Monday, August 5, 2013
An open letter to Mass Education - 2
Make sure you don't obsess about what I'm learning about as much as much as the process I'm learning with . If we stick with the process, I'll learn to get all the knowledge as I need for the rest of my life when I need it. Understand that it's not about what I'm learning about but the very fact that I'm learning. It's about how my mind is trained, the more I engage myself with the world around me in learning - preferably something I like and see as useful, or at least interesting.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
An open letter to Mass Education - 1
Dear Mass Education,
To start with, for what it's worth, I hope I'm not talking to a straw man. If I am, I, at least, made the effort to address the fact that you are a straw man. That very affirmation is the first step to realising that you are only a picture in our minds, in particular one that has become obsessively essential. Any straw man that is so is unhealthy, leave alone just some crazy picture in our minds. Mostly this kind becomes the faceless monsters that we will never be able to find, because they don't exist and are only pictures in our heads while also being cages we live in, which also eat into and destroy us slowly.
I'm sure I can think of at least a few things to thank you for by the end of this letter, but let me get done with my main argument first. I'm writing to you from years ahead, even as you are inflicting me now. I can very well say I could have done without you and turned out no less, if not better. You almost positively had nothing to do with it as much as any other learning environment that I would have got to pursue otherwise, by choice and/or conviction.
Let me lay out what I have to say point by point.
You machinise
You are a machine that was created for the singular purpose of outputing people ready for the Industrial Revolution. Look up your history if you don't believe me. It was a noble thought at the time, and factories were the next big thing. I expect that the factory builders thought it was cool indeed to let everybody in on the plan, and it was a cool plan. But, you see, we've gone beyond that age. And, given our perfectly human tendencies, we've industrialised more than just that – first, ourselves, then a strange glossy form of blatant greed and also a weird understanding of 'dreams' in context of the wild inexcusable chase of 'achievement', a definition of which we continuously collectively skew towards anything that gives us better selling value, ignoring what we can independently be – individually and collectively. This craze for 'achieving' things prevents us from actively contributing to the world in capacities that are inherently representative of our best capabilities – ways that are uniquely us - instead of just replacing present, old parts. Mostly, we do this so much that we end up only selling this pseudo-progressive idea to ourselves just to satisfy the increased appetite that it created in us in the first place... and on the cycle goes.
Before this, we were a mixed boiling pot of such vibrant culture and, at the same time, no less efficient that we needed to be. Needless to say, we create our own extra needs, and we have created one that we just refuse to kill here. Now we're a corporatised bunch of bozos, thanks to you. What's worse is that we really think it's cool and we flaunt it. We even make it the ultimate goal to be that awesome corporate bum (and add some values in between to offset the evil that besets therein).
You oversocialise
It's likely that you haven't even seen the beginning of teenage angst - at least not happening to you. If you have, you wouldn't subject tender, young minds to ruthless oversocialised environments. It is yet unclear what you hope to achieve by it but it has many inherent flaws.
If you've ever been a teen (pre, present and/or post)and have grown from it, you'll realise such extreme peer pressure doesn't help you deal with the crazy things that happen inside you. These teenage years leave normal people like us, who have to deal with these things, in the lurch. Our bodies and minds fight a full fledged war on the inside (something we don't realise) which, if we deal with right, makes us as less messed up as possible, individually and as a society. We should be doing that by letting it rage and adopting a rather neutral stand to it, except during the times that we make that aggression, however masked, the sole purpose of life. When you throw all these aggressive people for eight hours a day, 5 days a week, 10 months a year for 12 years at a stretch within a compound, it really doesn't help. We instead end up making it the sole purpose of life. We live life in aggrandised moments of passion, unhealthily endorsed by our equally troubled peers, that really don't add up to healthy development or anything else that really ends up being useful to us once past these years. Your method of socilalisation normalises this. It gives us a whole ton of extra issues to deal with, which only multiply and grow with time. Look around a generation and you'll see how complicated they've become .
You think you own time
It's nearly romantic, your proclaimed ownership of the future. You've sought to ensure that we aren't left bereft of resourcefulness and ability when we get out of school. But what time frame do you follow? I'd like to know. How often does it show trends as they take place in the world? More so, how do you perceive the relationship between students like me and the world? Are we two separate entities? Does one serve the other? Which is supreme among the two? Is the world something I have to fit in to, or are time and me a part of the same thing? Do I create the changes in it as I contribute to it? Am I even allowed to independently contribute to it? Am I stuck in a fate that has predecided what it will bring forth and you're the know-it-all in this case?
In the context of the questions I've asked above, how can I be stuck with a definite system apt for the present age that will equip me for the age to come 12-15 years from now? In addition to having a messed up watch, do you also predict the future?
If we all had Ph.Ds , we would actually be walking on air and that isn't good
What's with your inclusion and exclusion of subjects? Are you in cohoots with doctoral and post doctoral departments of universities? Do you intend that I get Ph.Ds in only the natural sciences, social sciences, languages or mathematics? What has the valency of an atom, Pyothagoras' Theorem, Shakespeare or any other such thing have to do with my future? Even if it has much to do with it, you decide to take the great jump in because I just might want to take up doctorate studies in any one of them? How exactly do you justify that risk? What about risks regarding my other possible fields of study? Or is it that tall black hat on your head that's doing the talking?
What's with the discipline?
Seriously, what's with it? What kind of initiation are you leading me into? Initiation into what? To tuck your arms in and walk single file is a good thing? Even in its unregimented form, we're still dumped in walls that you take way too seriously. You should attend class once in a while to understand what I mean. Apart from them being way last century, and high-handed elitist tradition, why on Earth, pray tell, will I ever come to respect them? Why sanely should I anyway? To wholistically impart values is a completely different thing. What exactly am I being readied for?
To start with, for what it's worth, I hope I'm not talking to a straw man. If I am, I, at least, made the effort to address the fact that you are a straw man. That very affirmation is the first step to realising that you are only a picture in our minds, in particular one that has become obsessively essential. Any straw man that is so is unhealthy, leave alone just some crazy picture in our minds. Mostly this kind becomes the faceless monsters that we will never be able to find, because they don't exist and are only pictures in our heads while also being cages we live in, which also eat into and destroy us slowly.
I'm sure I can think of at least a few things to thank you for by the end of this letter, but let me get done with my main argument first. I'm writing to you from years ahead, even as you are inflicting me now. I can very well say I could have done without you and turned out no less, if not better. You almost positively had nothing to do with it as much as any other learning environment that I would have got to pursue otherwise, by choice and/or conviction.
Let me lay out what I have to say point by point.
You machinise
You are a machine that was created for the singular purpose of outputing people ready for the Industrial Revolution. Look up your history if you don't believe me. It was a noble thought at the time, and factories were the next big thing. I expect that the factory builders thought it was cool indeed to let everybody in on the plan, and it was a cool plan. But, you see, we've gone beyond that age. And, given our perfectly human tendencies, we've industrialised more than just that – first, ourselves, then a strange glossy form of blatant greed and also a weird understanding of 'dreams' in context of the wild inexcusable chase of 'achievement', a definition of which we continuously collectively skew towards anything that gives us better selling value, ignoring what we can independently be – individually and collectively. This craze for 'achieving' things prevents us from actively contributing to the world in capacities that are inherently representative of our best capabilities – ways that are uniquely us - instead of just replacing present, old parts. Mostly, we do this so much that we end up only selling this pseudo-progressive idea to ourselves just to satisfy the increased appetite that it created in us in the first place... and on the cycle goes.
Before this, we were a mixed boiling pot of such vibrant culture and, at the same time, no less efficient that we needed to be. Needless to say, we create our own extra needs, and we have created one that we just refuse to kill here. Now we're a corporatised bunch of bozos, thanks to you. What's worse is that we really think it's cool and we flaunt it. We even make it the ultimate goal to be that awesome corporate bum (and add some values in between to offset the evil that besets therein).
You oversocialise
It's likely that you haven't even seen the beginning of teenage angst - at least not happening to you. If you have, you wouldn't subject tender, young minds to ruthless oversocialised environments. It is yet unclear what you hope to achieve by it but it has many inherent flaws.
If you've ever been a teen (pre, present and/or post)and have grown from it, you'll realise such extreme peer pressure doesn't help you deal with the crazy things that happen inside you. These teenage years leave normal people like us, who have to deal with these things, in the lurch. Our bodies and minds fight a full fledged war on the inside (something we don't realise) which, if we deal with right, makes us as less messed up as possible, individually and as a society. We should be doing that by letting it rage and adopting a rather neutral stand to it, except during the times that we make that aggression, however masked, the sole purpose of life. When you throw all these aggressive people for eight hours a day, 5 days a week, 10 months a year for 12 years at a stretch within a compound, it really doesn't help. We instead end up making it the sole purpose of life. We live life in aggrandised moments of passion, unhealthily endorsed by our equally troubled peers, that really don't add up to healthy development or anything else that really ends up being useful to us once past these years. Your method of socilalisation normalises this. It gives us a whole ton of extra issues to deal with, which only multiply and grow with time. Look around a generation and you'll see how complicated they've become .
You think you own time
It's nearly romantic, your proclaimed ownership of the future. You've sought to ensure that we aren't left bereft of resourcefulness and ability when we get out of school. But what time frame do you follow? I'd like to know. How often does it show trends as they take place in the world? More so, how do you perceive the relationship between students like me and the world? Are we two separate entities? Does one serve the other? Which is supreme among the two? Is the world something I have to fit in to, or are time and me a part of the same thing? Do I create the changes in it as I contribute to it? Am I even allowed to independently contribute to it? Am I stuck in a fate that has predecided what it will bring forth and you're the know-it-all in this case?
In the context of the questions I've asked above, how can I be stuck with a definite system apt for the present age that will equip me for the age to come 12-15 years from now? In addition to having a messed up watch, do you also predict the future?
If we all had Ph.Ds , we would actually be walking on air and that isn't good
What's with your inclusion and exclusion of subjects? Are you in cohoots with doctoral and post doctoral departments of universities? Do you intend that I get Ph.Ds in only the natural sciences, social sciences, languages or mathematics? What has the valency of an atom, Pyothagoras' Theorem, Shakespeare or any other such thing have to do with my future? Even if it has much to do with it, you decide to take the great jump in because I just might want to take up doctorate studies in any one of them? How exactly do you justify that risk? What about risks regarding my other possible fields of study? Or is it that tall black hat on your head that's doing the talking?
What's with the discipline?
Seriously, what's with it? What kind of initiation are you leading me into? Initiation into what? To tuck your arms in and walk single file is a good thing? Even in its unregimented form, we're still dumped in walls that you take way too seriously. You should attend class once in a while to understand what I mean. Apart from them being way last century, and high-handed elitist tradition, why on Earth, pray tell, will I ever come to respect them? Why sanely should I anyway? To wholistically impart values is a completely different thing. What exactly am I being readied for?
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Why educate, at all for that matter?
Why educate indeed? That's a big question we all must stop and answer, before we get taken in by the cycle that is the system itself. Not that it's bad, there are more questions to be answered about it (the system) and the influence we allow it to have on our lives than there are accolades it is worthy of. What were we doing before we had this system? How beneficial it turned out to be. If it evolved up to this point (now), why is it stagnant and not evolving further to a system that's more useful (since it is clearly not evolving on its own)? These and many more.
I was made aware of ZTC College which is a platform for people who are for the whole method of unschooling. That was one of the forms the present system evolved from. There must be a secret there. In our present system, though, we end up having to, rather we're forced to, unschool ourselves (with the very same meaning) anyway after we're done with our years of studying - not including the specific knowledge of course which reduces it to a training course or doctrination depending on whether it's school or college/university we're talking about. The stuff that mattered and that we needed more was always learnt on the streets*, in our offices and other places of work unless we ended up lecturing students who are routed through the same process we were spewn out of. There are, of course, exceptions to that as well. These apart, what we learn naturally anyway is just a matter of application and environment.
There's also Sir Ken Robinson (check out Changing Education Paradigms and Do Schools Kill Creativity?). He makes a strong case that, and how, we need to change up the system to serve the growing role it does.
This blog is started to seek, delve into and understand all of this and more, and all other things related, from all perspectives and seek to engage in dialogue towards a much better prospects through it.
*It seems there's no better time-tested place. More on that some more posts down.
I was made aware of ZTC College which is a platform for people who are for the whole method of unschooling. That was one of the forms the present system evolved from. There must be a secret there. In our present system, though, we end up having to, rather we're forced to, unschool ourselves (with the very same meaning) anyway after we're done with our years of studying - not including the specific knowledge of course which reduces it to a training course or doctrination depending on whether it's school or college/university we're talking about. The stuff that mattered and that we needed more was always learnt on the streets*, in our offices and other places of work unless we ended up lecturing students who are routed through the same process we were spewn out of. There are, of course, exceptions to that as well. These apart, what we learn naturally anyway is just a matter of application and environment.
There's also Sir Ken Robinson (check out Changing Education Paradigms and Do Schools Kill Creativity?). He makes a strong case that, and how, we need to change up the system to serve the growing role it does.
This blog is started to seek, delve into and understand all of this and more, and all other things related, from all perspectives and seek to engage in dialogue towards a much better prospects through it.
*It seems there's no better time-tested place. More on that some more posts down.
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