Education got us here, but where?

How did you do at school? Was studying your thing? Or did you just go there because you had to be somewhere while your parents were at work? Did you like school? What did you learn, other than to read and count?

Our society is based on learning and education. It is highly rated, but why? If one day you get lost in the woods not knowing your direction, do you know how to survive? Can you count or read your way through the jungle? I went to school in 1970-80s they didn’t teach us to navigate from the stars, or what berries, mushrooms or plants to eat if there was nothing else. Or how to make drinkable water from a lake. But they taught us how Europeans found other continents and brought the civilization to savages. Although later I learned it was not true. Why was I lied to? Now I know that it was other way around; the Europeans conquered the lands and killed their early civilization bringing them disruption, war and hate. What else did they lie about? This made me think why did I have to go to school in the first place, if not to educate to live righteously and truthfully?

We are wise human beings until the school age. We’re like sponges sucking in all that surrounds us. And that is the best time to put us in our place. At school we learn to wake up early, we learn to work hard, and to do as we’re told, we learn to stay in place until freed to go, we learn to ask permission, and to obey authorities. Systematically, first by playing, and then by punishing us we learn how to live thinking we are free, but are we really?

I think children should be taught to read. After they know how to read, they should be left alone inside a library for few hours a day and let them read whatever pleases them. If they don’t want to read, they should be taken out to the woods to learn how-to live-in nature. Some people are readers some feel more secure in the woods. Children know what they want, we don’t need to tell them what they must want. But who chooses the books in that library, that is a valuable question? 

I think we all should have freedom of choice. Even children. Only thing we need to teach to our children is how to value and respect life, how to live with others in peace, and how to always help those who need to be helped. Life is simple, we should not complicate it.

Photo: Deleece Cook / Unsplash