A futile education proposal

When we examine a person’s educational background, we usually evaluate him by the degree he achieved at the time of his “exiting days” from studies and “throwing hats in the air”. Of course this resumes his entire experience of study in any field… There is so much attention given into that direction, that one tends to forget another aspect… the “where it all begun” and more than this, the “how and why it begun”. Education from scratch, in a word…
Many of the failures of our society have to do with basic education. The catalyst here seems to be that education is done with “the market” on mind. And it is “logical” since economy is the measure… But even so, even by the measures of economy, does this kind of education “pay” in the long run? We create “market hunters” when we should go into the direction of creating… people first. Man should precede in importance any market… but the truth is it doesn’t work that way.

One can be bitching all day on matters like that and achieve nothing, so here are a few thoughts as a “suggestion”. Not that I expect any of this to see the light of education… but still we are free to think, aren’t we?

Drawing to precede writing: You sure have more than one watch in your house, either as a wrist watch, alarm-clock, or as a display on various home devices. And surely you have noticed that there are two kinds of displays in showing the time. One comes in a digital presentation, which shows us what time it is with a number… and two, in an analogical form, where you see the time by its clock-fingers.

The human mind instinctively “understands” easier and faster the analogical watch because it represents what is more natural for its prime organ, the eyes. Thus we perceive better a form of something, rather than a written description of it. Fighter pilots have all the essential organs of their cockpit in an analogical form. So, when they find themselves in the middle of intense fighting maneuvers or under the stress of a real combat, their response is more natural. Instant looking at their flight organs, and seeing a form rather than having to read something, is easier understood while a missile is on their tail…
All ancient writings were in a form of hieroglyphics and ideograms. In both cases these are practically drawings which represent a “picture”. Egyptians wrote in this way…..  Japanese and Chinese do so as well, up to this day…
  
Point is… We should learn much more drawing and painting before we take up writing anything. A kid (of an education as it is described here) should be able to represent on paper, let us say… its own face from a mirror (even in a basic form) long before writing its own name.

Music to precede ability of lecture: Every infant, regardless from which part of the world or culture, dances up and down its belly to the sound of music. They do so while barely standing on their feet and long before talking… This is something that all of us have witnessed with amusement, and… we did that, too!

Music and rhythm is part of our nature and in our evolutionary steps, we played music (even primitive one) long before we developed a full pattern of speaking. Many times we wonder how come some people can express themselves verbally better, than some others who find it impossible… Well, this isn’t about “reading good books” when you where young, but it’s mostly about expressing your feelings and thoughts, via other means, before speaking them out in the form of words. I’m sorry that it’s going to be “the Greeks again” but it is a fact that ancient Greeks would value music in education just as any other form of learning, mathematics, philosophy etc. Music was an obligatory study, important as any other…

Point is: We should be able to play with efficiency at least one musical instrument (of our own choice) well before being able to stand up in the presence of others, and give a form of speech.

Poetry to precede composition: …I admit I have a bit of difficulty in supporting my own cause here. But composition is far more complicated since it requires previous experience of extensive reading and an ability of bringing forward and describing thought patterns and as well feelings in the most organized manner. Many forms of poetry are more spontaneous and don’t require that much of logic, but more feeling, which we are more capable of, when at the prime educational age. It is no accident that most part of the ancient writings of man (like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in Greece, the Hindu Vedas and also the famous to this day Chinese book Tao Te Ching) was written in the “form of poems” or as “text-pieces” which were closer to poetry than written word as we know it.

Point is: Poetry is the right entrance in order to move towards composition… (and I only hope that I’m not going to have e-mails asking me to put up… a poem. I ain’t got any…)

Scouting to replace competitive athletics: “He is no boy-Scout!” You often here this being said about someone, as in, “he is not naïve”. Since when is that?! Am I missing “episodes” here? Because I would like someone to give me a full explanation on this one… but only slowly, word by word and without any ironies. Why is it that one of the most important learning of life is being even considered as some sort of lack of intelligence?

If I would make a list of what is being learned, while being with the Scouts, we will never finish this… Orientation, exploring territories, setting camps, starting camp-fires, cooking, knife use, map reading, plant recognition, fishing, surviving techniques… But I will take only one, which has to do with cultivating a mentality to a person, which is as far as possible from any form of antagonism. Scouting is the best tool in learning how to co-operate with one-another and think as an individual that is part of a team. A thing we could never say for athletics…
On the contrary athletics are promoting antagonism to its fullest. I know that this will sound somehow strange to many ears, but hear me out first, worst thing that can happen is that you might join… the Scouts! Athletics are being promoted as a “peaceful” activity and when you hear a thing repeated once too often you go and… buy it. In athletics you have one winner, and one winner only (who celebrates like out of his mind). You set your mind on a single path of victory, or if you like, on a path to defeat all “others”! Athletics is bad influence in the educational process since it promotes an aggressive attitude. It produces a strong physique with a weak mind, not only because you become “single-minded” but because during the practice of athletics it is given that the mind simply plays no part and it is sharpened elsewhere. And to clear this up, this of course has nothing to do with bringing a board to the beach for some surf, being a sportsman of some sort, or anything equal to this...

Point is: We talk about…  Indi’s basic training here! How would Scout have it? Oh yes! “Be Prepared”  

Aikido is for both, knowledge and defense…  
It is well known that Japan globally holds the very top in education in most fields. There is a story (which I remember “loosely” but it’s worth mentioning): Once an American university did sent to an equivalent university of Japan a sort of “electronic cable” which was supposed to be the “thinnest possible cable” with a hole through its entire length… The idea was to tell the Japanese “what is your answer to this?” Almost immediately the American university did receive their own “experiment” back as it was, with nothing else to show for… The American students did contact the Japanese asking why they did send the “cable” back… The reply was this: “Look inside your cable!” Needless to say that they had managed to pass their own invention, which was a much thinner version, through the hole of… the thinnest cable…   

Martial Arts are part of the school system in Japan to this day. They are taught to children for self defense and as a character builder. Japan is a country which is modern, developed to the fullest and nevertheless has practically no crime!
  
Education should be a fun thing to enter, not a bore where someone tells you “learn this” or “do that”. Most of the time grownups are only too happy to… discipline children and youngsters, to teach them order, to command them around and feel important in this way…
In education man should be at the center of everything for the essence of being a man! Everything else comes second best. That is the place from where to restart this...

If we look at it as realistically as possible, what is our chance on a futile proposal like this? Or any other which would make more sense than what we are given now? What is the choice on our kid’s education?! The direction of governments of the free world looks like converting on the matter by the minute in creating nothing more than money making people! And I’m not going to put this up because of the global economy “failure” which is going on right now, since I’ve been nagging about this all along… The question is: Do we have a choice? Yes, we certainly do… but it could only work on a personal level and for those who are willing to make a difference by starting from themselves… because governments will probably do from little to nothing…

Point is: Just make the trouble, raise your eyes one last time before you go, and look at the marked in bold “proposals” and join my thinking on this… What do you see that we cannot offer our children by personal effort?!

April 23, 2010