How to Explain Education to your Kids and in your College Essays
Our reasons for learning change as we grow
All of us have gone to at least one school, some of us to college and maybe beyond that. Somewhere along the line, it might be confusing as to whether it was really worth it all. You know your education added value but you are unable to place your finger on exactly how it did. The thing is that the ‘what’ and ‘how’ may not have changed much along your journey, but the ‘why’ very likely has.
After a bit of introspection, I find our learning needs evolve in quite a structured fashion:
1. Learning to discover new things
This is how we begin as a child. We don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know what we know either (see Johari Window). Everything is new and either exciting or boring. We don’t yet know how a boring subject will actually be useful in life, or how a highly interesting hobby will turn out to be of no consequence. We try everything.
The purpose of this stage is to poke ourselves inside our heads and see how our bodies and minds respond. This stage helps us discover what we like and dislike — you know, favorite colors, foods, friends and ‘rivals’. Our personality forms at this stage by using the school as a ‘poking board’ to find out where we are hard and where are soft.
We discover a new world, but more importantly, we discover our ‘self’.
2. Learning to create what you want
Starting around teenage, we are asked to choose electives and streams of study in high school. Our ‘self’ is sufficiently formed to help us know what we like and don’t like, and more importantly predict what we will like and won’t like.
Will our predictions come true? We do not know — but it is better to live by our own choices than die by following others’ bad advice. We discover not just that we like and dislike things, but that we can make choices that will affect our future.
We learn responsibility — for making choices without experiencing the consequences (positive or negative) will only make us feel impotent. We begin to push against the world. The world has already poked a few holes in us — it is time we poked a few holes in the world and see who wins.
In a far deeper sense, we realize that the outer world and our inner self are linked — you can’t discover and play with one without the other. You begin to subconsciously feel the spiritual significance of the outer world reflecting your inner state.
3. Learning to fill in gaps in what you don’t know
As you move past high school to college, you are confident enough to have developed a ‘point of view’ of the world. You know yourself, and you know the outer world. You know the rules of the game — what will get you rewarded and what will get you in trouble.
You begin college life on a sound footing, only to realize that it is not enough to follow the rules you know. You realize there are thousands of rules that you barely know — about how the world works, and by extension, how you work. You begin to feel dumb — it is a terrible feeling when you experience it, and will form a wonderful memory ten years later.
You realize you knew about your self and how to express your will, but you knew nothing about how to manage your willpower and energy. College becomes the carpenter who shapes you into something uhh….that looks like a shape. Your edges become more solid, you become less chubby (physically, mentally and emotionally).
You discover that you can never know everything. You ‘learn how to learn’ so you can survive long after you leave college. You learn to manage uncertainty.
4. Learning to create something of your own
As you start work, you may feel the need for a Masters degree. It could be due to needing a promotion at work or just feeling the need to master a subject further. You tire of working on something visualized by others. You know what you know, you know there’s a lot you don’t know — but surely there can be something you can do to set you apart?
You seek to differentiate, stand apart. Earlier, during school and college, you were seeking companionship and camaraderie. Now you seek individuality and the ability to leave your mark on the world. You seek to create what hasn’t been seen before.
You realize Masters degrees typically seek a capstone project or research thesis, something that is the culmination of all knowledge acquired this far. It is a chance for you to sprout your own theory of how the world work (but guided by a supervisor who helps define your boundaries).
You realize that you may never know everything and that is exactly the reason you can always create something new. Ignorance is bliss, for it leads to innovation.
We begin our lives and educational journeys as empty slates. We then figure out how the slate works and scribble on it meaninglessly. Then we learn to write, with refined handwriting. We then learn to erase what we write on the slate and replace it with something new. Finally, somewhere along the way, we take a step back, look at our writing, and go buy a fresh larger slate.
