Education and the Unknown

By Ephialtes

Why do I find doing assignments so difficult now a days?

I think the point is to apply ideas in new ways, to make new connections; but how do I do that?

When I am presented with ideas so well thought out and innovative, they intimidate me. I would want to learn everything possible about a subject before I even began to try and make connections. I am intimidated by the depth and extents of ideas. I fear being left out in the dark, I fear the unknown. Therefore it drives me to learn before analyzing. And often run off into tangents on topics and their subdivisions. I want to learn at my own pace, and own structure. I need a sense of control.

Unfortunately education has evolved into a tight budgeted schedule; Forcing deadlines and ultimatums upon curious youths. Hasn’t it been said that the brain is like a sponge the first few decades or so of social life? Education’s purpose is to inform new beings, blank slates, of all that came before them, and for them to ideally use that knowledge of the past to provide future contributions to society. However, I feel that it has more or less become a race to see who can recite the most, the fastest; not about making new connections and learning freely about subjects. I don’t like my history being spoon fed to me.

Originality is dying, as educational systems focus upon intelligence ratings based on the ability to remember and recite historical information. Students who want to learn are being denied access to knowledge based on a grading system. I admit there are some who refuse to learn, and they should not be forced to do so. People have to be willing, and stressing them will not encourage them to want to learn. These people should be taught generalized information and HOW to access information so that when the time comes that they want to know something they can readily access it and learn! For those who want to learn it is critically important to learn about the past before even trying to consider new ideas on the forefront of human thinking. You have to know where their ideas came from. You have to know the basics. You can’t know calculus until you know how to count. People who want to learn shouldn’t be restricted to their lack of absorbing information, there is a lot to learn, and it’s hard to accept historical analysis before knowing what was being analyzed.

One change I would like to see in the educational systems should be to present the option to take classes presenting current work and ideas for particularly high school students who have an understanding of social skills and want to strive for more. It will provide purpose to those who feel lost in the past and cannot see the connection that information could possibly have to their lives.

What it all boils down to is…

The BIG Educational Problem

There is a lot of information in the world. It is severely intimidating to accept that we will not know everything in our lifetime, causing us to be selectively ignorant to ideas that in the past were not socially acceptable, reoccurring in present society. That eliminates the responsibility to know at least some knowledge. Unfortunately that leads to discrimination and other nasty social disorders due to the lack of information that we thought we did not need.

Society and School boards regulate the information we learn for the most critical portion of our lives, leaving little room for what in individual might think of as important compared to what was important in the older generation’s societies. This is unfortunate and a very difficult problem to fix, because we are all bias according to our generation it is an indestructible yet flexible cycle.

The most fundamental skills that all people should learn is how to cope with the frustration of massive, complex, ideas; and learn to accept that they “might” not be able to learn it all. Once again we fear the unknown, it drives us to try to control the chaos that is awareness and ingenuity; we desperately try to conquer the unknown.

Conclusions…

What is the purpose of learning?

To learn the unknown, then try to childishly try to conquer the constantly growing unknown, as our answers only lead to more questions. How frustrating is that?!

Why do we fear the unknown, the uncontrollable, and the unmentionable?

Because being unaware, is to not exist.

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