The Question: There is something that claims it can teach us
everything about everything, we all subject ourselves to it like there is no alternative,
we are judged by it, criticized by it, and eliminated if failure occurs. What is
it?
We all know what it is, school of course. Not education, but
schooling. Well the fundamental idea about school is that it can teach anything
to anyone, right? So how come so many people feel worthless, lost and disconnected
from this process? You are probably wondering, “well yes, but there are people
who do great and they advance in their fields going through this process, so
why do these exceptions exist? It means it works so probably people who do not
achieve are not as smart.” I get where you are coming from, I’ve been
there. The people who achieve through this educational system are people who
found their calling. You will never hear someone that achieved anything, say: “Yes
school helped me find my passion”. These people found something that were really
interested at it, they had the people around them to support them in doing it,
or even defied their surroundings to pursue that goal, and most importantly
they used the system to gain access to information and connections otherwise
impossible to gain access to.
Furthermore, the educational system was not created for this
generation. We live in the golden age of information. We can educate ourselves
at any time we like to, about anything, share our opinion, solve problems, post
the results, discuss and evaluate and collaborate with anyone at the speed of our
Internet connection allows us to. The educational system was created to serve a
generation of industrial revolution (see further information on the matter here). Where information
was limited and exclusive to these educational institutions, and only privileged
people could gain access to. Also nothing was even remotely close to the vast
advancements/job opportunities available to this generation, such as technology
fields, science fields, art fields, social sciences, business, environment,
Internet, engineering and so many other things available to us now! The simple
truth is school covers a fraction of a fraction of any field, even the ones
they teach. So here is the question I asked myself: “Why do I judge myself
based on a lie?”
IQ test was created to identify children with special needs so
they can get appropriate schooling, after taken as a standard of testing
intelligence, one of the creators “Alfred Binet” said himself that “The test
was not intended to identify degrees of intelligence or “mental worth””-Ken
Robinson “The Element” (The Element, book by “Sir Kenneth Robinson, English author,
speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government,
non-profits, education, and arts bodies”). This happens also with
every standardized testing mechanism out there. They were not created to test
our intelligence and promote our individual talents or aspirations. So why do
we keep supporting this?
Think of all those kids that you heard about who invented
something extraordinary. Think of their process to get there. School was not the answer. The answer is
the same, THEY WANTED TO DO ONLY THAT 1 THING. They did not care about anything
else; their whole life was that one interesting thing they found. They went off
to read books, search the Internet, buy all the things they needed to, think,
test, fail, re-structure and re-test, until they got it right. This is not
something school offers; they did it because they wanted to do it. In fact, ALL
of successful people will tell you, I wanted to do what I’m doing not because someone
told me or to become famous, but because I was interested and fascinated by
that 1 or more subject (not school subject, but even that can be used as an
initial inspiration for SOME).
This proves that the ability of ones to succeed, is not
directly linked to their educational background whatsoever, but to the
knowledge they have access to and how do they use that knowledge to better
understand and criticize the subject they are interested in and make it better,
hence innovate. Do not take my word for it, go watch successful people, listen
to what they say, read a book, you are the key to your success, not some
organization.
“Intelligence: What is it?” part 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment