“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense (italics mine)
If you can get past the tradition of thinking that public schools operate the way they do because they’ve always done so and it must always be so, you’ll understand why education and schooling are not the same thing. This 3 minute video will show you the animated history of where our modern public school system came from.
I have been working as an electrician on drilling rigs for several years. Each year, we go to classes to learn more about our trade, safety, engineering, and many other aspects of our work. It even goes so far as to go to classes for how to relate with foreign cultures.
Education is not equal to school. I learn more on my own than was ever taught in school. I have been educating myself. The possibilities of self education have exploded with the introduction of the net. Even passing interest in any subject can be thoroughly researched to any extent, at any time, by anyone. What could be better than an inquisitive mind released to find everything he wants to know about anything he wants to know!
Just like the little video said, I felt imprisoned in school. Disinterested teachers and one-way education made me feel ignored and useless. Bullied by my schoolmates, disdained by teachers who did NOT want to be questioned, ridiculed by everyone who was able to achieve things that were beyond my capabilities, and persecuted when I attempted to complain. I felt I was in jail for something I did not do. Hell, I felt I was in jail for something that I did not even know anything about, much less do. I was so glad to get out of a system that I could not escape that I did not even consider going to college, another system that I could not fathom. Now that I am approaching 60, I regret not having a sheepskin, but back then I just couldn’t voluntarily go back to ‘jail’. I’ve suffered ever since. Teachers can really do a mind-job on a student. Everything I need to know about my work, I learned on my own. ‘School’ had NOTHING to do with any of it. My education will stop when my life stops. But I will not go back to ‘School’.