a less-than-enthusiastic pedagogue whose paycheck has been delayed for the nth time. If school had fit a different description, perhaps my opinion of it would be more charitable.

Indeed, with American colleges, that’s what I found to be the case.

Here, I no longer studied about a fabled mass-spectrometer without ever seeing and/or touching one. Here, my knowledge was not merely a sub-storage of a lecturer’s handout, but a synthesis of perspectives educated by manifold sources.

That sounds way fancier than I meant for it to be. What I mean by this is that, in many of my classes, the “Ordre du jour” is not cram→vomit→forget. Rather, its read→analyse→digest→synthesize (with a little forgetting and cramming here and there of course).

The difference between the former and latter is that, when you ask me about the Portuguese conquest, I might not be able to list “25 reasons why the Portuguese conquered the coast,” but I am able to give you my own analysis of what their motivations were, and what carry-over (good or bad) their actions have on the present-day societies that they visited.

Why is this important?

Well, to answer this, I’ll have to give you yet another analogy (I’m really not sorry):

Riddle me this: When you found out that there was a virus terrorizing mainland China a few months ago, was your reaction to simply know what its name was and move on? Or was it to know its name, how it spreads, how it will affect economies and our way of life? And from there, proceed to make actionable predictions(zoom stock anyone?).

Therein lieth the difference between the two.

If an education teaches you to analyze sources and come up with your own conclusion, it has taught you how to see the world, not as a principle(one to whom things happen) but as an agent (one to whom things not only happen, but one who also plays an active role in the way things turn out).