In 1860, due to continued pressure from the various employers, the government developed the first education system: to create literate employees. The employers of the time were finding it progressively harder to find employees who could read and write. So bowing to capitalistic pressures the government created a system of public education with the sole intent of creating "literate employees". Like the modern army where we train people to become soldiers, the education system was created to create "factory workers". This was 145 years ago and nothing much has changed since. In fact the education system is still producing "literate employees" - not free thinking, creative types, but human 'worker bees' or drones. The education system instigated testing to measure advancement and learning but now the testing is often more important than the skills they try and train. In fact, most students only focus on how to "ace the tests". What good is that? After school the students go on to "higher education" - there is another oxymoron as research shows only a few post graduate students actually end up using their degrees in their careers. Why spend all that time, energy and money only to not use the degree? When asked why they went to University, or why they got a degree the student answers were frighteningly similar - "to get a job". We have created a system were the apparent need to get a job is so great that people will spend about 4 years and $50,000 on a degree for the sole purpose of ignoring it later and using it to apply for jobs! In conclusion, we create "literate employees" who now feel so compelled and "must" get a degree to apply for a job (which we all now know has no security anyway) to enter a social and economic environment where they are ill equipped to handle the majority of 'free-agent' type thinking (remember this creativity was eroded during school years during the mania with testing and NOT creativity) and did I mention that the cost of this education was over $50,000 (I can't bear to add in the time before University and the lost opportunity costs...) My point? Simple, if you have children remember this about the system, firstly it is a system and it is antiquated and there solely for the purpose of creating 'literate employees'. Know that there is no law (at least here in Canada) that says your children MUST go to school - you can home school. That the training they are receiving is not going to be very helpful in years to come as the work place is becoming more fragmented and a free-for-all-free-agent place (remember school does not train and create entrepreneurs only 'workers') and finally that you and I came from this same training and we need to remember what we most likely think about or world is probably wrong... How we perceive our environment is a function of how we think about it, and how we think about our environment was 'trained' into us by the early educators we were exposed to (school, the place where 'literate employers are created). |
