If we are asked what good is education of, it is perhaps because education offers us what we need to know for life by the early 20's. However, there exists a tendency in our modern educational system that it has dedicated itself to examinations rather than learning. Our ordinary school life has been increasingly spammed with tedious study lists, tutorials, and field trips to libraries. Education no long aims at what we should care for life. Instead, it goes on to blur the distinction between studying and learning, assuring us survival in the examination system.
If examinations are raised to a status of supreme importance, it might owe its origin to businessmen who have foreseen the necessity of the commercial future of education. In the commercial civilisation of ours, education should be designed to equip us with techniques for marketing, dealing with insincere handshakes, and bureaucracy. It seems Aristotle's maxim "Man is the measure of things" is no longer valid. Rather, "money" should be a substitution for "man". They constantly remind us that money is an object of worship, that it should be considered ends of life rather than means, that it is the sole guidance to happiness. The death of the arts and humanities are exaggerated because they are generally economically unproductive. The commercial future of education therefore evokes a sense of intellectual pessimism, cramming our skulls with lots of useless business case studies and facts that supposedly celebrate the glory of capitalism, something which we will soon forget after receiving our report cards.
But perhaps the fundamental danger of the modern educational system lies in offering an objective criterion of what success is. Rather than acknowledging different individuals may nurture different talents, our educational system suggests that we are likely to amount to ultimate failure if we are unable to get our hands on a Porsche. If the idea of success can be defined in a single, precise definition, it is perhaps because we are reluctant to realise our limits. To realise our limits is to hamper the potentials that lay beneath us. But if an architect can work with the materials available to him, why, then, can't we accept our own limits and explore our potentials within them? Why can't we place focus on ourselves rather than the herd to understand who we really are? We need to realise where we belong to. To discard what our nature limits is to become self-indulgent (because forgetting our limits may seduce us to be overly optimistic about our own abilities). Understanding our limits not only allows us to become humble, it also allows us to discover what we are actually good at, urging us to be specific instead of being generic, hence nurturing our own potentials at their best.
Does that literally mean that we all too indulge in the absurdly romantic fantasy of education? Does that suggest schooling is no longer as important as we assume it to be? Are we all destined to suffer financial assault on the university sector just to learn how to use human greed appropriately to get on the top of the social hierarchy? All too often we realise we learn much more after we get out of university. Modern education no longer offers what we need to know for life: the kinds of friendship, romantic love, and a taste for dance and music. It cannot teach us how to be a good friend or how to console our broken heart after breaking up with our loved ones. It only intends to integrate minimalism with our anticipation of what life should be. It neglects the fact that our capacity to draw happiness from material possessions is critically dependent on our psychological needs. But learning can go alongside with what we do in everyday life- shopping, bathing, eating etc. Only after our feelings are furnished, we might start to learn how to cope with life.
Our education is getting demoralising. Tedious study lists and examinations are only fit for obedient drones. They do not work for creative originals. It is always better to devise our own study list rather the ones given to us. To think that we will have learnt everything we need to know for life once we get out of university is simply naive romanticism. Small wonder why Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of school.
W
If examinations are raised to a status of supreme importance, it might owe its origin to businessmen who have foreseen the necessity of the commercial future of education. In the commercial civilisation of ours, education should be designed to equip us with techniques for marketing, dealing with insincere handshakes, and bureaucracy. It seems Aristotle's maxim "Man is the measure of things" is no longer valid. Rather, "money" should be a substitution for "man". They constantly remind us that money is an object of worship, that it should be considered ends of life rather than means, that it is the sole guidance to happiness. The death of the arts and humanities are exaggerated because they are generally economically unproductive. The commercial future of education therefore evokes a sense of intellectual pessimism, cramming our skulls with lots of useless business case studies and facts that supposedly celebrate the glory of capitalism, something which we will soon forget after receiving our report cards.
But perhaps the fundamental danger of the modern educational system lies in offering an objective criterion of what success is. Rather than acknowledging different individuals may nurture different talents, our educational system suggests that we are likely to amount to ultimate failure if we are unable to get our hands on a Porsche. If the idea of success can be defined in a single, precise definition, it is perhaps because we are reluctant to realise our limits. To realise our limits is to hamper the potentials that lay beneath us. But if an architect can work with the materials available to him, why, then, can't we accept our own limits and explore our potentials within them? Why can't we place focus on ourselves rather than the herd to understand who we really are? We need to realise where we belong to. To discard what our nature limits is to become self-indulgent (because forgetting our limits may seduce us to be overly optimistic about our own abilities). Understanding our limits not only allows us to become humble, it also allows us to discover what we are actually good at, urging us to be specific instead of being generic, hence nurturing our own potentials at their best.
Does that literally mean that we all too indulge in the absurdly romantic fantasy of education? Does that suggest schooling is no longer as important as we assume it to be? Are we all destined to suffer financial assault on the university sector just to learn how to use human greed appropriately to get on the top of the social hierarchy? All too often we realise we learn much more after we get out of university. Modern education no longer offers what we need to know for life: the kinds of friendship, romantic love, and a taste for dance and music. It cannot teach us how to be a good friend or how to console our broken heart after breaking up with our loved ones. It only intends to integrate minimalism with our anticipation of what life should be. It neglects the fact that our capacity to draw happiness from material possessions is critically dependent on our psychological needs. But learning can go alongside with what we do in everyday life- shopping, bathing, eating etc. Only after our feelings are furnished, we might start to learn how to cope with life.
Our education is getting demoralising. Tedious study lists and examinations are only fit for obedient drones. They do not work for creative originals. It is always better to devise our own study list rather the ones given to us. To think that we will have learnt everything we need to know for life once we get out of university is simply naive romanticism. Small wonder why Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of school.
W
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i dont know about eduction but i think learning has nothing to do with books ,schools or universities,we all have different kind of magnet inside our selves which pulls the required knowledge from surroundings and each of us get the different results from our observations that result create the specific information and we call it learning,eduction is like a advised medicine which we all not interested to swallow mostly,but inspite of it if we do it does not make any difference because its not our romance we just perform it as duty and that all,
ReplyDeletepeople who love learning in each moment of their life become a perfect student of life ,nature and never clam to be a perfect teacher their studies ends with their life ,what ever they learn by studying life it makes their point view about life clear and effects on their behavior,
but people who use institutions for educating them mostly dont seems learner,degrees becomes a external paint which does not effects the internally,
Baili,
ReplyDeleteYes, lifetime learning is important. I think school has everything to do with learning. It's just that the modern educational system has made us hate it rather than like it. Schools nowadays no longer focus on how we should live. They are just tools for profit-making.
Yes, you are right. A degree doesn't mean anything but a decent addition to your profile for job hunting. It doesn't tell us how we should live.
W