the education system is fraudulent
hyperbole aside, far too much goes unquestioned in the way schools are designed
My transition to post-grad life was weird and confusing. For the past 16 years, I spent 8-9 months every single year embedded within some educational system or another. My thoughts and my desires were all dominated by education-related topics, like what extracurriculars or majors to pursue. And suddenly, it was all over a year ago when I received a fancy piece of paper with a couple of cool signatures that marked my departure from college. Nothing really prepared me for the vacuum I experienced following my graduation; I had no idea what to replace those thoughts and desires with.
As I’ve learned to fill that vacuum with new forms of meaning, I’ve realized that to take steps towards reaching the depths of experience and purpose that I crave, I’ve had to unlearn things I subconsciously picked up through the education system.
At a high level, I’ve come to believe that the lasting legacy and impact of our time spent in the education system isn’t the content that we learn or the relationships that we build, but rather the way that we think. And the way that it trains us to think is dominated by the lens of achievement and utility, forcing us to be forever stuck in a rat race driven by relativistic comparisons against one another. It’s a dangerous thought system that prioritizes competition at the expense of compassion, judgement at the expense of curiosity, and superficiality at the expense of depth. And I think it’s this ingrained mindset that we learn in school that’s behind a lot of the problems that we face today.
This post is borne from this general idea that frames my beliefs about the education system. It’s split up into three parts:
1. My main criticisms about the education system as it is
2. Why we should be skeptical about the system’s purpose
3. Why you should be skeptical of my skepticism
Above all, I just want to make the case that we not only should, but we need to deeply investigate the assumptions that underlie the design of our education system.
Criticisms
I have lots of beef with the education system, but these 4 specific issues highlight the main ways I think the education system messes up the way that we think:
1. It over-optimizes for grades and test scores
Goodhart’s law states the following:
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
I think that’s exactly what’s happened at schools. There’s such a massive hyper-fixation on grades and test scores, so naturally people are encouraged to figure out hacks to try to maximize those numbers. This is why it probably makes sense for a lot of people to take specialized test-prep classes or consider cheating; the marginal benefits of getting a better test score are in theory more important the marginal improvement in generalized intelligence you’d get from investing your time in being curious and actually learning stuff.
(Okay fine, I’m sure you learn some stuff from test-prep classes, I’m just bewildered that a test-prep industry exists, one in which the ones creating the test-prep materials are the test providers themselves…so the ones who typically perform better on the tests are the ones who pay the test providers for better prep materials…I can’t be the only one that sees a problem with that, right?)
So it’s not really surprising that IQ and overall intelligence levels have been dropping in recent decades. We’ve created an environment that rewards shortcuts and hacks at the expense of creativity and intellectual curiosity.
2. It relies on a prescriptive model of learning
There’s no such thing as learning through exploration anymore - educational curriculums define what it is that you’re supposed to learn as well as how you’re supposed to learn it. I think the longer term impact of this is that it trains us to craft our thinking to be in line with what other’s define as “the correct way”. Instead of being curious and creating our own approaches to solving problems, we’re always stuck recreating thought patterns that are prescribed to us. I don’t think this is a good thing.
3. Its adopts a piecemeal approach to learning
There’s no greater example of this through any literary curriculum. Most avid readers know that part of the joy inherent in reading is losing yourself in the book and reading freely, later reflecting on the parts that resonated most with you. Instead of being encouraged to adopt our own lens at the things we read, we’re told to read the book through the eyes of teachers and literary analysts, ripping apart each page to search for metaphors, themes, and symbols that others deem are important. It’s so awful and it made me hate reading. It’s like analyzing the Mona Lisa by looking at it brushstroke by brushstroke and trying to figure out which brushstrokes are the most influential ones. We miss the beauty inherent in the piece as a whole.
This applies to the way everything is set up in general; all of our education is atomized into smaller and smaller chunks, walls are drawn up between the disciplines of art, science, literature, etc., and we never ask any questions or think about interesting ways all the disciplines influence one another. It removes the joy from everything.
4. It turns students into objects of utility
Right from a very early and formative stage in our development, we’re taught to define ourselves by our output, to define ourselves relative to the value that others assign to us, always to be judged by “authority figures” that are external to us. If we do good on spelling tests and basic maths in Kindergarten, we’re smart and have potential. If we don’t, something is wrong with us, we’re implicitly told we’re not worth as much as the other normal kids, and we’re given pills to treat our perceived learning disabilities. Early evaluations not only lead to kids creating potentially dangerous labels for themselves (that often persist through adulthood), but they also quickly train us to always compare ourselves to one another, creating ripe conditions for bitter competition and envy. No kid should have to deal with all that.
Aside from the danger in early childhood evaluations, we are also implicitly given the message that things are only valuable as long as they are a means to an end. Homework is only worth doing if we receive credit for it. Clubs are only worth joining if they look good on applications. Experiences are only worth having if they improve our resume. We’re never given the chance to do or enjoy things for the sake of it; we’re trained to maximize the perceived utility that everything brings. And the utility of things is never defined by us; it’s always externally defined. We cede our own power and are forever stuck chasing prestige in the eyes of others, never finding fulfillment because we never learn to find it within ourselves.
This is why I fundamentally believe that capitalism is more than an economic system; it’s a way of thinking that turns us into utility-maximizing machines that exist only to evaluate the world around us instead of experience it. But that’s a discussion for another time.
Purpose
These criticisms stem from a (pretty naive) vision of the purpose of the education system that you could probably pick up on: it’s meant to develop intellectual curiosity, encourage exploration, and expose us to fascinating ideas.
That begs the question - what is the purpose of the education system as it is set up right now?
I’ll start with the observation that the United States government is a corporation. I’m pretty sure it’s legally defined as one, but even if its not, I think it’s a pretty accurate heuristic for how it operates. Just like all other corporations, it exists to maximize shareholder value.
The education system is a core competency of this corporation, and its purpose is to serve the interests of the corporation as a whole. In theory, the best way to support the USA inc. could be by pumping out obedient workers that will support our domestic industries (to help us in our geopolitical conflict with, for example, China) without having the critical consciousness to dissent or challenge the corporation’s power. In theory, that would require the education system to train workers to be forever beholden to authority figures external to themselves, to focus the curriculum only on STEM to create the maximum domestic supply of tech talent, and to remove all discussion of philosophy or purpose or anything like that from schools to prevent people from becoming more self-aware and challenging entrenched power. Does that not describe the way our system is set up right now?
In this light, it is so naive to think that the public school system is a place in which we get to explore our interests and figure out who we want to be in the world and follow our curiosity. It does not serve us. It serves the government.
Also, just take a look at the incentive structures for schools and teachers. Every single public school system has targets and metrics that they need to hit to maintain their funding and to get bonuses for teachers and principals. Those metrics are defined by (you guessed it), the government, and all we students are are statistics that are used to determine the bonuses of our superintendents. If you’re a student that’s interested in going to college and taking lots of AP tests, you get SO much support from the school. If not, you’re on your own chief because we don’t value you.
This isn't because there are evil people that want bad things for us in the government - this is by design. This is capitalism. Capitalism turns everything into objects of utility that must be optimized to serve the interests of the shareholders of the corporation. And who are the current shareholders? The billionaires and lobbyists and the oligarchs that have politicians in their back pocket and whoever the hell holds the $20+ trillion of debt that we're in. That leaves most of us in the rearview mirror stuck as little pawns to be maneuvered around on a chessboard that we never asked to be on.
Self-skepticism
This is all pretty extreme and high level. I’m honestly unsure of how convinced I myself am of the above arguments for the following reasons:
1. I am very biased
For some reason, it’s always way easier to remember all the negative things about something instead of the positive. I think this is because of the fundamental attribution error i.e. the law that says we take all the credit for our own successes and blame others for our failures. In my case, I’m putting giving the education system zero credit for crafting me into the person I am today, instead giving it all the blame for my problems. This is probably dishonest and petty. And it is certainly disrespectful towards the numerous wonderful teachers I’ve had in my life that I’m extremely grateful for. It likely stems from my frustration that my intellectual curiosity and creativity were killed for the better part of the past decade. I didn’t read a book for a span of like 10 years! I’m so bitter about that. But the question is, does that have more to do with the environment that I was in or was it just a me problem? Who knows 🤷♂️
2. It’s the one institution that counters echo chambers
School really is the only environment that I’ve ever been in where I’ve been forced to interact with people that have literally nothing in common with me. I think that’s really powerful, especially during a time of increased tribalism and polarization. Otherwise I’d be stuck always interacting with people that share things in common with me, creating a distorted vision of the world in my head.
3. I’m not sure what the alternative is
As wack as I think the education system is, it’s probably more nightmarish to think of a world in which parents look at their 7-year old kids and tell them to simply do what makes them happy and explore their curiosity. Even I’m not naive enough to believe they'll do anything except go on Tik Tok or play video games. So how do you strike the right balance between giving kids freedom and independence to explore as well as some semblance of structure so that they’re not the prey of predatory tech companies that are competing to hijack their minds? I have no fucking idea.
Regardless of how much you agree or disagree with my criticisms, my underlying argument is that there is far too much that is unquestioned in the way the education system is designed. I think these design choices have dramatic impacts on the ways that we are trained to think, and I fear that the thought patterns we build are destructive to our intellectual curiosity, natural creativity, and overall mental health.
Recently, I’ve become so fearful of the influences of the education system that I’ve started considering the idea of homeschooling my kids in the future, at least through like 6th grade. I’m so curious about how it would go. I really believe that I could lay a better foundation for my kids than the education system, but I’m also really scared that my hubris in thinking this and my ignorance of the value of the system could mess up my kids’ upbringing. Maybe I shouldn’t be experimenting with something like this. These are pretty high stakes after all. I have no idea where I’ll end up landing in the future.
But I’m a long ways away from having to answer that question. Ask me again in 10 years; maybe I’ll have a better idea then.