School, my worst waste of time.
I'm not at all against school, it's just that I was so extremely bored there! Not trying to say that I am incredible smart, but my interests could not be satisfied there: animation, pyro technology, and aviation to name a few (I did get one year aviation science on Flathead high-school!). I was eager to learn, but not most of the on-school knowledge and neither did I like the learning methods; one type of math calculation, forty times! Three times proves enough to my opinion. Anyhow, from looking at my grades everyone could tell I was a pretty dumb boy, and I hated school.
If I could do primary-highshool all over again, next to hunting girls and doing sport I would not obey the rules of school, only do what I think is useful and fun, and probably being kicked of of school. Problem is the knowledge; not all kinds were available, just the supposedly most important/fundamental ones, of which most proved to be useless.
Teachers can't know it all, and a school's library books can't contain all up-to-date knowledge. Today there is the internet, giving access to a great chaotic library... But than still, having access to all of the worlds text and images does not mean you know it all. Learning how to walk is not done by reading a book about it; you have to experience it, do it.
Is it wise to specialize a young kid? Not all kids have a special interest and will it lead to billions of firefighters and horse doctors? Some kids just want to fuck it all, although that can be a sign of being bored, having no place to direct your energy on. I love and hate kids, am no kid specialist anyhow. But I do know that I would have loved to have had a specialized training as a kid.
What are the most important/fundamental things to learn? I think being treated as a hard-disk is not good, but learning how to learn is. The "old folks" are not the smart ones per definition. War, not working together, the lack of a global language, no clear definition of future plans, pollution of our planet, short time financial profit being more important then doing the right thing, I am ashamed of the stone-age human behavior of today. |
Giesbert Nijhuis
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