Harro! It's been awhile. Excuse the cheesy attempt to greet in an East Asian accent. It has been a good four months since my last post and there is good reason for it. No actually there is none. But anyways its the intent to keep moving on that counts! Not the volume of production! Enough with excuses!
Ok so here's what I really want to explore my mind into today. Education. I obsessively allocate space in my mind for education for a very simple reason. It is by far the most important sector in the economy and it is a pillar for all societies. However the term 'education' is precariously vague. In an attempt to disambiguate the foggy nature of education, I was inspired by an article cum tweet that appeared on my feed. This article showed me the somewhat erroneous views of the criticized and the critic. More so the critic, for there was more content to evaluate coming out of the critic. For reasons unknown, I shall type out the entire piece.
Anonymous Female:
' You know it's pretty common to hear
"Grades don't define who you are"
"The education system is messed up"
"Just because you get good grades doesn't mean you're intelligent"
Here's what I think. It's fine for someone getting good grades to say something like that, maybe its an attempt to feel humble, maybe its an attempt to motivate your friends do better, that's all cool and fine. You've done your part and you're entitled to your opinion. You know what ticks me off? When students doing poorly in their education use this statements as a reason to justify themselves. Some don't even hesitate to utter this in front of their friends or relative who've done well despite knowing this actually is really offensive to someone who has devoted themselves to their education. You know what? Shame on you. You couldn't even fulfill the primary objective in your life as a young person: which is to educate yourself well.
Yeah sure you can't use Pythagoras Theorem in your daily life basis but hell to that, what's so wrong in learning? It's fine if you're struggling, it is true you can't expect a fish to climb a tree. But what's not cool is you didn't try, you didn't put in the effort, you didn't take the initiative to grasp the knowledge you're required to and to add insult to the injury you can still have dignity to bring someone down for having good grades.
You have one job, you can't even do that s*** right but remember so many kids out there would be doing much better that you if given the same education privilege you have been given instead making lame justifications or coming of as an ignorant fool. Education has the power of changing the lives of families upgrading to them to a higher level in a society and putting an end to unfortunate circumstances that a family is born in such as poverty.
Maybe you don't know the value of education, maybe you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, maybe you have so much money that education is "irrelevant" to you. But bear in mind the luxury you are seated in today is simply because your ancestors knew the worth of education before any of us did hence explaining this little bed of roses you're laying down on. And if you do come from a family who are not well to do, making these statements isn't going to get you anywhere and trust me, your family deserves more than that.
So yes education is an important element in life and education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world for the changes in our world today, they started from men whom educated themselves well and took the effort to share it in the world. '
Well what can I say about this? For one she makes very valid and interesting points. I certainly agree that education is a vital cog in the societal machine. But that's not really a crux of the issue isn't it? Firstly, I would point out that every statement made in bold is true. Grades are superfluous in ones self identity, the Malaysian education system is diabolically anti-learning and grades, especially when reduced to two-hour written papers does not add one iota of improvement to ones intellectual status. It seems that this article fails to have its terms defined properly. For one she affirms the potency of education but then approves the education system as "the primary objective in your life as a young person" . Unless she maintains that the education system in Malaysia beneficial, her argument that formal education is the Summum Bonum of the young persons life is fallacious and destroys more than it builds. Its worth pointing out the passion in this article. One can easily see the emotional investment made into producing this article, and I admire her for her honesty. But there is terribly a tremendous amount of gratuitous guilt-tripping. It is true, should someone use the statements in bold as a 'feel good' method to undermine the achievements of others, his/her actions are to be considered distasteful and flat out false. But the typical go-to tactic formal education advocates use is guilt-tripping. Saying things like ' there's someone else more ill-positioned than you in terms of material wealth and you should be grateful ' is evasive and unhelpful. It does not deal with the fundamental question that everyone should be pestering themselves with: " What is education? ".
I guess in addressing the specific problems that this article tacitly poses, the question most apt to asking is " Can one be educated outside government controlled education platforms? ". Simply, the answer is yes. Now I have no knowledge of the people she criticizes, but one possibility of explaining their failures is that government examinations and education formats are empty. How does one expect to find joy in learning Chemistry when final exams are said to include 20-odd chapters? Sure, one could slog and memorize the ' key words and concepts ' and I'm willing to bet that they will succeed in getting more-than-decent grades. But that is not the essence of education. Giants of intelligentsia past and present would not approve of such monotony. Is there room for romance? By that I mean is there room for a marriage between the individual and the subject? These are irrelevant questions to governments, for to them and their supporters, education is a means to an end not the other way around. So education is simply a stair to walk up to a prize., usually wealth and status. Gone are the days where mathematics is done because of the smile it brings to the individual when cracking an equation but mathematics is pursued insofar as it enables someone to attend Harvard or Cambridge and be an expert in an over-supplied field, like medicine or engineering. Pythagoras Theorem application is boring but the arrival of the conclusions that the theorem provides is the interesting bit. Do public schools teach the application of PT or its arrival on the mathematical scene(historically)?
In short, she attacks statements that are both good and bad, but surely she has a shred of doubt for government schooling right? I believe if she did, she would be more cautious in her writing.
