Education!

Exams are nothing but small pieces of paper, but they do decide, more than anything else we encounter, our future academic life. Academic life, that is, not career or life in general, simply our future in the world of education; schools seem intent in drilling into students a false sense of reverance for those small slips of paper: throughout my schoool career, it was forced into my mind that I must succeed in exams, else I would presumably end up homeless and forced in to walking the streets selling sexual favors to the teachers who once held in their hands my bright future, but who now hold things that do not bear mentioning. Of course, this is a fallacy; throughout history there have been many who have succeeded without a fomal education, and with the advent of the internet there is an even greater opportunity for self learning - For those who wish to find it, knowledge exists, and this is a simple fact. Most students, however, do not wish to learn, they wish to earn, and it is to this which the schools try their hardest to appeal; they care not whether the student wishes to learn, the quest for knowledge is not one that interests them, an odd proposition when you consider the purpose of a school. Nevetheless, what they wish to instill upon students is that money is success, and to aquire money one must aquire an education. Most students will devour this message with out so much as chewing first, they will dive head into the capatilist dream, seeking out not books or theories, but money; they wish nothing more than to own a big house, fast car and to behold as many loose women as their heart desires - The same is true for women, although, foregoing any lesbian leanings, one would assume they would wish to aquire loose men.

I have wondered why schools teach this message, when they more valuable one seems so much more productive: namely, that knowledge, education, should be sought after not for material gain, but for its own sake - For the betterment of humanity, the individual, to know that your life was worth more than a value in a banks computer system. One could blame the usual scapegoats, the media, society, and it is true that they play a part, but they do not demand that schools teach this message, they do not force them to expound it in such a fashion, they do not legislate that children should be tought to learn for a career, not just to learn. One might imagine a society where people do learn for learnings sake, as one filled with philosophers and scientists, who do nothing but develop theories which, although exciting their own personal sensibilities, do not produce anything of worth for soceity as whole. Of course there will be those who do nothing but persure trivial knowledge, but they would be the minority - People do not seek to minimise the impact of their life on the world, but to maximise it, and developing the worlds first boot come sonograph would do nothing to maximise ones legacy.


The point which I so inadequately expressed in my earlier post, is that schools do not teach students to value knowledge, but merely propogate the idea that money is the purpose of existence: I find this deplaurable, disgusting and in some ways depressing, children are the future, after all.

We choose our degrees knowing a number of factors: our own tastes, career posibilities, cost; we weigh up the parameters and, eventually, pick something which provides the best balance. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, however, I can't help but think that we should be choosing a degree based solely on what we wish to persue, what we think we can succeed at, what we enjoy, without consideration for monetary gain. Of course, most do not wish to be poor, and so any ideas regarding how to achieve this, and as a result change the message schools are sending to children, is almost doomed to fail: but it is worth pondering.

Moving on to a slightly more serious issue: those who do degrees because they feel they must, not out of want. Such people have been pressured, by the education system, parents, the media; numerous sources conspire to tell them that without a degree they will be subhuman, they will be bums. These people take a degree without want of education, they learn to pass exams, not to further their minds; these people clog up the education system, they devalue degrees, they force universities to create joke courses that exist for the specific purpose of allowing someone to put "Graduate" on their CV. It looks as though I forgot my politically correct hat today, but not everyone should be doing a degree. People are not born equal, some people simply do not have the faculties to obtain a meaningful degree; they are not, however, contrary to what the schools would have you believe, useless, in fact, I would go as far as to say that they are the most useful and deserving people in soceity. These people have skills which can not be developed academically, they have talents which need to be nurtured in a different enviroment - Yet they are force fed the idea, from an early age, that a degree is needed for success.

Rant over, think about it.