Because I have posted a long comment on a friend's Facebook post, which I think is worth to share with more people and keeping a record of it, I'll make use of it here as well. If by chance you read this, please let me know your thoughts!
School, as a whole concept, is the best way that human beings can evolve and develop themselves. Nevertheless, is full of structural flaws, such as:
- The system that is used is dramatically outdated, as it comes from the beginning of the last century when workers were supposed to execute, and not think;
- It is full of bias, as it is either public, so you learn the current governments' narrative of the facts (colonialist countries, for example, mine, portray it in a very romanticized way), or private, where all that matters is profit and not actual knowledge.
- This bias has the mission of keeping the status quo, and that is why, in most countries, the school system is not made to make you think by yourself but to "teach" you how to think like they want you to. The reason why you don't learn basic financial education, politics (not just history of politics) and so on is sole because, the more ignorant the people, the less likely the establishment is to change. The whole sphere of what you learn is only what is "acceptable", giving you the illusion that you can question everything, but in fact, you can only question what is inside that sphere.
From my experience, my school time was way too easy. I barely studied, even in university I have, of course, had to but I usually say I only did it in months that start with a J, and ever since my first year of primary school until my last year of masters I saw colleagues studying way more than I did, but having worse grades. And why is that? How come a guy like me be rewarded in a system that proclaims that the more you work, the better results you achieve? It's very simple: in a one-size-fits-all system, it is unfair for everybody unless you make yourself fit the norm. It is unfair for the ones that simply do not give two fucks about what is the area of a cylinder, and also to the ones that are too sharp and end up learning less than they should. I would always, constantly, year after year, end my tests and exams before most of my colleagues, always listening to comments like "Pedro's again rushing for it, surely he'll have a bad grade, besides he barely studies" and again and again I was top of the class. What kind of example of a good system is this?
The school system has to change, but society has as well. In BEST [Board of European Students of Technology, a pan-European organization which aims to empower diversity and develop European Higher Education students] we focus on making students attractive to companies; however, those same companies, most of the time, are not suitable for nowadays' society either. We say we live in a democracy, yet corporations are hierarchical. We say we want to go green, yet we live in a system that puts profit above it all. We say we want to educate people, yet in order to give tax cuts to the rich, we take money out of the Education budget. It's not just the school system that needs change: it's THE whole system.
