Education or indoctrination? My experience in the 'education' system

"If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn't learn to walk without going to school." - Geoff Graham

It wasn't until I left formal 'education' that I really started to educate myself about the things that mattered to me. The big questions - Who am I? Why am I here? Why are we here? Where are we headed? What is the point of all this?

I was so busy living the life others wanted me to live, 'studying' crap I had no interest in, 'learning' crap I can't even remember to this day, that I forgot to take a step back and take a serious, hard look in the mirror.

I came to the conclusion that the entire 'education' system, from school all the way to university, is a load of bollocks. Where are the courses on compassion, on how to grow and evolve as a human being, on what matters most to the human experience?

Where are the courses on life?!

That's right, there aren't any. You won't find any courses on life in a machine that is devoid of life.

Students are taught that truth comes from authority, that everything worth learning comes from the outside rather than the inside. The entire system is designed to keep kids in a perpetual state of fear, worried about whether or not they'll 'pass' or 'fail' in their exams, desperate to earn the approval of their teachers, parents and peers.

And people wonder why suicide rates are so high amongst young adults, why so many millennials are killing themselves?!

The biggest lesson taught in school isn't Maths, English or Science, it is that obedience to authority is a virtue. Children are taught WHAT to think, not HOW to think, and thus, their ability to critically analyse themselves and the world around them is greatly impaired.

The reason philosophy isn't taught in school isn't because the kids wouldn't understand the material, it is because they would probably stop attending school within the first couple of weeks of learning how to think for themselves.

I honestly learned more in the first few months of leaving school, college and university, than I did in my entire twenty-plus years of so-called formal education. I genuinely can't remember learning anything of true value.

Children must be given the freedom to learn what they want to learn, at their own pace, and not be FORCED into a system that destroys their natural curiosity and imagination.

I truly believe we are all born geniuses, and that it is up to each one of us to discover where our genius lies, to cultivate it and share it with the rest of the world for the enrichment of society.