Thursday 1 August 2013

What you were not taught.

Christmas Smells.. Okay that came out wrong. What I meant was: I smell christmas. A happy August to you all, may this month bring happiness to every reader.

So, to the topic I've been thinking about: What even is education?? So I went to the dictionary for some insight and she answered thus:
Education (n.) A process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools or colleges, to improve knowledge and develop skills.

Then I had another question: How does one get an education?? The dictionary couldn't give me an answer to this, but someone else told me: in a school, and from then on, I had a whole plethora of questions.

Question 1: What even is School??
Answer: A place where people go to be educated.
But my most important question was and is: Do we truly get an education in school?? Do we acquire the skills we need? When I say 'the skills we need' I really mean what we need to know in order to prevent life from screwing us over. If I remember correctly, which I most certainly do, I was forced to take most of the classes I took in school, cos I honestly felt I needed non of it, can one therefore conclude that I was forced to get an education?

We are taught in school to be nothing but robots, to be seen, not heard, to shut the hell up when the teacher speaks - infact, I painfully have a vivid recollection of the way our I was taught when I was little, in primary school, when the teachers didn't want to be disturbed, they made us hold our upper lip to our lower one with the use of our thumb and fore finger, a sure fire means to make us seen and not heard, this was called 'hold your lips', you see, seen and not heard.
Even in higher school, my classmates and I were constantly told not to make any sound, regardless of the constructiveness of the sound we made, sounds like slavery to me, yes slavery. Is school slavery?? Thinking about it now, that system of education prepares you for one thing - your boss. It doesn't prepare you to be a boss, it prepares you for a boss, because if I was a boss, that's exactly the kind of assistant I'll want to hire, someone who is not allowed to even have an opinion, talk less of a contrary one from me, 'Say one more word and you're fired'.

Imagination. I wonder how I even ever got to understand the concept of imagination because I know I was never taught that; except one day in art class when the teacher told us to close our eyes and draw whatever came to mind - I ended up drawing what I meant to be a dog, but actually looked more like a table with a head - I was 5, don't judge me. But that was in grade 2 or thereabout, after that, I was never told to imagine anything, even through the university. I never got to ask why what was, was. It was and still is regarded as a stupid question.
Imagination is what Bill Gates came up with - microsoft, not education, he had not really completed school. Imagination is Mark Zuckerberg's facebook, he had not finished from Harvard.

Most importantly, Love. We aren't really taught to love in school are we?? Isn't it important enough to be taught, isn't it important for a person to know that our neighbours indeed are our friends?? School is a competition, a competition to know who's smarter, a competition to know whether or not your future is brighter than that of the kid sitting next to you, a competition to know who the dull kid in class is, to know who isn't smart enough to be promoted to the next class; a competition. But is life really a competition?? Is it??
I should let you be the judge of that.

Till next time,, Keep dreaming!!

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