School / 1%

Most days I just sit down in the evening and I’ve got a few ideas for topics in my head. Normally the blog posts are directly related to things that happened to me on that day or that affected that specific day.

Today I thought quite early about the topic of Schools and Education as it was the first day of Forest School for my daughter.

However, it’s a controversial topic and since the birth of my daughter I’ve become quite radical about the entire government-run educational treadmill that is dictating our lives. Hence, I tried to avoid writing about the topic. But hey, it’s my blog. Feel free to leave if you don’t like what I’m saying 🙂

The entire idea behind schools and the modern education system is really interesting to me but it would take me weeks to write all my thoughts and opinions down on that topic.

The 99%

In a nutshell, I think if you want your kids to be part of the 99%, then put them into any school of your liking – closest to your home, most modern gym facilities, best language department, whatever. They will learn how to read, write, some maths, a bit of foreign languages, and so on.

They’ll go on to either learn a profession or study at university. Then get a job, work,…

Those are the 99%. The worker bees. The people actually running the countries. Henry Ford’s workers at the assembly line. Listening, executing, not creating any trouble with creative or different thoughts. Just doing what they’re told to do.

The 1%

I, on the other hand, don’t want to be part of the 99%. And neither do I want my family to be part of it.

I’d rather be part of Wall Street than be part of Occupy Wall Street. And I’m not only talking from a financial standpoint here.

I rather create than consume.

I rather decide for myself than have someone else decide for me.

I rather explore than be stuck.

I rather struggle, solving problems in creative ways than struggle on mundane tasks for someone else.

I rather live an exciting life that can get risky than one of cautiousness that’s killing me with boredom.

The list could go on and on. But the key point to take away is that the 1% are most likely not the kind of people who were born and died in the same town, went to school in the same town, married their sweetheart from down the road.

The 1% are adventurers, explorers, risk-takers.

They’re different. They act different. They think different. Find different solution to problems. They are more creative as they have more challenging moments in their lives.

True Happiness

Now if you ask me, what do I want for my daughter in life? It’s a very simple answer: Happiness.

And technically speaking the 99% look happier in a lot of ways. They struggle less with trying to save the world. Their problems on a macro level are smaller. They sleep, eat, work, eat, socialise, sleep, repeat.

The 1% on the other hand try to get the world to the next level. Invent new things. Solve the impossible. Explore. Take big risks. That can be very tiring.

And yes, not everyone has to be the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. Those guys are part of the 0.00001%. I’m not talking about them. Being part of the 1% is way easier achievable. And in a way, it might be even more fulfilling (to be part of the 1% club) than being part of that super exclusive 0.00001% club since it provides enough freedom, but not at a too high price.

So what’s my issue with the education system and schools?

The system was created with everyone (99%) in mind. Where is the creative problem solving? Where is the connection to nature? Where are the computer science lessons before coding became popular? Where are the cryptocurrency lessons when a Bitcoin was worth less than a dollar?

In other words, schools will always lack behind current trends. Nowadays a lot of schools added programming to their curriculum. By the time my daughter would graduate from school in 15-20 years, is it really going to be useful that she knows a bit of PHP, HTML and CSS?

We’ve already now got great website builders and AI (Artificial Intelligence) will take over more and more of the coding, too.

However, the more interesting and useful computer science related lessons could be around really understanding AI and having discussions about things like how to train an AI model.

Strengthening the creativity and creative problem solving skills of kids is another major downfall that isn’t really part of today’s curriculums.

However, those are the topics that are going to be important in 20-50 years time.

As adults, we now go to websites like Coursera to take courses like “Learning how to learn” and we buy lessons on Udemy on topics such as Artificial Intelligence or Creativity. But why wouldn’t we already learn these things decades earlier?

After all, babies and toddlers are some of the most creative and intelligent beings in the world. In a matter of a few years they learn how to eat, walk, play, use their facial expressions, use the bathroom, talk.

My daughter speaks/understands three languages at only 3 years old. I didn’t manage to learn decent Lithuanian while I lived in Vilnius for the past four years. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.