A lot of the people who currently know me or have ever known me personally, at least in a school capacity, would tell you that I am not big on school. As an 18-year-old about to graduate high school and move on, this is pretty much normal. However, even my early teachers would tell you I have never been enthusiastic about school. Perhaps I am different. Perhaps I am one of few very specific individuals who does not find schooling an effective way to learn. But I don't think that's it.
I think something is fundamentally flawed with the way learning is done in our schools, because I don't think there is actually much learning being done. There are select few who embrace the system and make it work to their benefit, but that requires a rare type of student. For the rest of us, we are merely forced to live by it whether it is effective for us or not. I just can't see a model in which one teacher who has merely studied the material, sometimes only a few more years than we have, can be seen as a universal authority with the power to command students on a whim.
The fact that modern Western schooling consists mostly of brute-force memorization also contributes to its lack of effectiveness. Mostly all of my fellow students study material not to learn, but to pass a test on it. While I do not think grades and tests are inherently bad, their overuse and exaggerated importance in our society truly has formed a generation that dislikes learning.
Ask any of my classmates, for example, if they read for leisure. I personally used to read more than most people will in a lifetime in months or even weeks, and that occupied most of my free time. The simple fact that I have been forced to sit in a room and be tested on material by teachers who do not find it interesting has sparked a deep-set dislike for learning and reading to me, which I do not think is right.
I am not entirely sure what system would work better than our current one, as I am more a thinker than a visionary, but the way things are being done right now is not working. I have grown up in private schools all my life, where the importance of learning is stressed over and over by parents and teachers, but it is all to no avail. The students grow tired of having information force-fed down their throats without any justification, and this causes them to simply abandon the pursuit of knowledge.
I find that I am personally interested in a wide variety of subjects, but literally none of them involve classroom learning. Kids need something more fun, more hands-on, and more interesting. After all, that is what they are: kids.
I am pursuing a career as an Audio Engineer because it has several appeals for me. First, I have always been drawn to music as an emotional form of art, and Audio Engineering allows me to create and collaborate to form new songs and even new types of music. Second, I like the idea of this career because it stems away from the traditional business person route taken by most. I could not picture myself sitting in a cubicle all day; that would only be an extension of the boredom and suffering I have found in school. A recording studio presents a fresh atmosphere that I can express myself through.
The only thing modern schools are good at is working to proliferate this endless rat race we run; they train students not to think by having a universal authority (the teacher) teach material and the subservient (students) simply memorize and recite. This creates a system in which someone else is doing the thinking for us. I genuinely believe schools need reform in order to teach man to unleash his full potential and think for himself. I have not bought into the school system in a long time, and this is why.
No comments:
Post a Comment