If you are not an advocate of the 'School Na Scam' motto, then you would have heard it numerous times. But truly, School isn't actually a scam, how can it be?
You then ask me, what exactly is School for?.
If you truly want to know what school is for, you have to read this to the end.
“Look, school is very important. You go to school to learn a skill or profession to become a contributing member of society. Every culture needs teachers, doctors, mechanics, artists, cooks, businesspeople, police officers, firefighters, and soldiers. Schools train them so society can thrive and flourish” said Rich Dad.
He ended with a statement, I'll leave the statement till the last paragraph.
According to Wikipedia, School is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Simply, A place where students are educated. EDUCATION is the keyword here. Now the question, are we truly getting Education in our schools today?
When you cram information upon your head and provide it during the test, is this Education? Definitely NO. Education is derived from 'EDUCE' (meaning - to bring out). The school is meant to bring out the passion and creativity in you but it rather stores facts in you.
This is what our schools does:
It teaches obedience.
It trains people to become consumers, employees and not founders and creators.
It commands the students to memorize TextBooks and histories, collecting information and taking tests.
In summary, the school is more concerned about collecting the dots and not how to connect them.
But Creativity is actually the most needed skill in Education. The ability to bring out what you can do. If it's for the facts and information, very soon, no one will be hired by what they know, Google already does that. People will be hired by what they can do with their knowledge.
According to LinkedIn , many famous companies, including the tech giants, don't need employees with college degrees.
Elon Musk, the Billionaire CEO of Tesla, already announced that he'll hire employees without College degrees.
A saying from Google reads "GPA's are worthless criteria for hiring". Having 'A's in your tests doesn't mean they're 'A's from the future. Failing should be the criteria in determining an unserious student. The 'F's are only there to mean you should Find Another Solution.
SUCCESS should mean doing what you love and being happy earning from it. Majority of your life is going to be spent on working, yet many end up with Jobs they hate. The School only prepares them for the work, the Job. You want to know how much students hate schooling, anytime ASUU is about to embark on a strike, go to their pages and read the students' comments.
Seth Godin, Author of Stop Stealing Dreams, explained in his TEDx talk that Art is different from Work. With Art, you want to do more because it's interesting. But as for Work, you always want to do less. That's why the most common question in class is 'Is it going to be on the test?' If No, who's gonna read it then.
It's high time Our schools should focus on Art & Passion, bringing out the creativity in students and not forcing them to do what they hate. Our schools should address the needs of the future and not that of the past. They should start measuring experience and not test scores. Connecting the dots can't be taught with the dummies manual, students have to be placed on a Try & Fail system before that can be achieved. Failing is not bad, it's actually part of the process.
So dear students, Go to school and learn, get the certificate, because it's better to have the certificate and don't need it than to need it and you don't have it.
Most importantly, be creative, follow your passions and dreams, be skilled, learn outside the box and be educated.
The ending statement of Rich Dad was:
"Unfortunately, for many people school is the end, not the beginning.” But in your own case, make sure you make school the beginning and not the end.
