The caption from Bruce Springsteen's famous words really says it all. Maybe, I need not expound on this further. However, to do a fair evaluation of the subject of school and learning, we shall start with positives.
School taught us to think. What does that mean? The process of structuring thought. To use logic, to recognise emotions, to react with thought or impulse. To read a situation and come up with an answer - unfortunately the answers are wrong, because the motivation targeted behind the thought, is wrong.
What else did school teach us? It taught us to concentrate for long and some of us learned to work hard and understand the worldly equation of success and rewards, failure and repercussions. Again the problem is this worldly equation (driven by economics and competition) itself is a lie, so our chase itself is wrong.
That is mostly it. Yes, I understand we learned many subjects, but all those have been forgotten. Even language as taught at school, was not used in our daily lives. We just learned a different method to write and talk at work and in the house. And to add, this is not to denigrate the wonderful caring souls who taught us in school, i.e. our teachers. They are not to be faulted at all, it's the crazy system.
For a sum total of plus 20 years of education, that is pretty awful results.
Now if I alone was saying this, then it was I, who must have been a lower quadrant student. But, it's what almost all my contemporaries tell me also. School did not teach us life. It taught us stuff which failed to translate into any use in the real world. It did not teach us the art of living. It did not reach inside and touch us lifelong.
Along the way, outside the curriculum and in the real world, we learned much. Firstly somewhere we learned a bit of a value system and secondly we learned the emotions quotient. We learned how to deal with people, how to interact in various situations, how to live together in society and how to get ahead. Laughter, fear, scorn, friendship, love, hardships, pain, rejection all came as a dose and left us more knowledgeable. Many of us learned compassion and giving, unfortunately many learned taking and exploitation.
Now looking back over a life which has wound its normal course, surely, there must be a better way? Packed together, stressing out over results, facing the wrath of teachers and parents, we have collectively lived a lie. It has made some of us weak, others evil, a few rebels and many saddened normal humans. This could have been much better, because schooling has been around forever, but we do not seem to have learned and improved.
Schools sole purpose should be to create rounded humans, who will go on and create harmony in their environment. Society's betterment has to be our end goal. No wonder, the world is such a dog-eat-dog place, where today only eight people own more than the sum of half the worlds population. Surely that cannot be right? ( Oxfam report on world wealth )
The worlds 7.3 billion people, are paying the price of our schooling.
*picture from weheartit.com
