Why school sucks

run away from people that tell you HOW to think

Let me start how was my experience with the traditional education system. I went of allegedly great schools in Lisbon, I started my journey on a private school but then when I was 11 I went to a public school. I wasn’t a great student at all (Bs) but I was that kind of guy that teachers were always saying “you have sooo much potential Salvador! Why do you waste it?!?!”, the only thing that made me want to get good grades was to please my parents (that always invested in my education). At the same time, I knew that if I gave to much attention to what I “learned” in school (this sounds very silly) I could unconsciously lose myself and probably the characteristic that I most like in myself (on this topics lol) that is my giant curiosity and interest for learning! I also talked about the education system with Mike here.

You don’t learn anything in school

Nobody likes school, I don’t believe in people that tell me HOW I should think. I have a lot of ideas to reframe the traditional education system, one of the most important is that you should be having a class because YOU want to! I think people forget that any of us can learn anything on their own, I’m a big fan of autodidactism. Of course we live in a community and we are directed to learn WITH each others, this is why l think moral maturity is very important, you need to be smart enough to learn from interactions with other people and evaluate things fairly and reasonably.

Everyday you are supposed to wake up and do what you are told in school and not to develop your critical thinking. This is one of the most destructive things you can possibly tell someone. If you don’t develop your critical thinking when you’re a kid, you’ll never develop it. Ask questions, as pope Francis said “never be afraid of asking, asking is good”, and this was the leader of a religion (that by default shuts up critical thinking). I think very fundamental of our childhood is missed when we’re told to do things we don’t want to (don’t take this wrong), the childhood is the time of failing and through multiple failures you’ll certainly get WHAT you’re good at and what do you like, that’s why is soooo important to ask as many questions as possible and just try things. I think most people today feel like they need the education system, one of the main ideas of Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society is that the education system is an unnecessary and artificial system, they were created to give a sense of dependence.

“Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being "with it," yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation”

Ivan Illich

We can now look to David Deutsch’s theory on epistemology (who firmly aligns with Karl Popper’s critical rationalism). It’s impossible to acquire knowledge directly through interactions teacher > student. We can only truly learn through conjectures and error correction (here a more qualified person plays a big role).

The positive part

I think the only positive part of having such thing as a education system, it’s not even related to HOW is the education system but about what it provides. One of the biggest dilemas of my life lately is that on one hand I feel like a university experience might be a waste of time, on the other one, I’m deeply interested in investigation work, and we all know that we have not only the best opportunities but the best conditions as well to do it in a highly equipped university. And it also provides the opportunity to get to know a lot of like minded people.

Here’s my great conversation with Mike, enjoy it!