Everything That Is Wrong With Our Education System
10 problems with our education system + Should you drop out of college??
“What’s the point of learning this? I am never going to use it.”
That’s a common line said by students, and it's no surprise.
Our education system is outdated, it forces students to learn outdated or plainly irrelevant facts, instead of learning valuable skills.
The world is advancing faster than ever and we need to update our education system and fix it.
But before we fix it we need to understand:
What are the problems with the education system?
What does school do to you to your mind?
This is what this article is all about.
Additionally, I’ll address if we should be dropping out of college or not. Considering every other entrepreneur dropped out of college. Be it Mr.Beast, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
(Disclaimer: this article is mostly written with the education systems of India and the US in mind )
Let’s begin.
Everything that is Wrong with the Education System
1. School isn’t for learning
Schools teach students what to think as opposed to how to think. There are important critical skills that aren’t taught.
Most students are learning NOT to use the knowledge in the real world or innovate or change the world.
But, they study to prove something, to show that they are good enough, to gain approval, to one-up somebody else, or just get an ego boost.
Einstein chose not to remember things. Feynman never used Jargon. While school is designed in such a way that memorization(of useless facts) is given priority.
The school doesn’t focus on critical thinking but stuffing facts into your mind and regurgitating them.
It’s to prove that you can do chores not to truly go deep into a subject.
2. Tests
Marks are given priority NOT KNOWLEDGE.
Since the primary goal is to get good grades, extra learning isn’t promoted as it won’t help you score more marks.
High school teachers have a large portion to teach, and so aren’t ready to dwell out of the syllabus and take extra questions(even if they want to).
The system is made in such a way that the primary focus is to get a higher number in a test, rather than to fall in love with the subject and use knowledge.
3. School kills Creativity
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Picasso
Picasso nailed it; what he said is even backed by research!
Kids are as creative as NASA scientists!
Education and creativity- a NASA study found that of 1,600 4- and 5-year-olds, 98 percent scored at “creative genius” level. Five years later, only 30 percent of the same group of children scored at the same level, and again, five years later, only 12 percent.
As they grow older and attend school, they become less creative.
There are several reasons for this.
School first off doesn’t reward creativity much, it rewards productivity.
You are not meant to try things on your own.
In graded tests, there can only be one correct answer. This helps hone your convergent thinking skills.
Your divergent thinking skills are neglected, which is free-flowing thinking where you think of multiple possibilities.
Thomas Edison would never think of just one solution to a problem. He would think of as many as he could, this is why he was a creative genius.
4. School makes you obedient
A guy named Zach Lahn visited 70+ schools over half a decade.
He noticed that in every school children have to follow an authority figure.
The most common model was that students sat at desks facing a teacher, they had to follow everything the teacher said; there was a central authority figure.
Usually in schools, you aren’t allowed to question authority, you have to follow it.
This subconsciously teaches them that truth comes from authority and authority is always right. It is not.
This is of course what powerful people want. However blind obedience can lead to doing or believing in wrong things. It can even lead to something as bad as murder.
Obedience is what made the holocaust possible I talked about it in the article ‘What Makes People Kill’.
4. It doesn’t give importance to the why
External performance markers are fine, and likely even necessary, but they’re not sufficient anymore. There has to be a new starting point. There has to be personal purpose introduced into education at some point. There needs to be a why to learning to go with the what. The problem is that everybody’s why is personal and it’s impossible to scale. Especially when teachers are so over-worked and underpaid. — Mark Manson
The school doesn’t give importance to the whys anymore.
Why am I learning this? because you have to.
You can be the greatest coder, but if you’re coding a scam, is that really a good thing? You can be the greatest marketer but if you’re making old people spend their savings on memory-boosting pills which don’t work, is that really a good thing?
School only focuses on output, not the whys. Not purpose.
Not surprisingly, this has led to a good number of people flexing their degrees instead of focusing on skills.
5. Failure is a source of shame
Every successful person has failed a lot.
Failure comes with experimentation. When you’re doing something new, some. If something original you’re going to fail.
The school doesn’t teach you to get comfortable with failing.
6. School doesn’t teach you to do things on your own
Great entrepreneurs, scientists and artists do something that has never been done before.
They have tried a lot of things by themselves. They have had no clear path. They have failed a lot.
In school you memorise things. Even in experiments in science, you have to do the step-by-step experiments.
The school has way too much structure, which if not followed is often punished with a reduction of some marks.
The following structure has its place.
But in this world of the internet if you want to do something by yourself you need to be comfortable with not having a clear path.
7. It is Outdated
The world is changing fast, and it’s only going to change exponentially faster.
Indian Schools are still prioritising writing by hand over typing.
We are learning facts which are not just irrelevant but even outdated.
Schools are still stuck with learning what was taught twenty if not fifty years ago.
Even HC Verma a guy who makes textbooks, and someone who is a well-reputed IIT(Indian Insitute of Technology) professor calls the education system outdated.
The education system has not changed much. It still involves a teacher reading out a textbook in front of a whole class.
The internet has changed learning. Now quality information is available online for free!
9. School doesn’t prepare you for the real world
This is one that is mostly targeted at entrepreneurs.
Richard Branson argues:
More learning comes from going out in the real world and doing more than reading textbooks.
Risk-taking and creativity are important skills that school doesn’t teach you.
Most successful people were out in the real world from a young age. Be it Leonardo Davinci or Arnold Schwarzenegger selling popsicles.
10. School Is Not Tailored for Everyone
An Estimate of 40% of entrepreneurs have Dyslexia. Almost 40% have ADHD.
Not surprisingly most dyslexics don’t do well in school.
They might go about life feeling like they’re a loser. But they’re not dumb in actuality.
Richard Branson is one such example he was at the bottom of his class. He then dropped out of school created a magazine and became a billionaire as well.
Thomas Edison was kicked out of school. He was seen as stupid, but guess what he became one of the greatest inventors.
School makes everyone the same, it forces everyone to grind on the same things and have the same goals.
Everyone is unique and that needs to be recognised. It’s going to be hard to do at scale but it should be done.
Society makes the school the primary focus for kids. This leads to most kids losing their interest in anything else. So, most of them don’t know what they want to do and end up just taking engineering because it’s a safe option and that's what society tells them to do.
Why are entrepreneurs telling you to drop out of school/college and should you?
Should you drop out of college?
Spoiler: the answer is it depends on you and what you want to do.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Mr Beast, all of them dropped out of school or college.
It makes it feel like a necessity to be a successful entrepreneur.
Actually, most of these people who ‘dropped out of college’ took a leave of absence which meant they could come back and complete their degrees when they wanted to.
They didn’t completely close the door to college, at least not a first.
So why do they drop out or leave university in the first place?
They do it because they find something they’re passionate about.
Bill Gates left college because he found something he loved so much. It isn’t the case for everyone. Keep in mind Bill Gates was very smart he got into Harvard, where he got access to the latest computers.
Mr. Beast dropped out of school. He tried going to college, but he got bored out of his mind, and he couldn’t do it. So he pursued something he was obsessed with- YOUTUBE.
They had something they were obsessed with and so they left college, not everyone has something they’re as passionate about which doesn’t need college.
Elon Musk argues college is just to prove that you can do your chores(stay disciplined and socialise). It’s not for learning. Knowledge can be gained from reading books or the internet.
I’ve listened to several discussions with Ivy League graduates, and most of them don’t say they needed to go to that college to learn what they did, but the true benefit of Ivy League was their peer group.
College helps you find like-minded people and socialise.
You can probably learn medicine from just books, but I wouldn’t trust someone to operate my body if they hadn’t gone to med school.
So, some jobs do require college, like being a doctor.
It all depends on what you want to do.
Going to college probably gives you a higher chance of getting a job, but we also have those people who have PhDs and no jobs.
“Although I dropped out of college and got lucky pursuing a career in software, getting a degree is a much surer path to success.” — Bill Gates
On the other hand, we have investor entrepreneurs like Tim Ferriss who thinks Princeton was extremely valuable for him.
He tried out different things, which helped him realize what he thought he liked he really didn’t like and what he taught he didn’t like he really enjoyed.
The conclusion I draw from these stories is that you must try a bunch of things and find something you are passionate about , something you are really interested in.
After which it will help determine whether or not you will need to go to college.
There is no one-size fit for all.
Conclusion of article
School has a lot of problems, which need to be fixed. I’ll mention how to fix them and what has been done so far in the next article. (stay tuned for that)
What we need to do is follow our interests, question things a lot, find values, and learn by ourselves using the internet.
It’s me double O two signing off.