I love school. If I can name one place that has brought me the most happiness, it would be school without a doubt. In all my twenty-odd years of living, and from a retrospective view, I’m recounting periods where I smiled the most or my face lit up in satisfaction and that would be in school. But it’s not for the reason you’d think.
As much as I’d like to brag that I love studying, or the thrill of the classes, the adrenaline rush that comes with preparing for tests and then seeing questions that may or may not send you to tears, the one thing that I would say is the sole reason why I love school is the people. I like to think of myself as ambivert in nature. I’m not incredibly social or good at making friends but somehow I always have friends one way or the other.
But then without the friends, just seeing students milling about to their various departments, each one with their stories and diverse orientations, it’s a source of wonder to me. And plus, you get the juiciest gist at school. I mean just watching students from my little corner is enough entertainment for me but then you get to hear stories that are most of the time untrue but not any less exciting and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s the beauty of school.”
Saying all of this because there’s a point I’m driving at. You see, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the only good thing to school, at least the tertiary institution. The whole meeting of people, interacting, connecting with humans and getting to understand their mindset, their takes on issues and just building friends, acquaintances and connections for life. That’s the only beauty of school to me. The people themselves.
When it comes to education as it relates with school, it’s a different ballgame entirely. I have a divergent view of the educational system and I feel there’s something distinctively not right with it. Let me start by saying that education, as we all know, begins at home. So the kid from a tender age is taught by his guardian the basic things depending on the family’s orientation. From kindergarten to the end of primary school, the child has spent about nine years.
Then it’s on to secondary school where the child spends six years, bringing it to fifteen years and then he goes to college and spends about five years, all things being equal. When I say that, I mean no strikes, no undue protests that add more and more years to the student’s academic journey, bringing it to a total of 20 years. But then most of the time, in the different fields, that’s not enough, so you’ve got to do your Masters degree, your Doctorate, all of that and then you realize that a quarter of a century is gone.
I was listening to this podcast by Eric Gugua where he was talking about educational system and I saw a lot of sense in it. How they make education so bloated and padded with unnecessary information hence people carry on more knowledge than they need without catering to the things that really matter. He talked about how it has now been proven that children as little as seven can write and interpret codes. So I thought to myself that if after getting the basic education, that students are gotten specially curated education that would cater to the things they really need, more than five years would be saved.
The current educational system not just in Nigeria, but the whole world, barely prepares the students for the real world, for the job market, or for the economy they find themselves in today. And that is not to say that the educational system isn’t valuable, it is just filled with too many unnecessary things. Taking Masters Degree into consideration and you’ll find out that what you learnt in that one to two years is actually what you should have actually learnt in your first degree.
The whole basis of the tertiary institution if it was functioning as it should is to get tailored information that would suit the direct field the student wants to go into. It’s why a lot of really successful people believe in home schooling. Because the specific design of the schooling system is not just enough to survive in the real world. I would say that there’s a reason why the majority of the populace is either middle class or poor and it’s not by accident but by very specific design which, by a long shot, traces to the school. However, I don’t want to get too deep into this.
What education should look like, in my opinion, is the basic knowledge, then straight to tailored education. Specially curated education for the individual. The fact that a lecturer would still use the teaching note he used to teach my dad and now me when the world keeps evolving and progressing is enough reason to think again about the functionality of schools. Other than that, school is essentially just a place to build connections and have friends. It has at least served and is still serving that purpose for me.
There you have it. Hope I’ve driven my point, if any, across. Shout-out to the #augustinleo team for this insightful prompt as always. Do check it out if you’re yet to.
Jhymi🖤
Images are mine.
