learning and public education

two unrelated concepts

Despite the determined, but decidedly lackluster, attempts of public education systems to inform me what I should know and how I should go about learning, I learn best on my own. Constantly forcing me through a circus of projects, activities, and assessments does not improve my mind. I, and I suspect most people, learn and retain information by making connections. The more words, concepts, and memories I can connect new ideas and data to, the easier it is to recall and make analytic use of the information I learn. I think most often about things I like, and therefore learn about them easily. By attempting to mold me into a curriculum form fit for a non-existent average, traditional schooling merely crushes my fiercest efforts to learn and create. This is what causes such a general lack of interest in intellectualism in today's youth. By the time they reach college and are presented with opportunities, they are conditioned to exert themselves as little as possible. Instead of choosing inspired, flourishing pathways of learning, they slide through the easy and worthless tasks, content to live in a habitat of desk jobs, middle management, and mediocrity. We must change this attitude. Students must not be coerced into false beliefs and irrelevant systems. What the system dictates does not matter. What the student dreams of matters to the utmost.

*Note- In my personal experiences I have suffered the absolute extreme of the above mentioned problems (in NZ), but also treated to some of the most inspiring and excellent teachers (at CVU.) I'm sure that my high school experience is of an unusually high quality. Still, I object to the paradigm.