Have you ever been asked as a child what you would like to learn? Have you ever been asked what you like and what you don’t like? I haven’t. The people whom I know haven’t been asked those questions either. The children don’t have a choice. They have to do what they are told to do. They have to be in their school. They have to learn what other persons want them to learn. They have to obey.
Everybody has heard from their parents or teachers ‘You have to go to school, you have to learn or you will sweep the streets’ or something like this. Of course, it is true that you have to learn. It is necessary in order to acquire valuable skills. But the point is you don’t do it in school. Instead of learning you are wasting your time there.
After 12 years of school education (at least in Poland) and in meantime of studying at universities, young people go to work. But where do they work? I see them catering drinks at restaurants or selling clothes at clothing shops. The jobs that give them money for living but they don’t teach them anything. Most of the young people don’t have prospects for the future, most of them are confused, they don’t know what they want, what they like. Sure, that’s why you had been learning for 12 years, hadn’t you?
Schools create an unrealistic world and learn you how to live in that world. Seeing young people struggling to earn some money is nothing surprising if we understand they have gone from the unreal world to the real world.
Since the earliest days kids are told about going to school, getting good grades and obeying the teachers. The most important subjects are those from a curriculum. Any hobbies or desires outside the curriculum are not welcome. If they fail at school, they should feel ashamed.
The problem is that in the real world nobody cares about the grades. It is all about the skills that you have developed. Most adults don’t remember what they were learning at school. But they still force children to go the same way of learning and forgetting. It is ridiculous. It is obvious that if you are not interested in a given subject you will not remember too much after you passed the exams.
Here we come to another point: instead of trying to interest the children, maintain it, support their curiosity – the schools either ignore it or even kill it.
It is not surprising that after finishing school the young persons are confused. They haven’t had a choice before, they couldn’t discover what they like, they were not allowed to develop their talents and skills. At the end it is clear that somebody has wasted their childhood and has deluded them. Now they have to struggle because of this deception. People who are doing well when they are young are usually those who disobeyed to the education system and pursued their dreams, trying to be the best in the field of their interests.
There are bells like in an old factory. There are supervisors that children must obey. Times have changed but schools haven’t.
Not so long ago children could be hit by teachers. The teachers were allowed to beat them for disobedience. The education system, right? Fortunately, beating children is forbidden now. But the rest in the schools remain the same.
The children are still forced to go to schools, despite they don’t like it, they don’t feel good there. They are forced to learn what they don’t want to learn with the teachers who they don’t like in a way that is not encouraging. There are also cases of bullying. Nothing from that is helping in education of the young person.
One of the most important factors in learning process is sleep. It is also needed for mental and physical health. But the children are often sleepy because of getting up too early. The system doesn’t help them in acquiring knowledge, especially when they are teenagers and they need proper sleep to develop themselves. Sleep deprivation is common to adolescents. Why is it not taken into consideration if compulsory schooling is meant to educate?
At the end we can make a conclusion – the education system is in reality the slavery system. Development of the children is impeded by the adults who were programmed to live in culture where everybody is obliged to learn what everybody else is learning and in a way that everybody else is following. The created structures doesn’t care about children’s desires, about their passions and their future. It all comes down to being obey. It is the only value conveyed by the current education system.
Children must be empowered. People can’t consider them as too foolish to have some kind of voice. They have desires and dreams which should be taken into account. Life is not a scheme and the children should not be raised as to fit in the scheme. More freedom in education is needed as to give the best opportunities to children. It will help them to shape their future as they want it and will not left them confused and disappointed.
I know that the text I have written is a bit too general but I wanted only to describe the problem. It was not meant to be detailed. Maybe in the future I will elaborate the issue. Thank you for reading and feel free to write your opinions. It would be great to discuss it here.
