I would like to share concerns about the dinosaur that is Public Education. In my opinion, we are dealing with the current unemployment issues in a way of treating a symptom without paying due attention to the disease. I would like to take a moment to point out the things that may seem quite obvious to many and therefore are often taken for granted. I think that its unwise to continue to do the same thing as was done 100 years ago when its clear that the circumstances have changed over that period.

 

Question: Assuming I was an alien from out of space and I asked you what the purpose of an Education was, what might your response be? More than 90% would respond that it is to prepare learners for a future as regards to work, employ-ability and a livelihood. They would be spot on because this is what we have been taught to understand. The issue with this point of view is that we can not predict the future, take for instance a child starting school today is getting an education in preparation to face the world in 2030 and yet given the incredibly dynamic nature of things today, not a single expert can predict with absolute certainty what the world will be like in 3 years. As if this is not scary enough, we are using an education system which was created around 1900 to cater for the needs of the Industrial Revolution and this is why it prioritizes certain subjects such as maths, sciences and humanities. These were the subjects that would guarantee one a job in the industries when they graduated. Any discipline outside of these is considered pointless and referred to as 'extra curricular'.

 

To make my point, there is no public school in the world that teaches dance or singing all day as opposed to Maths or Science. So, when people attend school today, they are basically using a more than 100 year old formula to prepare themselves for a future 20 or more years ahead. I wont get into the obvious setbacks in this but I will get into my belief that Creativity is just as important as Literacy, now more than ever. This education system is flawed to the point that people are discouraged from doing things they are most likely talented at because the education system has dictated that you will never get a job doing this or that, this made sense half a century ago. The people that set this system up 100 years ago would be shocked if they saw how the world had evolved thanks to various influences such as technology, population growth and so on. It beggars belief that we do not question this but get alarmed at its products such as unemployment.

 

Today, this flawed system has led to academic inflation where initially one had a job when they had a degree, now a degree is of no value for the same job, you need a masters, not long from now, people will need a PHD for a medium level job. An international agency study showed that there will be more grandaunts in 2030 than in the history of time. This, in big part, is the cause of the current global unemployment problem, people just follow along like sheep, do subjects that are irrelevant in this era, they graduate with the hope of getting jobs while fully aware that these jobs do not exist.

 

So what is the point in all this? Education has killed the spirit of creativity because its based on linear thinking, we need to rethink intelligence and stop assuming that academic brilliance is the measure of all intellect, we are all not designed to go through school only to attain a worthless trophy in the name of a degree as a measure of success. This yard stick only works for university professors who seem to be the perfect product out of the current industrial based education system. I have nothing against professors, but many of us will agree that they seem to live in their heads and they are quite detached from reality, their bodies are a means to get them to meetings and yet here they are sharing pertinent life skills. Lets get back to the drawing board, not try to fix the current education system but do away with it completely.

 

Lets adopt an agricultural model of education where we give learners space, nurture and help their various talents flourish, we shall inevitably rid ourselves of Lawyers who would rather be musicians and Doctors who would rather be dancers. In this life, its important to do the thing that you are passionate about, gifted at, lets not rob people of the opportunity to figure out what this might be for them. Does it not surprise you when you learn that prominent local musicians discovered these talents after they dropped out of school?

 

Ever wonder how much further they would be if they had this talent nurtured from the very beginning? I can only imagine that while in school they were seen as riff-ruff and their teachers must have scoffed at their choices because they were 'squandering' their futures away. On the contrary, it is education that was attempting to squander their gifts. The worst place to make a mistake is in the education field, mistakes are stigmatized. Making a mistake is not the same thing as being creative, but if you are unprepared to make a mistake, you will never come up with anything original. It is for this that I believe that our education has unknowingly put creativity on firing squad, aimed and fired.