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Saturday 22 December 2012

Day 78: The problem with Education

I had trouble with arithmetic. I guess I just got bored with it. I was good at my multiplication tables and long division but I had trouble concentrating on the problems. My teachers and my fellow students carried me along, giving me extra help when I faltered. When I got in the 10th grade and decided to become an engineer and start building rockets, math became much easier for me.
I think it was because I had a reason to learn it. -Homer Hickam, Propulsion Engineer, Spacecraft Design Engineer, Retired Writer



The person I quoted grew up in a small mining town. It was expected of him to become a miner, and he absolutely abhorred that idea. (Who wouldn't? But, fascinatingly enough, his father was passionate about mining, that's why he expected of his son to become a miner as well. Everything that we do in this world is someone's passion, really, hence the progress that we witness today.)
When they launched the Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, he became incredibly fascinated with rockets, and started building his own with some friends. From the quote it is obvious that he never liked math, like so many of us, because before building rockets he never had to really apply it, and was learning it just because it was required of him.

In this system math is crammed down our throats. Not only simple math, but advanced math that most of us that don't work in the field of science will never need. We are learning it simply for the sake of learning it and getting graded, because someone decided that those are the basics, when they're not. Most of us will never need the complex theorems and equations that we learn about in high school, yet, for some reason, we need to pass those as well, just in case we'd choose a calling that requires them, although most of us don't. The quoted person started enjoying math only after he realised that he has to calculate the trajectories and speed and other variables in order to make his rockets work. He was passionate about something, and therefore it wasn't hard for him to learn additional skills that would enhance his application within the field that he was passionate about.

All education should be like this. First we'd have to figure out what we're passionate about, what it is that makes us tick and catches our interest in this world, what it is that we have a knack for. The rest comes naturally.

I remember having a passion like this. I knew everything there was to know about drum and bass music, and if that was an accepted scholar field, I'd be the leading expert in my country, along with so many other friends that shared my passion. I even learned complex sound design methods in order to better understand the artists that I loved listening to. But since this is not an accepted scholar field, I kind of gave up on that passion.

At some point in my life I was equally as passionate about natural biochemical processes of this world, and I tried studying microbiology, but I failed to follow the curriculum of the grading system I caught myself into. Grading should not exist, because it makes us compete, and that becomes the centre of our focus, instead of actually learning about the subject.

That is why I stand as One Vote for an Equal Money System, in which competition and comparison between people will not exist. People will be allowed to find their passion and follow it, be it gardening or rocket science, and there will be no differences in status between the two.

If you understand and agree with what I'm saying, visit http://equalmoney.org/wiki/Education and read up on what the Equal Money System is offering in terms of Education, which is freedom to explore the world and one's own place in it - without survival being a factor. Share the information with others, so that we can stop surviving and start living to our fullest potentials.

1 comment:

  1. Kot učenka sem se sama spraševala zakaj nas v šoli učijo toliko neuporabnih stvari, kot učiteljica sem poslušala isto od učencev.---
    Po drugi strani pa je dejstvo, da otroci bomnbardirani s čist preveč informacijami ne poznajo svojih strasti oz. se niso sposobni odločiti za prevladujočo usmeritev.
    Sem za ukinjanje znanja v šolah, ki ga učenci ne prakticirajo in uporabljajo v življenju. Predvsem pa sem za uvedbo obveznih predmetov: Spoznavanje sebe, Spoznavanje sveta, Komunikacija/odnosi.!.

    ReplyDelete