School is for Fools: 10 Reasons the Education System is a Failure

school is for fools

[Last updated 6th November 2019]

The education system is in shambles, and it has been for quite some time now.

This is not weird. Old things break or go obsolete all the time. Why should this be any different?

What’s weird is that people still have an unshakable faith in the system.

The Education is Important; Schooling is Not

Education is important and will only become more important.

Schooling (public education and indoctrination) is just bad. It’s the remnant of a system made obsolete, decades ago.

Schooling used to serve a purpose—like the appendix inside the human body—but now it’s just bad for most of us.

Many aspects of public education are problematic. For example, the usefulness of the grading system is debatable. It disincentives creative and lopsided performance (which are the hallmarks of success in the real world).

And, many times the grading system is just plain wrong. . .

Like When George Orwell’s Writing Didn’t

Qualify for the “High Standards” of Academia

You know Michael Crichton? He’s the guy who wrote Jurassic Park. He was damn smart. Unfortunately he’s dead now.

Crichton started writing early in life. He showed talent from the get-go and was able to support himself through Med school by writing short stories under pen names. But, before that…

…when he was 18 years old, he took an English writing class at Harvard, where he was given C- on a paper. This confused him, because he felt this paper was one of the best he’d ever written.

Not only did the C- anger Crichton, but he really, seriously, believed that his teacher was incompetent and unable to think for himself, outside of the grading criteria. To test if this hypothesis was correct, Crichton decided to do something risky: he submitted a well-known essay written by George Orwell–under his own name!

This was 100% plagiarism. Crichton copied the essay word for word, and if he was found out he would be EXPELLED from Harvard.

When the time came for the grading of this new essay he was given a B-.

George Orwell’s writing wasn’t good enough to make the cut.

That makes you wonder: what does cut it?

What the hell are you supposed to do to get an A?

Crichton was really confused now.

I can relate to that, because I too felt confused many times during my school years. . . starting with when I was a kid.

8-Year Old Ludvig Gets “Put Into His Place”

When I was in second grade I had a friendly competition with a classmate. We competed over who could solve the most math problems each week.

Our class had like 60 kids in it (3 age cohorts, aged 7-9) and for some reason, me and my friend were the only ones good at math.

In our first year (age 7-8) we progressed to doing math books for kids who were 10 years old.

One day, I teased my friend for being slow because I was 10 pages ahead of him. My friend said he didn’t care, “because he was still years before everyone else.”

Our math teacher happened to be nearby when he said this, and she went fucking CRAZY (I don’t know why, no one else cared).

She made a huge scene and embarrassed us in front of the whole class.

“So, you think you’re smart just because you are doing math of people older than your cohort, huh!?”

“How would you like it if I took away your books–huh!? You wouldn’t like that very much, would you know?

We got really scared and pleaded: “No, please don’t take away our books!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!”

“I really should take away your books–that’s serves braggarts such as yourself right, puts you in your place. But I will let you keep them if you apologize to everyone else in the class for bragging and hurting their feelings!”

We promptly apologized to the whole class. They probably didn’t know what was going on, but my interest in math almost died there.

[Fast forward 14 years: at the finish line of uni when. . .]

A Passive-Aggressive Thesis Adviser Tries to Stop 22-Year Old Ludvig from Getting an Auspicious Start to His Career

When I did my thesis project I had to battle a semi-hostile academic overseer.

We had conflicting incentives:

I wanted to learn useful stuff, acquire valuable business contacts, and get the best entry-level marketing job possible.

My handler wanted my thesis to conform to “academic standards” (to be written in a quasi-intellectual style, full of citations of people whose work I haven’t read or don’t agree with) and—of course—to be as easy to grade as possible.

This made me angry, because I had put a shitload of effort into getting a tailor-made thesis project from one of the world’s top brands (IKEA–read how I did it here).

I took more initiative than all of my class combined, cold-called a ton of people, and felt I should be rewarded for it. The least the university could do was to stand out of my way (I got it on my own, let me do it on my own).

Instead they put up obstacles.

I guess they don’t want students to get jobs.

My handler wasn’t supportive at all. If anything, she was trying to sabotage the start of my career.

Looking back on this now, I don’t care at all. But as I reflect on the situation, it really highlights one of the big underlying problems with university. . .

The “Institutionalization of Knowledge” and Its Problems

University is supposed to be a final checkpoint towards work-life: it’s meant to train and empower young people into getting the jobs they want; not to recruit them into the ranks of academia (like a cult).

Unfortunately, this is what has happened.

Like big government, the interest of university is no longer primarily in serving the people–which is why it was created–but in serving itself, and making sure the machine “stays alive,” with its cogs turning.

One of the main ways universities do this is by forcing students to waste their time writing theses (that no one reads or cares about).

This is a Really Shitty Final Rite of Passage Before Entering Work-Life

Why force boring and non-value-adding activities on those who don’t want to join the “institution of knowledge”? Give them a practical assignment instead.

University is now strongly mismatched to the demand of the job market.

College and uni might be a good place for finding yourself (and partying a lot), but it’s not a good place to find a job you’ll love and excel at.

Like My Friend Kyle Eschenroeder Wrote a Few Years Ago:

You go to college to figure out what you want to do, what you like. Going into college I was mainly interested in three things: Libertarian ideas, trading, and making movies. Graduating, those are still the most interesting things to me and none have been enhanced by my college career. In fact, I’m an economics major and my ability to grasp what’s happening in the world is almost totally thanks to the internet and a willingness to read, not their bullshit textbooks.

My Economics degree is like my SAT score, people can look at it and say, well he jumped through those hoops well. More and more companies, especially ones worth working for, are looking at what you can do, what you’ve actually created.

I graduated with a master’s degree in business—and guess what?

–I’ll never have any use for it!

Why?

Because initiative beats “jumping through the hoops” every day of the week.

Now, let me tell you why I think that:

The School System is a Failure

  1. The School System Was Created for the 18th Century
  2. School Teaches You to Fit in…to an Obsolete Economy!
  3. School Turns You Into a Sissy Conformist
  4. School Breaks Down Most People’s Will to Learn
  5. School Doesn’t Cultivate Self-Knowledge
  6. School Turns Independent People into Co-dependent Peons
  7. School is Full of Propaganda
  8. School Doesn’t Teach You How to Think & Develop Your Own Style
  9. School Gives You a False Certainty about Things You Can’t Know
  10. School Indoctrinates False Rules That Handicap You for the Real World

Starting with reason #1…

The School System Was Created for the 18th Century!

It’s hard to pin down when and where public education started, but the first time public education was cohesively organized to fit the needs of an entire country in a successful way, was in Prussia under Frederick the Great ca 1750.

To entrust government with the power of determining education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power of the master.

Frederick the Great

Frederick’s Education System in Prussia:

Frederick turned Prussia into a socialist state with planned economy. The country was so bureaucratic that women had to register the exact date of each month’s period to the state. 1

The purpose of Prussia’s public education was to train citizens into the jobs its government decided was important for the future of the country.

Remember, this was a planned economy (not a free market) and:

  1. The economy, at that time, was simple enough 2 plus,
  2. Prussia’s population was small enough for a bunch of highly intelligent people to “plan ahead”. Frederick and his administrators could make reasonably accurate projections and decide that “we need so-and-so many workers for this and that role”.

education system

Frederick’s stroke of genius made Prussia into the powerhouse of Europe.

Napoleon’s Education System in France:

50-something years later, Napoleon noticed how successful Frederick’s education system had been and decided to copy it for France, with some minor adjustments.

For example, Napoleon wanted his education system to:

  1. Train competent personnel (military leaders, scientists, and engineers) for his army and administration.
  2. Indoctrinate citizens into obedience and patriotism (and wrest power from the Christian church to the state).

Like Frederick, his system was also a massive success—for its intended purposes. The skill with which Napoleon’s engineers built bridges, moats, and other combative structures was unparalleled at its time.

The Western World’s Education System:

After noticing the obvious success of Prussia and France, much due to their education systems, the rest of the western world eventually copied their approach, with minor adjustments of their own.

This change took place during the early stages of industrialism, and so the biggest difference between the Prussian and French educational systems and the western education systems had to do with training the population for new stuff like:

  • Factory work
  • Managerial work (outside of public administration)
  • Scientific inquiry (the origins of the STEM fields)

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

Alfred Whitehead.

Off the top of your head, you probably will instinctively think most about managerial work and scientific inquiry. But those areas received maybe 10 % focus each, whereas training people into factory workers received around 80 % of the focus.

Why? Because factory work was by far the most important thing to the economy at the time, and it does not come about naturally.

Lots of public education had to do with what we now call schooling (disciplining and indoctrinating) people into becoming obedient and reliable factory workers. 3

Sitting in straight rows, raising your hand before you address the teacher, asking for permission to do XYZ. Following the rules.

Reason #2: School Teaches You to Fit in…to an Obsolete Economy!

See public education for what it is: a system for training as many people as possible into professions reasonably projected into the future.

It worked pretty darn well for Frederick the Great and Napoleon. It also worked for many western countries during the industrialization.

Today it does not work well, because the world is changing faster than before. The Internet, AI, robotics and such things are rendering many industries obsolete. The school system can’t keep up.

How can you project what jobs to train workers for one generation from now if you can’t even project what will happen in many industries 5-10 years from now?

Modern schools are great if you want to be a….

  • Retail clerk or a cashier
  • Truck driver
  • Doctor or nurse
  • Janitor or property manager
  • A gazillion types of office workers, administrative agents, number counters, or middle managers.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want one of those jobs.

Reason #3: School Turns You Into a Sissy Conformist

—Too bad nearly all winners are contrarian in one way or another!

Sissy conformists have to do what they’re told. They have to obey the leader and ask for permission to go to bathroom. They have to watch stupid TV shows and memorize American Idol names to keep up with the recent happenings of popular culture.

It’s nothing short of intellectual prostitution to corrupt your Dunbar’s Number to fit in, and in doing so living in a collective hyperreality.

Sissy conformists don’t get to set the pace or the trajectory for the projects they work on. The slowest member of the group “decides” that. The chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

sissy conformists slowest member of the group sets the pace

In school, winners have to carry the losers, and for the winner to get his superior ideas picked he has to rely on the consensus decision of the group, rather than the merit of the idea.

In real life, winners are those who dare to do interesting stuff that stands out and runs contrary to popular opinion.

I spoke to Billionaire Martin Sandquist and asked him “What’s the worst business advice you ever got?” He answered:

Not starting Lynx. No one thought it was a good idea. Professors, banks, friends. Very few believed in it.

If you have an idea that people don’t believe in, it’s probably a good idea. You shouldn’t pay too much attention to other people’s opinions. Especially not our education system, which tends to be very biased. I believe you need to try to think for yourself as much as possible, and engage in self-studies. I don’t think I’ve learned anything useful in school; everything of value I’ve learned by being passionate about some subject and studying it for myself, reading or watching YouTube.

If you want to do something in a unique way, it’s important you try to do it yourself. Otherwise, it’s probably the same as everyone else.

Reason #4: School Breaks Down Most People’s Will to Learn

School is jail for children.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote in his book Flow that:

Many people give up on learning after they leave school because thirteen or twenty years of extrinsically motivated education is still a source of unpleasant memories.

This ALMOST happened to me!

I thought I didn’t like learning until I was 20.

Then I realized being an A-student in school has little to do with enjoying the learning process or achieving real-world success.

The trick is to create your framework of learning and gain knowledge your own terms. It will take a while, but you’ll love it once you learn it.

Reason #5: School Doesn’t Cultivate Self-Knowledge

Education is either for domestication or for freedom.

Joao Coutinho

Metacognition is the most common trait among successful people.

This has been agreed upon by wise men for millennia—dating back to Ancient Greece. The purpose of education is to bring about self-knowledge.

School does nothing to teach or incentivize metacognition or self-knowledge. And why should it? That’s not what it was made for. Never was!

The closest you get is assignments having to do with “analysis” or “critical appraisal” of some subject. But—at least in my experience—that’s just for show. Whenever I seriously scrutinized anything I always got lower grades, like Crichton.

–The only exception to this that I can think of was my Swedish and English teacher during high school. He was the sort of natural teacher who could make his students interested in anything, and genuinely encouraged students to be open-minded and reflective. He was great.

Anyway, it makes sense that things are this way. The industrialists of the 19th century didn’t want independent-minded thinkers; they wanted reliable managers and precise workers. The school system is still built to churn out people like that—people who know how to compute, but not how to think.

People with high metacognition—the sort who, over time, develop a strong self-knowledge—tend to succeed in spite of their schooling; not because of it.

Reason #6: School Turns Independent People into Co-dependent Peons

Like the bed of Procrustes, you’re forced to fit in whether you want to or not.

But a better question is: Do you even want to fit in? With those people?

Haha!

Only losers and weaklings have to fit in.

The strong make their own way in life. You don’t need to make a detailed study of the Savannah to understand that you want to be the apex predator.

Humans are animals too—we just wear suits and skirts to work.

But unlike animals, we work well in different settings. Some people work 10x more effectively alone. Do you?

I can’t answer that for you—and neither can school.

It takes self-knowledge.

Reason #7: School is Full of Propaganda

And it has to be that way.

(How else will you maintain a democracy?)

You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It’s just grotesque.

Gore Vidal

It’s different for each country. In Sweden the propaganda is based on outdated socialist ideology (the sort that prompts math teachers to go into rage and threaten to take away 8-year olds’ math books if they use it too much).

In the real world, it is very hard to succeed when you have this sort of mental dysfunction, because it is at odds with reality.

Another example is in the U.S, where many schools are not allowed to teach about evolution or abortion, because crazy Christians prohibit it.

Reason #8: School Doesn’t Teach You How to Think & Develop Your Own Style

In the martial arts world there is a long-standing conflict between the different styles: which style is the “best” one?

–The same goes for acting methods.

There are now acting studios where students are “taught” how to act. Many practitioners, with real-world success under their belt, like David Mamet, believe that acting studios do more harm than they do good.

Maybe you have seen the TV show Actor’s Studio, where James Lipton interviews people who are successful in the movie industry?

In the audience of that show there are hundreds of acting students, all looking at the famous guest with deep admiration, as though the person is a metaphysical guru who inhabits “the secret to acting”.

education system

Little do the members of the audience know that they’re probably about as good actors as the celebrity up on stage is, only that they lack the level of breadth and comprehensivism that the celebrity has.

The celebrity typically knows 10 other skills than just acting–such as promotion, business, networking, public speaking, etc, etc.

The celebrity’s success does not rely solely on his or her acting skills.

Again, the same goes for martial arts. . .

In the martial arts world we now know that MMA is superior to any and all other martial arts (if you can call MMA “a martial art”).

Even if the rules changed, some new type of MMA would still prevail. Why? Because it’s not just one style; it’s the practice of putting many styles together into a unique synthesis that fits the individual fighter.

–And that’s how you become successful at anything in life. Not just fighting.

You have to develop your own style in life by gaining experience and studying other fields than the one you’re in.

You can’t just rely on one thing.

–That’s how you become obsolete, not Future-Proof.

Reason #9: School Gives You a False Certainty about Things You Can’t Know

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Yogi Berra

The memorization of “facts” probably makes up something like 80% of public education. This aspect of public education does more harm than good because…

It can lead to 3 common types of cognitive handicaps:

  1. Box-thinking: The mistaken notion that you can fit reality into neat boxes pertaining to specific academic disciplines.
  2. Outdated beliefs: A deeply rooted confirmation bias regarding “facts” and “certitudes” of life and business that may never be uprooted.
  3. Domain specifity: Conditioning of mental practices convenient in the classroom, but typically useless, or forgotten in real life, because the environment is different.

Any and all three of the above cognitive handicaps breed a sense of “false certainty” where you feel more confident in your abilities and understanding of the world than you deserve to.

You often see it in university graduates who feel entitled to such-and-such a salary for having—as Kyle eloquently put it—jumped through the hoops.

They want to be paid for their grades, not the results they produce.

This “false certainty” is especially rampant among students of macroeconomics, liberal arts, political science, and similar areas–where there are few (if any) real-world litmus tests to test performance against.

This might explain why these people are causing the most ruckus in the social debate (without a track record to back up their claims). One of the worst examples are “Gender-Specialists”.

Reason #9b): School Conditions You into Having an Unhealthy and Irrational Fear of the Unknown

Which student wants to be caught by the teacher not knowing the answer to the question?

No one dares to say, “I don’t know, but if you give me a day I will have the answer for you by tomorrow!”

Public education tricks you into “false certainty” from thinking that everything is knowable or quantifiable.

Worse still: that it’s actually worth investing the time to know or quantify everything before being able to make a decision!

(As if time was not your most important resource.)

In the real world, it’s more important to take action and get movin’ than it is to be 100% certain. Momentum and psychology matter more.

Reason #10: School Indoctrinates False Rules That Handicap You for the Real World

In school you’re not allowed to work the way you want. You have to sit by your desk and do it like the textbook says.

In school you can’t think and say what you want. You might hurt the feelings of the dullards, the immigrants or the [insert other group of currently downtrodden people].

You know what they call taking initiative and being creative in school?

Cheating!

In the real world, you can “cheat” as much as you want.

You just do what you want, learn what you want, rely on your judgment, make decisions under uncertainty, and take responsibility for your actions.

The rules are, there are no rules.

–Aristotle Onassis

What could be simpler?

The end.

–Ludvig

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  1. so that it would be easier to reliably keep track of child births and such things..

  2. technology disruption wasn’t changing the world every few years…

  3. but we still haven’t figured out how to train knowledge workers. 

Comments

  1. Very good, and even so this only scratches the surface…

  2. This is my first time here and I want to say that you have made such a brilliant post. There are surely so many things the education system has to improve on

  3. Brilliant article. I was the bane of my parents’ and teachers’ lives. The only place I ever learned some practical skills were on Further Education (technical college) and short courses, which were more relevant. Secondary school and Uni were a waste of time for me, particularly from the point of view that they hate to see you working with your own ideas.

    If I had to do things all over again, I would have had a childhood free of teachers and parents, and homeschooled myself – because those people have the potential to cripple a potential shining light in any number of areas (certainly in the early stages of development), just because there are more of them and less of yourself, just because they can, and because they’re jealous.

  4. I agree with this article completely. I am a tutor working privately in the system and have homeschooled kids, so I get to see both sides of the argument. Homeschooling is not for everyone and has its issues too. However, I am increasingly appalled and depressed by what schools inflict on young people. The uselessness of so much of what is taught is not a new insight. It is as valid as ever. However, what I find very hard to deal with are two newer factors: the pace, stress and expectations, all of which have increased exponentially since I was at school (1970s); and the ever-increasing creepy “social engineering” propaganda. I see more and more kids who are not only being put off learning for life but who are also suffering genuine burn-out and mental illness. Equally disturbing is the propaganda. Okay, I’m a conservative so maybe this stands out more to me. I also accept that there has always been a lot of social propaganda in school – in my mum’s era in the 1930s it was how wonderful the British Empire was. Nevertheless, at present, every subject is cross-curricular which means every subject has to deal with “climate change”, transgenderism and whatever the latest fad is. I just thank God that my kids got to homeschool and learn great skills through things they enjoyed. I sincerely feel sorry for kids today. They’re mostly great kids but I do not envy them.

  5. So…true…for me i can relate to my college life. Our professors have degrees like phd….etc..but they have not proper knowledge about The subjects they are teaching…sometimes i thought that if they scolded me not to talk and come on the stage and teach…then i will definitely teach better then them and want show them how to teach….once economist teacher was teaching price discrimination….but instead of discrimination he was prouncing determination…..rediculous.
    In clg sometimes i write very nicely in exam and got less marks and sometimes good..the classmate of mine who can not even write a single line in proper english language got good marks and passed also the graduation in english medium….how?
    Now i got the office assistant job which is related to commerce field but when i think about ..is that anything helpful for me from my degree of b.com???and i found nothing…the theory are only explaining the work of manager is this organising, planning…..etc.. But never explained how to do it in corporate world…they are failed to give me the proper knowledge about my job…how can we expect from them about the knowledge of other areas of life…

  6. I don’t agree. Comments such as the education system is a failure or schools aren’t doing their job, couldn’t be further from the truth. Schools (public and private) are doing exactly what they were set up to do – create dependent adults -and they are succeeding!

    So what happens is this: unsuspecting children are funneled into schools and what comes out are dependent adults (and dependent children in the process) who are ready to march in step for government and big corporations. And the evidence of this can clearly be seen by taking a look around at our culture. You see, success!

    But what I want parents to know is this: You don’t have to follow the herd off the cliff! In my blog, Raising School-Free Kids, I talk about a way out! For those who are interested go to schoolfreekids.com to read about a simple investment plan that my husband and I have created to ensure that our kids will be financially independent by no later than age 25.

    Again parents, you have a choice. You can avoid the whole damn circus altogether. You can do this! Don’t let them do this to your children.

  7. Connor Payne says

    I actually found some of this very resourceful for the education system I’m working on. It’s more skill based. It helps you strengthen your skills and it keeps your weaknesses as high as the student is able to go. If you can’t do calculus, there’s no calculus. If you can’t wirte, you don’t have to write.

    In my school and other schools the students are taught about evolution though, I don’t think evolution should be taught saying that it happened, because it didn’t. And abortion should be talked about as well, but there may be problems with that. The things with evolution and abortion are factual. Abortion kills helpless children before they’re born and evolution just didn’t happen. Where are the fossils of the creatures that some claim we evolved from?

    • Just because *you think* it didn’t happen, does not mean it didn’t happen. I’m hardly saying that it did happen, either. Theories need to be taught, otherwise, you’ll never have independent thinkers!

      “I don’t agree with it, therefore it is wrong.” Tough shit.

      • I wasn’t saying that it’s wrong because I disagree with it. Darwinism didn’t happen. Micro evolution happens for sure though. And it’s not because I think it happens

        If I actually thought that something was true or not because I agree or disagree with it that would be crazy. Thankfully I don’t think that and didn’t think that at that time 😅

  8. All these points are really nice

  9. No, the education system of every country is no bad, this depends upon the teachers and students, how they treat with education and system. For making an education system batter, every person needs to improve herself.

  10. I have to agree that Public School Education or any organized education does not prepare the individual to meet the requirements of life. Sure they teach you how to read and write and learn Math. But from what I have seen having a “20” year old daughter I have to say that she is not prepared at all to handle life’s problems or even survive.

    At least when I was at school my education was the same but while at home I read and was exposed to many things thanks to my Parents. Because of them I had access to books of every kind and even was lucky enough to have an Encyclopedia as well as Engineering, Science and Medical books and a lot of other stuff. I knew more about certain things than the majority of the kids in class. Hell, I knew more about how Sex works than the majority of the class that I passed and did not have to go to class. Same thing for Spanish and Economics!

    My parents gave me the books and it was up to me to pick it up and read it! Because of this I think its the reason why I got more and more into Technology. But as I look at these young people today I feel sad that they are not taking full advantage of the power of information today. If I had the Internet in my time I think I would have expanded my mind more. I see many of these young people hiding from life. How are you going to learn anything if you are hiding like Bin Laden in a cave!

    School has exposed them to nothing! At least we went to trips to Museums here in NYC and the like. We even saw an Opera and visited a Planetarium! Schools don’t do that anymore.

    Just because you are going to school does not mean you are educated! Education is continual and it never ends! We need to stop being specialists in one field and become more like generalists! Life is better that way!

  11. I love this post!
    As as College student, I can tell you guys -all true.
    My school is one of the most helpful, according to yelp reviews and other liars.
    First the staff is garbage, and most likely trained to do nothing but misguide folks and tell them how hard school is!..
    Soon as you go in, they instill this fear of what happens if you fail and a whole bunch other nonsense rule, that were made up by dummies.

    I was pursing nursing. According to the RULES, you need a certain grade and a whole bunch of other bullshit stuff to supposively weed out the weak, according the fat snob who looked at my transcript.

    I’m a fit guy and to hear that from some ugly fat snob while she giggles as she hands back my transcript.. Was very detrimental. Helpful school my ass.
    Don’t even get me started on bursar or financial aid places- there’s a reason they run like a dmv, with bullet proof windows and everything.

    For anyone who says getting an A is hard. Don’t lie to yourself. Making a business and planning step by step what to do with the business eating shit from your peers or family memebers who don’t believe in your business is even harder. Way harder.

    But hey! Don’t take it from me. Watch your family, friends, “girlfriend” cheer you own to be just like them- Complain about life later on.

    Ludvig, one of the best post I read, on education basically being a joke !
    Thanks man.

  12. I’m sorry to say this but your blog article is also FULL ON propaganda.
    It appeals to the emotional side of a lot of people out there who were “frustrated” by their experiences of schooling, and don’t seem to have moved on.

    Writing comments full of wrath, advocating for “thinking like an investor”, preaching what is right “thinking”, etc.

    What makes you think you are special breeds? Because you didn’t fit in school? Because you got Cs and Bs? Because you had your own personal pursuits?

    Well, maybe the kids who gets As in school REALLY enjoy being conformists? And maybe they enjoy it SO much that when they grow up, they work for these factories you seem to demean so much. May I remind you that the food on your plate has been produced and wrapped by various “factory” workers?

    Could you go and grow your own vegs? Could you run your business or “build” your wealth without the hard work of some at other (sub-) levels?

    No, you all seem to think you have it all figured out. But what do you offer as now? What have you done yourself to impact on the lives of others outside you circle? Did anyone who commented put a link to any life changing discovery/entreprise that they have made? I see none of that, but I read a lot of random advocating/advising/coaching with no concrete/real evidence.
    Everyone wants to be a guru, but despise the follower mentality…

    Well, thank you, but no thanks. I don’t buy into that propaganda.
    If you want to destroy a system, build one FIRST, then the old system will autodestruct if it is as “obsolete” as you lot claim.

    In the meantime, this is just useless “rhetorique” from wannabee rat racers…

  13. History classes, science courses, cooking classes – all of these wouldn’t be attainable if I didn’t
    come here. Like I’m studying the book Eragon right now.

  14. Ludvig, I highly agree with you on this whole article and all the reasons you came up with why school is now a failure. It makes total sense. Your writing here was extraordinary.

    I would just like to add on that thought that school can limit your creativity as it keeps you forced to make and apply your work to be in cohesion with what the whole system, university, professor, and grading criteria wants. You basically have no freedom because you have to conform to what makes you a “good” student.

    Creativity is limited with the school system.

    I am currently in college right now, I was wondering what is your advice to convince parents that self-education is a better approach?

    • If you’re old enough to be in college, why do you need to persuade your parents (or anyone else) of anything?

  15. Dear Ludvig,
    You are my Gold standard for information and work ethics.

    Thanks!

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