Here’s a short video of Seth Godin:
Here’s the money quote:
For 7, 10, 15 years of school, you are required to not be curious. Over and
over and over again, the curious are punished.
P.S. Every educator (and other change agents) should see Seth’s speech at TED.
This post made me remember how much easier college was once I realized that I was penalized for suggesting new ideas and rewarded for restating exactly what was in the textbook or the lectures. I justified it by saying that you have to learn from history before you can really start creating, and that makes sense.
But now I’m out in the real world working in K12 education, and the decision-makers that I have to go through are just like my college professors in this regard…so I hope (pretend?) that somewhere out there there is an industry where new ideas are considered.
Thankss
The only valid education is home schooling, the only industry where new ideas are considered is self-employment! The rest is a costruct, a system of conformity which produces predictable and detrimental results and that’s why it’s ‘set up’ this way. All animals and humans can be defined as alive by their expression of curiosity. As you know it keeps us alive, aware, keeps us ever-learning and growing the understanding and expanding boundaries of the Self. The deliberate stifling of human curiosity is killing our creative abilities and freedom; it is killing us. Millions of experiments have been done in order to find the best ways in which to produce compliant slaves and automatic zombies. We see the success of this science of psychology, technology and biology everywhere, everytime we ask why, propose a creative solution or attempt to obtain funding for a business or project that will make a real contribution and difference! The only solution is to rebel, to walk against the system and crowd by being curious as to how to overcome this enormous obstacle of institutionalised non-sense. Education is simply indoctrination into a system of laws and rules working against our best interests. There’s got to be a market for enterprising teachers to homeschool children to levels of personal excellence on all subjects of life beyond the box. It is the only chance for the survival of our species! Good luck.