The wrong education

[Skybird]

Some months ago, there was this video by a school teacher from the US who adressed the students who finished school, warning them to consider themselves to be something special already, because in the reality of the job world following, they are nothing special at all, but one ant amongst millions. It was greeted with much applause, if I recall correctly, and the appreciation Americans spend to this made it into the international news.

Wolferz,

in principle I agree with "know where to find the info when you need it", however, you also need a fundament that is non-negotiable and that you can base on freely and in virtuoso any time, always. The job world and way of lives have changed, much of what you learn you just learn to unlearn it again just short time later, and I think this is not always and is not in all regard a good thing. I link psychological syndromes to this modern way of life, too, not completely, but it is an involved variable (psychology is submitted to changing vogues, too, and is much lesser a solid science than its followers are ready to see - plenty of ideology there, too, for historical reasons...). There is much unrest, stress from too much acceleration of everything, and that produces condensates in "the soul" where you feel them.

The Finnish system is better in intenrational conmparison, mainly for two reasons. The passing of the children through the school system is more focussed on facilitating than on screening/filtering regarding this opposition of facilitating versus screening Takeda propaby is right when promoting the first; second is that they have smaller clases and more teachers in Finland than for example in Germany. Two years ago, classes still were bigger here, and the idea to have two, sometimes even three teachers in one class (one doing the main lecture, the assistants taking every kid by the hand when it meets problems and practicing with it until it understands it, without the whole class needing to wait for the "straggler") may be sound, but is unpracticable due to the immense higher costs - we currently reduce the number of teachers again, I think although even for our standards we currently have too few in many regions. It's all about the money. However, just facilitating is not enough if not also patience and discipline is facilitated for. Discipline is the practice that enables you to even practice the earlier ideal of "knowing where to find the solution".

Let me compare to my chess club back then. I was club player in the years around the end of my schoolyears, and a bit after that, before I switched to correspondence chess. We young wilde ones were motivated enough, nobody had to facilitaed us to learn theory and come to the regular theory trainings - if it was about what we liked to play anyway, that is ches sopening, and middle game strategy and tactics. Now, for some reason that most chess players even cannot explain, the end game is much disliked by many players. Maybe it is because here the long variations, the really in depth-analysis is the most unforgiving and the error margin is smaller, since there is just small amounts of material left on the board, and any error, any figure loss is much harder to compensate. To make a complex issue short: we hated end games, most players dislike endgames, and I still do so - although mastering endgame is the decisive art in chess, is essential and separates those playing just noise from those really understanding the game in depth. Facilitating does not help here, it remains "boring" to learn endgame theory. The only thing that helps you is: stubbornness, patience, and - discipline. To keep coming back to it, to carry on with it, no matter what. It was one of the two reasons why I started correspondence chess. End game theory is difficult, it is "dry", and it lacks the spectacular battles and and sensational special effects of furious tactical exchanges. But it is a must. Else you lose an equal position from middle game in the end game, or you are unable to translate an advantage from the middle game into city in the endgame. The answer to that need is simple: DRILL. Its the only thing that works, once you are on difficult terrain that does not find your interest. Drill means the discipline to nevertheless move on, carry on, repeat it, stick to it, sink your will, and teeth and mind into it. And here, fascilitating may still have some place, but in such phases has much, much lesser justifiction. When it does not interest you, then it does not interest you.

I could say the same on my martial arts and my combat and my swords training training, which was extremely repetitive, not to mention that it was every day, and for long time. The motive to stick to it was love for my mentor, and deep trust. But the gasoline that kept the engine running, no matter cold or hot weather, was this: discipline, drill. Obviously, drill in the military has other meanings and is more appropriate, than in school learning, and civilian life. But I stick to it: to some degree, drill and discipline are needed, you do not get far without them, nor can you become independant in your skill to find solutions to new problems.

Gustav,

I have a principle issue with multiple choice questionaires. That is they take you by the hand and lead you through a pre-established structure of possible problem solving "strategies". You do not learn to imagine the view or design or nature of a possible solution. You do not learn to think "outside the box" of prefabricated answers. Quite the opposite, you learn how to depend on a limited number of options presented, whose origin you must not understand or be able to analyse. You learn to function like a robot following the flow diagram of a program scheme. You function, but you cannot break out of the software code, the flow diagram.

Consequently, I am cautioning people to put blind trust into electronic learning and computer learning. A computer runs by software that already has filtered the reality that you are able to manipulate via the interface. You must bow to the needs of the interfaces syntax, you must learn to unlearn ways in which you would do things in real life but cannot in a computer . You win some freedom degrees due to the global connectivity, but you loose others due to the need to accept self-limitation, unavoidably. the machine is not so much becoming a part of you. You become part of the scripts and principles by which the machine runs. I do not demonise it, and I do not want to ban it, but I am irritated by the blind, headless trust and uncritical attitude to all this. Not to mention the dependency on communication satellites never failing, no ESM pulse from space knocking the IT network out, and so on. Show computers their place and there keep them on y chain, make sure they do not leave it, else we sooner or later all become slaves of theirs. Not in the way Terminator shows it. But by the way we are able - and no longer are able!!! - to think inside our biological brains.