On education and learning
Society has convinced us that learning stops when formal schooling ends. An alarmingly increasing number of people has sacrificed their ability to study a topic and learn on their own. They have generously traded it off for consuming snippets of information, which in turn are accepted as accurate and recited without validation. Ergo, the proliferation of fake news on social media and general inability to seek information, analyze it and form independent opinions.
It is easier to sound smart by quoting blindly someone else than to be smart by voicing our thoughts.
From a normative perspective, formal schooling should have a dual purpose. One, get us all to a base level of understanding of a wide range of topics and two, teach us how to learn. By combining these two, we should be able to achieve the so-oft quoted “preparation for life”. I don’t have to be an expert on how put and call options work, but if I need to know this information, I should understand the steps how to find out more on the topic and expand my knowledge.
Finishing formal schooling is not graduation. As many universities and colleges refer to it (rightly), it is commencement. The commencement of life as educated young people equipped with the tools to advance our knowledge further. To face real challenges, whose answers are not hidden in the books, but whose process of finding a solution is embedded in formal schooling. If you are one of the few fortunate to have enjoyed formal education, don’t waste your predicament and advance your knowledge. You have been taught how to drive a car and got the license, now go out there and chart your journey. The permit alone won’t do it for you.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them. — Mark Twain
In today’s world, when we have all of the world’s information in our pockets, it’s inexcusable not to learn, study topics through rigorous investigation and research, and form our own opinions. As Naval put it, ‘free education is abundant, all over the internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.’ Being a life-long learner is one of the few blessings that give us fulfilment and purpose. And it is a choice we can all make.
So what did you learn today?
No time like the present,
f.
