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Everything We Know Is Wrong – Part One: Education Is Fatal
This is the first in a series of thoughts on education reform and the future of learning. Consider this an “overview” post.
Part One: Education Is Fatal
I have long felt that one’s childhood and their education play off of each other--they are never felt or experienced in equal amounts. Our notions of what constitutes “childhood” vary tremendously due to this exact problem. Some might say that childhood constitues being “seen and not heard”, absorbing lessons, biding time until one has developed fully; others insist that childhood is the most free we’ll ever be and our one moment of true innocence. Still others argue that children are merely young adults, capable of almost all (or at least most) of the same thought processes, rationalizations, and ideas.
We can’t settle this by trying to find the “most correct” perspective. Nor can we limit our options and say that it simply doesn’t matter. Not to be dramatic, but understanding how we develop is critical to changing our world. We have managed to create truly staggering societies based on our systems of education, but in a great many ways we have completely missed the point. And these omissions are coming back to haunt us.
Karma
Now that we’ve built up our civilization to such a degree, lessons that once were self-evident have been lost in the inevitable forward march of culture and consciousness. Their lack is coming out in the way we interact with each other, in the way we abuse our natural resources (even in calling them “ours”), and in the way we think and progress. We are sending thousands to die for someone else’s idea. We are raping the Earth. We are increasingly isolated. We are strangers in our own families, deaf to the cries of others.
Now that most of us in the “developed” world no longer worry about our basic survival, we concern ourselves primarily with the movement of valueless paper, creating, in the very fabric of our cultures, an elaborate and infantile system of punishment and reward whose monumental silliness is matched only by the degree to which we believe in it.
Not one of the above is being done by children. It’s only after a few years of exposure that these traits manifest.
Still think our education system is working?
No, children are different. And education is fatal.
Childhood is a state of true wonder, each moment unprecedented, time elastic and arbitrary. This isn’t a matter of having less responsibility-- it’s a totally different way of seeing the world, far beyond both ignorance and innocence. In Zen, the phrase “Beginner’s Mind” encapsulates some of that idea, though hardly doing it justice. No, I think childhood is a wholly separate time of life: one that follows essentially forgotten rules.
Where We’ve Gone Wrong
We have tried so hard to create children who are like us that we have forgotten what it means to actually be a child. To be potential itself, free of constraint or comparison. And because children learn (from us) to inhibit that “original self” as quickly as possible, they are unable to tell us where we have failed them.
As education begins to work its way into our lives, with the resulting notion of “correct” and “incorrect”, a new and more traditional way of seeing comes with it. The problem isn’t with the principle of education: on some level, we all love learning. But something else triggers the dismantling of “Beginner’s Mind”. Like a virus, the effects are almost inperceptible on a day-to-day basis. After several years, however, a change is clearly evident, and it isn’t a positive one.
Assisted Thinking: Or “Relax, We’ll Take It From Here”
When we stop learning for ourselves and start learning for others, even in the earliest stages of our education, we begin a slow slide into what I call “assisted thinking”. When we are graded on how well we absorb preassigned facts or--the worst offender--how well we take a standardized test (here in the States, it’s called the SAT), we give up that initial impulse to actually explore. We become convinced, however gradually, that most things have already been thought of, and condemn ourselves to a life of nitpicking. It becomes seductive to simply leapfrog over others’ ideas, cherry-picking the ones we agree with and the ones we choose to argue with, and returning to the initial problem with a quick redefinition. A terrifying amount of academic work amounts, essentially, to this-- a simple agreement or disagreement with preexisting statements, occasionally backed up with testimony provided by others who similarly agree. Rarely is forward momentum achieved--rarer still is the scholar or educator who realizes how cyclical this process is.
Doesn’t this seem like a complete waste of time? Why, then, are we contributing to it?
Assisted thinking leads, at its worst, to a strange series of rationalizations where we draw conclusions based on the past rather than the present. What others have thought or done becomes a framework for future action, regardless of its wisdom (or more commonly, its lack of wisdom). We regurgitate what we have been taught, even in areas where our teaching clearly no longer applies. Religions are a great example of this, in that whatever we are taught and retaught with conviction over the duration of childhood, becomes a virtually unshakable belief in our consciousness--simply because someone else told us. Someone else’s idea motivates us to live our lives. Someone else’s idea motivates us to hate. Someone else’s idea motivates us to kill. There’s nothing wrong with religion (and, in fact, it serves a great purpose), but there is something wrong with an unquestioning belief in anything.
We have to realize that something happens to us as children that permits this kind of thinking. And maybe I’m just weird-- I know I always asked “why?”, and still do. It’s possible that most people simply aren’t as innately curious. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this to begin with.
Breaking the Cycle
I’ll break from that oh-so-wonderful tradition of regurgitating old ideas for a second. Stand back. This idea may be half-formed, not entirely polished, and maybe even --gasp!--brand new.
Let’s use our educational system as a way to actually give back to the world.
Imagine a world without facts or one-size-fits-all requirements (that would all come, depending on career choice, later in life). Instead, just think of how meaningful a classroom could be if it actually taught us how to find ourselves. Not in order to slide quietly into yet another mold, another career path, another college; no, in this ideal school we focus our attention on a student’s own wish to help--and the tools that allow them to best realize that dream.
The American Dream?
Kids love helping out. Yet we come from a scarcity mentality, one that says that there are not enough jobs, enough people, enough time to learn what will give us an edge in this “new world economy”. So we work--mentally, physically, emotionally-- to give ourselves “success”. We stress and strain to “get ahead”, sacrificing our deeper passions and wishes in order to provide the lifestyle we want for ourselves and our families. Most of us don’t even know what those deeper passions really are, having repeatedly had them culled out of us, year after crushing year. Why do you think there’s such a big self-help boom going on now that the internet has given us a faster way to communicate (and therefore more time for introspection)?
Abundance-based thinking, on the other hand, starts at the earliest age--in childhood, where anything is still possible. We forget this awareness later in life, becoming self-absorbed and caught up in endless cycles, chasing what we decide is rightfully ours, fearing loss, fearing anything that might get in our way.
What we mistake for happiness is all too often simple survival, with reduced anxiety-- we think we’re “ahead”, happy, fulfilled because for a few moments we have what we need and aren’t struggling to maintain them. We even have anxiety pills, easily available from a doctor, which can make us content with wherever we fit in the hierarchy. But real happiness, real joy (beyond mere material & professional contentment), is something we’ve totally given up on. In fact, the people we meet who have such happiness are often viewed as simpleminded, less-than, inferior.
Childlike.
“No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.”
— Emma Goldman, Lithuanian-American writer, lecturer and activist (1869-1940)
One of the most intelligent people I have ever met dresses like a bum, somewhat out of necessity, and is one of the best guitarists I have ever heard. Every day to him is an adventure: he talks to anyone, does anything at a moment’s notice, and makes a halfway-decent living off of tips and short-term gigs. Now, I’m sure that he will find a great future in music, due to his skill, but in that same future there will be suits who look at him with disdain even as they’re listening (without even realizing it) to his music at night, wishing they could be as free. He, more than anyone I know, is living the real American dream, that subtler, more elemental, intensely-masculine wish for total freedom. No amount of money can buy it, just as no job can give it. It is innate. And it comes from seeing the world as a place of true abundance.
I won’t speak for him, but it seems to me that most of his anxiety and stress in this life has to do with the fact that he is not “right” for the working world, and is therefore condemned to a certain type of lifestyle--one he enjoys, certainly, but one I’m sure he’d like to change if given the chance. We’d all like to have lots of money--for many people, the problem has nothing to do with the level of hard work and everything to do with the type of work. There are millions of unemployed or barely employed people all across the developed world who don’t “fit the mold” and are therefore barely getting by. Is it their lack of education (adherence to arbitrary standards)? Is it their lack of intelligence? If they asked you why with three jobs and eighteen hours a day of hard work they were unable to make as much as a bus driver or the barely-sentient technician you just hired, would you be able to explain it to them?
Our economy is based on one truism: the further away from manual labor, the more you make. True laborers are often exploited completely, and not paid at all. Others are paid to sit and “think”--their minds are that valuable. But how did they get there?
Imagine if self-inquiry was as highly regarded as external influence--if our own discoveries mattered as much to others as what we were taught. Imagine all learning being prized, irrespective of the specific information that was imparted, because we trust (due to an abundance mindset) that such learning will be of value later in life. We do not try to cram ourselves into a definition. We do not try to cut off our possibilities as quickly as possible. We simply learn, at the rapid rate of one who actually cares. This is what it means to live in abundance.
“But that’s preposterous,” you say. “We need to learn certain kinds of information, even if we don’t like it. We must be prepared for the future.”
Ahh, but therein lies the very problem…
Freedom of Expression
The drive to truly express ourselves does rear up one last time after schooling begins--as that intriguing mess of hormones and emotions, the Teenager. Typically it’s here that one rebels from the societal norms, in order to gain acceptance and to find what makes them unique. What’s really interesting is the way these very qualities are quickly squashed. We are taught--some catch on faster than others!--that the “only way” to succeed in life is to make yourself presentable on paper. If you can’t do this properly, you’re condemned to a different kind of life, one where your personality can come forward beyond the confines of a suit. And while these jobs may lead to higher satisfaction, they are usually on the opposite end of the income scale.
In essence, we reward those who spent time learning to present themselves, rather than those who continue to spend time learning on their own. Though we think we are rewarding actual skill, we are in fact rewarding those who are best at “pretending”.
Educate Yourself First
The single most important thing I can impart to anyone (beyond, perhaps, that “this moment is all we have”) is that we need to educate ourselves first.
We need to keep learning. We need to find out what makes us truly excited. There is something out there, even if we’ve lost the tools to look for it. If you aren’t finding your passion, you are living a lie. Simple as that.
We were all instructed that trading our time for money was a perfectly reasonable way to channel our instinct to help. Yet we’re slowly finding that this tradeoff is harmful to our own well-being, detrimental to all but our most basic desires, destructive to original thought and is creating an increasingly stagnant and destructive world. Steve Pavlina wrote a terrific article on deciding how we should be living, and I would encourage you to check it out before the next ten years take away your desire to change. You must discover what you’re living for. You must find opportunities in line with your reasons for being alive.
Education, in this broadest and most important definition, is not the responsibility of a school or a specific teacher. It is not the responsibility of a job. It is yours alone. And real learning comes from being able to fit the pieces of one’s life together, to constantly re-evaluate your thinking in light of new information. It’s about forging new and unusual connections, rather than being hung up on (or worse yet, content with!) repeating the predictable. And this, to me, is what school, and particularly higher education, are for. Not to force us into tiny pathways of established wisdom, but to encourage and develop our ability to discover and communicate on our own. Education is fuel for the fire of creative thought. Uniqueness begets uniqueness.
We cannot create an original idea by analyzing and interpreting existing information. Life is ultimately about the questions, not the canned responses. To believe otherwise is to condemn oneself to a peripheral role, and ultimately, a peripheral existence.
“It takes a long time to grow young.”
-Pablo Picasso
Don’t remain satisfied with “getting through it”. Deep down, you know you aren’t doing enough--even when you’re working hard, you have an excellent resume, you have the house and car everyone wants, and you’re in great shape. You’re still not serving the world, and until you do something about it, that lack and dissatisfaction will make itself heard in one way or another. Look at our world.
We (as a species) truly do want--and need-- to help. But the only way to retain any sense of that earlier life, that wholly free-thinking and compassionate dedication from childhood, is in exploring what really matters to us. Anything else is false: dedicated to false gods of money or prestige, false enthusiasm for projects one couldn’t care less about, false happiness, false hope.
We were never taught these lessons as children; we knew them innately. We’ve simply forgotten.
Show a worker how his contribution matters, and you’re guaranteed to see an increase in productivity for as long as his goals and yours are in line. Make them feel their ideas have real merit, and you’ll have dramatically more enthusiasm--again, as long as their goals and yours are aligned. Treat people like the constantly-growing, endlessly-curious being they once were, and they will seize the opportunity to provide you with real value in unexpected ways. Treat them as enemies, as subjects, as conduits to stuff full of information, and you will end up with today’s world, today’s wars, today’s thinking, today’s scarcity mentality.
The educational system we have put in place is crippling our freedom, our intelligence, and our creativity. After decades of reinforcement by jobs and higher schooling, we emerge without a spark of passion, masters of assisted thinking, pretending whatever we can so as to appear as obedient and subservient as possible to future employers--and spending our free time wondering where we’ve gone wrong.
We need to remember what it is to feel alive. And we need to create educational constructs which help ensure that future generations never lose sight of that feeling. We need passion, courage, and consciousness, and we need them far more than we need unhappy employees and discouraged wage slaves, assisted thinkers and money-hungry litigators. We need original thought, from original minds, and we need it now.
So how can we begin? Stay tuned…
(Part one in a series.)
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You’re reading “Everything We Know Is Wrong – Part One: Education Is Fatal,” a post on Evolation: This Moment is All We Have
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- Aug 22 2007 / 10:12 am
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There a few things here with which I might agree, but there’s plenty more that’s just silly.
You seem to dislike the modern world and its economic system (though some kind of merit-based capitalism is hardly modern) and hold up childlike innocence. Yet, it is the benefits of the modern Western world that has secured survival needs that enables children to be innocent at all. Where affluence has not created a buffer for children, they are thrust into the world of adult concerns so immediately that the period of wonder does not really exist. The very thing you abhor has created that which you’ve put on a pedestal.
Second, that childlike wonder is not sustainable in any event. Where basic survival is always a base concern and meeting desires a motivation, the naivety of children is not enough to succeed in a world in which doing both must be done by them and not someone else. That innocence is only sustainable for a small minority in a developed society because there are other who take it upon themselves to meet the big tasks, e.g. safety, preservation of the society, etc., thus rendering people like your guitar playing friend extraneous to the necessary functioning of the society and leaving him free to indulge his directionless childishness. And such a person is fundamentally childlike, naive, and selfish. You say that education should teach people to give back to the world, but what does he do? He pursues his self-interest and mooches off the productivity of others. If he becomes a musical success, it will be more because of the efforts of innumerable others than through his own deeds. Like a child, he lives without purpose and like a child, he lives without direction and he refuses to self-restrict his wide-ranging freedom (which is, again, enabled by others) as a sacrifice to others in order to do either so that he may be beneficial to others. Seems like a selfish, pointless life to me. Why is he so intelligent again?
And those “valueless” pieces of paper have real value so long as they have perceived value. And they have perceived value as utilitarian goods, that they can be used to obtain that which is required or desired. A worry about the desire for money in itself is a different matter.
Third, your notion of encouraging free-thinkers who are in no way fit into a mold is at best bizarre and at worst dangerous. Humans are of necessity bound by the physical world. 2+3=5, no matter how you may want it to be otherwise. That would be education squeezing kids into a certain mode of thinking, but it seems entirely appropriate. Allowing to think that it could be something else does them no favors. Since we are necessarily bound by the physical world, kids should be taught those bounds and how the physical world works. Having found yourself is of little value when you’ve found nothing about the world in which you live, the people around you, or the past that has brought you there.
Simply put, there are facts in the world and to preach otherwise is to engender a radical subjectivism in which each person assigns his own “truth” and few things could be as logically absurd or as dangerous as that.
Fourth, this line, “We cannot create an original idea by analyzing and interpreting existing information,” is just plainly false. If this is your qualification for original ideas, then there is at best only a few such ideas and they were generated long ago around the dawn of rational thought. Almost all ideas are developed through analysis and interpretation of existing information of all sorts.
Ah, careless spelling, my personal blight. That should be “Dangerous Dan” with the vowels in their correct places. Though, I suppose I could say that my free-form, non-mold adhering thinking should allow me to ignore restrictive rules of language.
All great points– and thanks for your comment, Dan! You’ve given me much to think about. I think you’ve misinterpreted some of what I’m saying, though, so perhaps I can clear it up here.
What I am advocating is not a childlike society, rather, it is a world informed by a more spiritual understanding of why. There is tremendous value in the consistent development of human beings, to greater and greater levels of morality and social consciousness. I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that this is detrimental, or that we should devolve!
First off, I’m in total agreement with what you had stated: children without the buffer of safety must, by necessity, learn the skills necessary for survival. Those needs will undoubtedly come before all higher-level actualization (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs does a pretty solid job of putting this in context). But survival itself need not be seen as an objective experience. It is not the same for everyone. In fact, we are ALL trying to survive, though we’re somewhat abstracted from those more basic needs by the safety net of affluence/civilization, and our actions on a day-to-day basis could even be seen as being ultimately for the sake of reproduction (Dawkins’ Selfish Gene theory). A sense of wonder, or at least questioning, seems to me completely relevant to these needs (even those of basic survival). Children are the fastest learners among us. It would appear their mindset is accomplishing something extremely important!
This is where free thinking comes in. When I suggest “a world without facts”, I am reflecting on the tendency for our minds to be packed full of past data– without the chance for new, freer thinking. We are conditioned to believe unquestioningly in “expert opinion”–note that I am not doubting its validity!– and as a result we become fearful of advancing radically new ideas.
I stand by my previous statement, though perhaps I was unclear. Original ideas are borne of new thinking, not reprocessing of the old. Reprocessing causes momentum, yes, but it can never approach the quantum leaps necessary for real progress.
Do you really believe that all original thought occurred long ago?
Darwin’s theory of evolution was based on a study of nature’s development, rather than “established” wisdom. Da Vinci’s designs revolved around careful experimentation in methods that had never previously been established. The Internet’s potential was barely understood for much of its history, and its most significant uses were created entirely by those unfamiliar with its original purpose. We see this over and over, in fields where real evaluation of a problem (rather than merely following similar approaches) leads one on an entirely new path. Yes, familiarity with existing methodologies are important– (I’ve been referencing a few existing ideas, here) but not nearly as important as having real insight.
You’ve taken this thinking to an extreme in calling it a “radical subjectivism”. Ken Wilber might say that we have strayed too far into the “it” quadrant–and I am remarking on the virtues (too often underrepresented!) of “I”, “You” and “We”. This isn’t about subjectivism; it’s about an understanding both of personal meaning and objective truths.
I’m quite aware that 2+3 is 5, that we can’t in fact fly (maybe in our dreams, which may be as “real” as this one is, but I digress…), etc. These are useful facts, and entirely necessary. But if things are really that cut and dried, how valid is one culture’s interpretation of another? How valid is one side of a conflict? How can we create a useful comparison between, for example, camaraderie that results in failure and success attained in total isolation? How about actions and choices that are morally/legally/spiritually ambiguous?
We are taught in a way that stresses universal truths, at the expense of truly understanding the situation. You’ve accused me of losing track of objective truth, but our universe is quite, quite far from an objective place. I’m only trying to reassert that awareness.
Additionally, while I have issue with “modernity” in many regards, I am dazzled by what it’s given us and certainly don’t think meritocracy is a bad thing. My problem is entirely with our definition of merit. We’ve accomplished a great deal with “this world”, but we’ve also left behind something exceedingly important, and that is (among many other things) the questioning that comes with early childhood. We have grown extraordinarily complacent about one’s place in the hierarchy–(teachers don’t deserve decent salaries? Selfish sports stars deserve endless wealth? Talentless “performers” are worthy of our adulation?) when in reality we should be examining these relative merits in far more detail. We need to ask why we’ve made these choices. In a way, what I am suggesting is such a radical maturity that it resembles childishness, or the free giving of ideas/thoughts/power.
With regard to my friend, I’m not sure how you’ve decided his actions are so “selfish”. He is providing an art in exchange for (hopeful) compensation; barring that compensation, he will continue providing. This hardly sounds selfish to me. And as far as “directionless”, what basis do you have for that belief? He has helped many people wake up to the freedom that is already present in our daily lives; he has inspired and educated without trying in any way to profit from it. What little money he has is spent modestly, and (if we’re arguing economics) he is still supporting the capitalist system.
But what troubles me is more your emotionality behind this argument. Are you arguing that artists are “purposeless”? Is their understanding of an inherent talent, and the subsequent disregard for status quo, that threatening? Is their development of skills less valid than the development of a doctor or lawyer? Are their roles somehow less significant to you? We live in very different worlds, if that is the case. (I’d argue that being a lawyer seems more childish than enriching people’s lives through the free expression of art, but I wouldn’t consider any lawyers I know to be immature). Why do you say that “any success he might have” has to do with the efforts of others? If it does in any measurable way, then those others are similarly pursuing their own self-interest (the promotion of the performer, and the subsequent payoff). We’re all selfish. This isn’t new. Do you see now why I advocate an alternative mindset?
As far as the spelling goes, I’m a stickler for English– know the rules, live by ‘em–but I DID know exactly what your name meant, rendering that clarification unnecessary (but funny!).
Let me ask you: in situations like this, do we place higher value on the rules themselves, or the sentiment they represent? Spoken language evolves much quicker than the written word, yet we do understand and ultimately accept both
Again, great thinking.. and thank you for reading! I’d love to hear more of your perspective.
I have never actually been to your site, dude. I don’t give you credit for this enough, but you utterly astound me. It is an honor to call you my friend. Best friend even! Am I even worthy of the honor? Perhaps. perhaps not. But you ought to know how gifted you are. Seriously.
[...] would take this fellow’s POV that everything that we know is wrong only I suspect that he’s … [...]
hi. i chanced upon your blog only recently although this post has been around for a while and i must say that your words have been very eye opening for me. i noticed that this post is entitled as Part One. but i could not find the subsequent parts.
would you be writing part two?
Hi Brandon, glad you’re enjoying the site! I did have a number of plans for the followup posts (of which I decided there would be about 3), though my focus for the site has shifted quite a bit since then, and I have a lot of new ideas of where I want Evolation to go from here. Many other endeavors have been taking up more of my time as well (particularly the Anatomy of Awareness), so I haven’t been back in this territory for some time! Nevertheless, stay tuned: I definitely still plan to continue these thoughts, and if you’re particularly interested, I’ll make that a priority.
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