The Evolution of Learning and Education
Why DO people learn?
Or more accurately, since I am discussing the evolution of learning: Why DID people begin learning? To put things straight, people began learning out of a need to understand or manipulate what was happening around them. Mr. Oog Neanderthal was probably cheesed off at having his fire blown out by the wind each night, so after what mustve been a gruelling bout of thinking; (they werent quite as intelligent as we are!) he managed to invent the first door. Aristocratus Democritus mustve sneezed out something really nasty while addressing the Senate and thus discovered the need for a handkerchief! Simple examples really, but they all go on to show that mans need to learn, develop and innovate stemmed from his desire to channel what was happening around him to his advantage.
Then came the idea of a school. Hey, why dont you all drop by under the banyan tree tomorrow morning and well talk about the alignment of the stars, Ive been studying. said Iwannaspread Myknowledge. Thats probably how it all started anyways. (Do not quote me on this, Im not a historian!) Of course, the turnout at Mr. Myknowledges first lecture mustve been pretty good, because the idea of private schooling has become pretty popular hasnt it?
Now heres where it begins to go all wrong for me. There a couple of worrying trends about the future that actually got me thinking about this.
1. People are growing older, but theyre also living longer and healthier lives today.
2. Workers retire at about 65 forcing them to get onto social welfare or pension schemes.
What this is doing is putting quite a strain on the economy right now and its not getting any better. Why are older people, who can make fairly good use of their existing faculties, forced to retire? Why are they unable to re-train themselves to perform less strenuous work? They are reasonably fit in both mind and body.
Heres the problem: The education system doesnt train you to live and lead a productive life. It trains you to get a job. The system has divorced itself from propelling freely thinking minds towards knowledge they want. Instead its become a system that pushes people towards knowledge that it needs them to have. It worked well as long as the population of the country was low, and the unemployment rate was manageable. What has changed is the kinds of needs that the economy has from the workforce.
Weve got one billion people in countries like India and China, all of whom think in much the same manner as far as what theyve learned in school goes. Theyve not been able to develop specialised skills towards newer opportunities that the market has thrown up. What will kill the economies of the future is this. 55% of Indians today are under the age of 25. 40 years from now, these people will retire. India will be the 2nd largest consumer economy in the world. But it will have over half of its population taken away from factories and offices because they are unable to contribute productively. 1 billion Indians will be eating, drinking consuming. But 550 million of those will not be doing anything to put it resources back into the economy. Spending will increase but incomes will collapse.
An ugly deficit seems to be looming large! We need to do something to reverse this right now. This includes a lot of economic measures, but more importantly, we need to work out a way in which these 550 million people can continue to contribute to the economy past the age of 65. We need to train them with skills that will enable them to learn new means of earning livelihoods at 45 or 50. But that sort of training needs to begin now. It definitely is hard for someone to change habits once theyve settled themselves or established a career. However if the expectation of a citizen is that he will be able to find a job even at 65 that will let him remain productive, without straining him too much, weve got a whole lot of people making a lot of money for this economy.
Im firmly against legislated family planning enforcing a one child rule. It violates the freedom of choice that is sacred to any man or woman. A government working for the people must serve the peoples best interests. We need to demand a better education system that doesnt just prepare us to earn more money, but also allows us to live a more gratifying future. We need an education system that produces citizens with life skills and the propensity for enterprise. 50 years from now, were going to need more Mr. Oog Neanderthals but were also going to need more Mr. Iwannaspread MyKnowledges who are willing to share their knowledge not because they want to produce workers, but because they want to produce citizens who no matter what they're age, will continue to remain resourceful and productive in a society that needs all hands on deck!
Why DO people learn?
Or more accurately, since I am discussing the evolution of learning: Why DID people begin learning? To put things straight, people began learning out of a need to understand or manipulate what was happening around them. Mr. Oog Neanderthal was probably cheesed off at having his fire blown out by the wind each night, so after what mustve been a gruelling bout of thinking; (they werent quite as intelligent as we are!) he managed to invent the first door. Aristocratus Democritus mustve sneezed out something really nasty while addressing the Senate and thus discovered the need for a handkerchief! Simple examples really, but they all go on to show that mans need to learn, develop and innovate stemmed from his desire to channel what was happening around him to his advantage.
Then came the idea of a school. Hey, why dont you all drop by under the banyan tree tomorrow morning and well talk about the alignment of the stars, Ive been studying. said Iwannaspread Myknowledge. Thats probably how it all started anyways. (Do not quote me on this, Im not a historian!) Of course, the turnout at Mr. Myknowledges first lecture mustve been pretty good, because the idea of private schooling has become pretty popular hasnt it?
Now heres where it begins to go all wrong for me. There a couple of worrying trends about the future that actually got me thinking about this.
1. People are growing older, but theyre also living longer and healthier lives today.
2. Workers retire at about 65 forcing them to get onto social welfare or pension schemes.
What this is doing is putting quite a strain on the economy right now and its not getting any better. Why are older people, who can make fairly good use of their existing faculties, forced to retire? Why are they unable to re-train themselves to perform less strenuous work? They are reasonably fit in both mind and body.
Heres the problem: The education system doesnt train you to live and lead a productive life. It trains you to get a job. The system has divorced itself from propelling freely thinking minds towards knowledge they want. Instead its become a system that pushes people towards knowledge that it needs them to have. It worked well as long as the population of the country was low, and the unemployment rate was manageable. What has changed is the kinds of needs that the economy has from the workforce.
Weve got one billion people in countries like India and China, all of whom think in much the same manner as far as what theyve learned in school goes. Theyve not been able to develop specialised skills towards newer opportunities that the market has thrown up. What will kill the economies of the future is this. 55% of Indians today are under the age of 25. 40 years from now, these people will retire. India will be the 2nd largest consumer economy in the world. But it will have over half of its population taken away from factories and offices because they are unable to contribute productively. 1 billion Indians will be eating, drinking consuming. But 550 million of those will not be doing anything to put it resources back into the economy. Spending will increase but incomes will collapse.
An ugly deficit seems to be looming large! We need to do something to reverse this right now. This includes a lot of economic measures, but more importantly, we need to work out a way in which these 550 million people can continue to contribute to the economy past the age of 65. We need to train them with skills that will enable them to learn new means of earning livelihoods at 45 or 50. But that sort of training needs to begin now. It definitely is hard for someone to change habits once theyve settled themselves or established a career. However if the expectation of a citizen is that he will be able to find a job even at 65 that will let him remain productive, without straining him too much, weve got a whole lot of people making a lot of money for this economy.
Im firmly against legislated family planning enforcing a one child rule. It violates the freedom of choice that is sacred to any man or woman. A government working for the people must serve the peoples best interests. We need to demand a better education system that doesnt just prepare us to earn more money, but also allows us to live a more gratifying future. We need an education system that produces citizens with life skills and the propensity for enterprise. 50 years from now, were going to need more Mr. Oog Neanderthals but were also going to need more Mr. Iwannaspread MyKnowledges who are willing to share their knowledge not because they want to produce workers, but because they want to produce citizens who no matter what they're age, will continue to remain resourceful and productive in a society that needs all hands on deck!
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