A Most-Undervalued Aspect of Education

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When you think about education, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Probably schools, right?

The fact is, in the grand scheme of things, schools are a pretty recent aspect of history. In fact, it is less than 3,500 years old. While to some of you may think that it sounds like a lot, imagine that we have been learning as far back as 350,000 years ago, so for about only 1% of our species’ history.

Given that, let me propose you a scenario to ponder on: what if, starting today, the school system was to be entirely removed?

BAM!

No more schools.

What would happen?

I’m not going to give anyone answers in this story as my guess is as good as yours, but let me try to lead your reflection a little.

A small percentage of the American population, 3.4 percent, don’t go to school. We call these people homeschooled. 74 percent of parents said they homeschool because of their dissatisfaction with academic instruction in other schools. You may know some of them. You may be one of them.

Are they less intelligent than the rest of the population?

Certainly not.

Their social adaptability may take a little while longer to develop but they’re certainly no less smart for it. In some countries, access to school is actually not an easy thing. We really take it for granted in the Western world.

By travelling the world, I’ve seen that firsthand what this is like. And if there’s one pattern I’ve noticed, it’s this:

People with no access to schools work harder and think more creatively about solutions.

Of course, I’m generalizing here and there are plenty of “uneducated” people that don’t fit the bill.

But the one thing they have that most “educated” people don’t have anymore is their curiosity. You may think it’s an extreme scenario, but take Leonardo Da Vinci for example.

He never went to school. By not being fed with popular information at the time, he wasn’t held back on his curiosity and creativity. That led him to be the most well-known polymath there ever was.

You may think it that he’s an exception but the reality is that the Renaissance period had a lot of people like him. Polymathism (totally made that word up) was one of most sought after “skill”, yet after the Industrial Revolution, specialization became the norm. In essence, everyone became a one-trick pony.

Funny how when we say it about someone, it’s a bad thing, yet that’s exactly what the school system is pushing us to be.

Do you see the inconsistency here?

We all know being a one-trick pony is bad, yet somehow we’ve accepted it as part of our lives.

Now back to our little scenario. What would happen if schools were gone? Would we still be single-skilled individuals?

Remember, schools are just ONE part of education. Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits.

My guess is that we’d be a lot more open about the idea of learning varied skills and combine them in creative ways.

How bad can that really be?

In today’s world, we have access to more information than we ever have, and that’s only accelerating at an exponential rate. It was hard for schools to keep up with all this new knowledge 20 years ago, imagine today.

Self-reinvention and adaptability are often quoted to be the most valuable skills to learn to thrive going forward. I strongly believe in that. And that is not taught in school currently.

So if these are indeed the most important things to learn going forward, is the schooling system holding that back?

If schools aren’t the most important aspect of education, then what is?

I’d like to propose Continous Education, that is, expanding your ability to learn by regularly upgrading your skills and increasing your knowledge.

Schooling has an end, yet in today’s knowledge economy, we can’t afford to end our education. People who have, now find themselves jobless during hard financial times. Or when technology replaces them.

Never stop learning. If schools didn’t exist, how would you learn? Think about that because going forward, schools are likely not the going to be the best platform for learning new skills. For now, how about joining a community of skill learners?

Remember, schools are a recent concept that was invented not that long ago for the problems of its time. Now, my friends, is the time to find what that next thing is.

When you forego the things you know is when you can foresee more creatively what’s to come.

Don’t let your imagination and fear of the impossible stop you from imagining a future where learning is different and more adapted to today’s world.

You can do this!