The Problem of Education

Modern information and communication technology has made traditional education modes obsolete -- because now, the learner can dictate the pace of his own learning, rather than that being controlled by the “teacher,” whose self-interest and orientation is to make a short story long. The student-learner, on the other hand, wants to learn as much as possible in as little time as possible -- so there is that basic conflict of interest in the student-teacher relationship. The teacher of course, will try to convince his student that he is forcing the student to do what he really isn’t interested in -- for his own good, as though they knew better, but really, he is merely imposing his own interests over the interests of another. That relationship is not only obsolete but destructive -- but that adopted by many as the popular notion of what good, traditional education is all about -- disciplining oneself to satisfy the wishes of another, as though that were some virtue.

Education has value in that it serves the individual -- and not because it provides lifetime employment security for the teacher. Any self-respecting teacher who understands this is worthy of the title of Teacher. The rest have no business in teaching. They, in fact, have nothing of value to teach -- and their students may spend their whole lifetimes trying to overcome such teaching -- if they ever do. Not only might the information have been erroneous -- but they have also taught and reinforced the resistance to learning any new information that might challenge what they have taught. Students of such education grow up determined never to want to learn anything more once they leave school -- because they have been conditioned to believe that learning anything must be this torturous experience of denying their own common sense and sensibilities, in deference to the alleged superiority of these self-anointed others.

The good teacher understands the disrepute that poor teachers have given to the basic, healthy impulse to learn -- all one’s life. It should not be an extraordinary thing -- but has become so because of poor teachers, or institutionalized education, which merely ensures jobs for “professional” teachers. That designation alone is already an oxymoron -- because learning should be the ultimate “amateur” experience -- beginning with the presumption that one does not know, rather than the categorization of those who know and those who don’t know. What the good teacher teaches, is not what he knows, but how to find out, when he doesn’t know. That requires the beginning admission that he doesn’t know, and will demonstrate how he goes about finding out.

Those who do teach such methodology, are worthy of the title “Master,” as such teachers truly merit the designation. Learning that skill allows the student to become the Master -- the master of his own learning, and life, which is the true purpose of education. One begins by questioning everything, assuming nothing to be true -- until what remains is self-evidently true -- not the overriding of commonsense with theory and ideology, but the reaffirmation and reconnection of idea with experience. That connection has been lost in modern pedagogy when many are now teachers because they’ve simply been certified to teach -- having learned no such mastery over anything else worth teaching. When such “experts” are challenged as to their authority, their response invariably is, “We have to move on; there is so much material to cover” -- which indicates the worthlessness of such an education.