What is an education? Truly a very difficult subject in a way, isn’t it? You ask yourself, when we begin life, all of us, I am sure, want to be educated. We want to learn some skill set that will carry us forward in life. But there seems to be a tremendous amount of concern and confusion about education, doesn’t there?
We’re all told now, I think, for the most part, finish high school, go to university, get probably at least a master’s degree. It’s what sir Ken Robinson always calls educational inflation. So a BA now becomes an MA, and an MA now becomes a PH d. So get this m a and then graduate. You will get a good job and, inevitably, you will lead a good life.
But the model is flawed because it’s not true. Last year, 50% of university graduates in the first world, in Asia, and in North America and Europe didn’t get a job or they were underemployed. So the promise of salvation wasn’t offered to the vast majority of people. Why? Well, basically, because university has become job training.
It was never designed to be job training. That was supposedly where the trades took over. If you wanted to be a plumber, an electrician, a house builder, extremely well paid. But this is where you went for 2 or 3 years. Then eventually, you were apprenticed to a master and you gained skill and you were able to join an association, an organization, a guild, whatever it was, and you lived a good life.
But you were not a thinker in the classic sense. You were a worker and a well paid worker and that’s a good thing. But now, there is some belief on the part of young people for sure that going to university somehow will train you into a higher level of income. But that’s once again, not what it’s for. University ideally trains you to learn how to think.
To think how to think, basically. And this is a skill set that you can use for a lifetime. But if you’re just going there for job training when you get out and you don’t fulfill your career, let’s say for instance, you studied international trade. This seems to be very popular. International trade, whatever that is, and you get out, well, there aren’t many positions in international trade.
You most assuredly end up at in a service job. You’re a waitress or you end up in some office or you work for the government. And then sadly, you end up embittered. Because an education should be something that frees you for the rest of your life. Now if you think back to when you were a young person in, let’s say, elementary school, you did something.
Perhaps you did a project that was really attractive and that stayed with you and continues to stay with you to this very day. So I had a similar project. When I was in grade 7, we had to do a project on the Roman Empire. And we also had to do another project on the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, etcetera. I never forgot this.
To this day, I’m interested in the Roman Empire, Roman architecture, and all the rest of it and the Persian empire. And I don’t think I’m different than everyone else. So I learned from this. This was something that I was interested in, and I was gonna retain this for the rest of my life. So this is what an education is capable of doing.
As William Butler Yeats’ great quote, education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Now isn’t that so true? So you think to yourself that the model actually should be, I go to high school and then I do what I want to do at university. Perhaps I wanna study history or I want to study philosophy, whatever it is. And then once I graduate, unless I become, of course, a lawyer, a doctor, a dentist, some specialized or profession, then I can train again.
I can train to be a salesman, for instance, or I can become a stock broker, or I can become an entrepreneur. Things that will lend themselves to an above average income. And my education will be the underpinning of what all of this actually is. So the next time you think about an education, think to yourself, I’m going to be a lifetime learner. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I’m going to learn.
And by learning, I’m going to be free. And just then, we will then stumble into something very precious because you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is everything. And of course, critical thinking is great. You take care. Bye bye.