Are We Running Out Of Time With Education Reforms?

E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N.

Sometimes I hate that word. I want to skip it, erase it, make it disappear.

What I actually want to do is to replace the content of that word, to bring back it's real meaning, which would be
L-E-A-R-N-I-N-G.

It's not that I don't like education, but it's that I don't like the system. The School House - as it is today - almost makes me want to do something physical, squeeze a lemon until not a single drop of juice comes out.

That's how I feel when I hear new stories about most creative creatures entering the school house - and coming out as scared and average individuals with not much of a contact with their real self. And even in less drastic cases - it's just painful to see the process of re-building ourselves after coming out of the system.

Makes me wonder - what if I had just skipped the
E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N and went straight to the L-E-A-R-N-I-N-G when I was 7?

Now here's a few tough questions to chew.

Can we actually reform the current education system? What if it's just wrong from its very core and the logic what current schools are based on is not working?

Truth is that majority of schools - as they are today - don't teach children to learn. Majority of schools - as they are today - don't prepare kids for the actual life. Majority of schools as they are today make kids dependent and lose their natural talents.

Reforms - not good enough, not quick enough

Now what I've noticed is that many people know that. Yes, there are problems, yes, the system should be more child centered, yes, we must take a more personal approach.

Good, but not good enough.

Yes, there are education reforms prepared and delivered in almost every country. But what they mean by all this reforming is just changing a few elements in the existing system - in good case adding more life skills classes, integrating development talks into the curriculum, educating teachers to offer better support for their individual students, worse cases just updating biology curriculum and debating if religion should be taught in school or not.

Not bad, but notice one thing? Most of these reforms concern everything external to the child, child STILL has absolutely no control over his own life. These help attempts can actually make children more dependent, so it's just a new way of still doing a wrong thing.

Until the whole logic of approaching to schools and education will be different - and it will - then these attempts don't make much of a sense (ok, I admit - not even trying would be even a greater loss for children learning in schools today, but still it's not the solution).

But you know what's almost unbearably painful - we are too slow. We need to speed up - because we're not only talking about tremendous amount of lost human potential, we're talking about the whole world's future.

Everything starts with the education system. Are the future generations prepared to live in the complicated world we're creating every day? Are they ready to make responsible decisions? Are they mature and self aware enough to connect with each other?

Alternative scenarios?

Around half a year ago I discovered myself playing around with a thought that has become my subconscious lighthouse ever since.

What if schools would not exist at all, how would children learn then?

Some of my friends found that a bit too radical to even consider.

I don't think so. Looking alternatives in education system doesn't have to start from looking at the current situation. Let's look at the need. And even if we end up still having schools - I bet they would be drastically different from the ones we would have created with a question: what should we change in the current system?

Because really - can you reform the current education system or is the system outdated and should be replaced? If it's outdated, then what's the new system? What's the role of a school house in this system? What's the role of internet and other new communication tools? What skills should kids learn and how should they do that? What's the role of a teacher?

We need to create some answers. And by we I mean we, not them.

PS: This one was written on the inspiration wave after reading a brilliant book "Kindergarten Is Too Late" by Masaru Ibuka