The earlier you fail in life – the better. It means you’ll have more time to redefine yourself. You’ll have more time to explore the possibilities and learn from your mistakes. Of course, it’s never too late to start over, but if you ask me – I’d rather be a loser in high school than be a total failure in adult life. It’s the “he who laughs last” type of mentality.
Changing the subject, I wanted to express my opinion about the modern-day education – it’s so outdated and specified to kill the individualism. The biggest bullies in schools are not the “tough guys” or “rich kids” – it’s the teachers and administration. I can only speak from my own experience going to school in Lithuania and Germany, but I’ve been especially horrified and petrified by the teachers in my home country. Not going too much into details, I’ll just say that I’ve been yelled at and called humiliating names on a daily basis. Everyone was targeted and the principal with the administration were the last instance – nobody would leave their rooms without crying their eyes out. So, the teachers got backed up by the principal and the principal got backed up by the parents, because our old-school society was raised to think that the authority is always right and it will never even occur in their minds to question anything. Only in retrospective I do realize what a traumatizing experience that was and that it is not okay to grow up in such toxic environment. But it is unfortunately only a small portion of a much larger picture or a problem, if you may.
The basics of nowadays educational system were created about a 100 years ago and fit well the industrial world, where the individual didn’t exist and everyone lived just fine by following the orders from above for more or less the whole duration of their lives. Unless you’ve been living under the rock – it is not the world nowadays. Apart from the pandemic, we live in a much more dynamic world, where technologies and connection offer us way more possibilities and allow us – or even maybe force us – to be creative. Every year new job titles and industries are being created that no one ever imagined it would ever exist. With almost every aspect of our lives being so rapidly changed and modernized we yet need to take our future seriously – the education of our children – and finally stop killing the individual. I’m not saying math is useless – I’m saying maybe teach it while implementing it into tax-declaration forms? Talk not only about the development of ancient law, but why is it important to go voting now and what is fake news. Not only when the first car was created, but why is it important to pay your insurance when you eventually do end up having one. How to present yourself at a job interview without assuming that your good grades will do the work for you.
Having said all that, I do not have the perfect solution or the answers to all the questions, but at least considering it for a moment is an important step, in my humble opinion. I still went to those schools and continue getting my “basic” education in a university, but it only makes sense to me now because I got lucky in life to meet the right people and read the right books at the right time. I still had to learn a lot by myself and it is not easy to take the full responsibility for your life when there’s no clear role model in your circumstances and you’re just a typical millennial overwhelmed with all the comparison the media offers.
Understanding the world around you starts within yourself – you can’t take a step in the right direction without knowing who you truly are and what you want.
Love, Faja
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