Many people often ask me why I decided to drop out from college (not that I was failing, I was on the Dean's List of one of the World's Top 10 ranking university for International Relations undergraduates; World No. 8 for Masters and was one of the few international students - if any - awarded with a Leadership Award Scholarship). They also asked why I decided to self-study. :)
Here's the unrefined "Why I dropped out", off the top of my head:
1. I do not agree to education system as a whole.
- I do not agree with grading. I do not agree with studying for the sake of exams. There are alternatives to A-F or percentile grading system; there are colleges practicing nontraditional grading systems such as individualized progress portfolios.
- I do not want my curiosity and passion for knowledge to be washed off for an A. Reading 60 pages of Nietzsche in an hour? Submitting myself to something that will squelch my intellectual curiosity; no, thank you. Education has became enforced, coercive, surfacial, and unnatural - how educative?
- Education ought to be self-driven. I want to be in charge of my education :) Thanks to Industrial Revolution, we are treated like industrial products - forced from one stop to the other, forced to fit in some exact same molds. But with so many people getting a misfit education, dropping out, and getting wasted, how can this be progress?
- Also, on the concept of survival of the fittest and individualism, fact is, everything is interdependent and interrelated. Even if one don't feel the compassion for all beings, one can never exist on its own; such is the flaw of the superficially beautiful concept of individualism. A beautiful lie.
- Education ought to focus on values and character development. There are so many ways to "cheat the system" through for a 4.0, taking the easiest professor etc etc. Although I cared little about cheating, but even as I took professor who was good yet tough, I didn't felt accomplished. I didn't felt my work was meaningful to the world. I felt locked up, entrapped, disconnected, disenchanted, and unfulfilled. I wasn't going to comply to such belittling "system". I will soar.
- I do not agree with "scholarly works". We can talk, find faults, argue, knit-pick, and disprove each others point in our 100 pages paper to prove others' papers flawed, and ours better. But, what high culture is that? Imagine what a world can we create, if we save that time and energy and channel it to supporting, affirming, working together, and improving each others work, discussing the best consensual paper, publish that, and make sure the executives actually read through these works. Instead of hoping; instead of talking.
- Education ought to do more for the real world. Practical, real-life work should be the focus - supplemented by theory that will better their work. Why lock people up for 23 of their life learning things that may not matter most of the time?
- Trust me, I could have think off 1000 other ways to better labor my time. I'd work to better communities around the world - starting from home - and finish my "education" at the same time.
- Too low Return of Investment. Too high Opportunity Cost.
- I could not have helped start a civil movement in Malaysia, otherwise. Other than that, I have been amassing and been offered so many opportunities - ranging from political analyst intern to reality show host.
- I will never have time to materialize my ideas of a Charity Gift Card website to help all the charities in Malaysia, or a free Educative Internet Kiosk with carefully designed programs (inspired by TedTalk's Hole in the Wall, Khan Academy, and Barefoot College) in Kampung to start an age of Enlightenment, Information, Realizations, and Renaissance in Malaysia's Kampungs. Watch me. :)
- Although I'd forsake my Leadership Award-Scholarship (about RM80000/4 years), getting in debt for something I see little value and meaning in was not as wise as others think, I reckon. Unfortunately, too many students would take up a "loan" from their parents or other organisations. Then, spend their lifetime and freedom repaying back the "loan". They would end up sacrificing time, freedom, and (their fullest) potential - all things money can't buy.
- Placing logic aside, here comes my more emotionally grounded reasons. I don't know how it felt like for others. For myself, no doubt the money that my parents have to spent pushes me to do my best everyday, I felt the burden on their shoulders on mind too. Having helped out in my parents office since young, I know what they have to go through day in, day out. I don't feel happy making them work so hard (when I still have 3 younger siblings) while believing that they deserve a rest and retirement after all these years. They truly do; they have worked so hard all their lives. So, I rather forgo my self-centered pursuit, and I rather not feel the daily personal guilt, burden, and suffering that my parents had to bear (whenever I think of them) for my "education".
6. It doesn't fulfill any of my four life purposes.
See: http://viennalooi.blogspot.com/2009/10/me.html
7. This is not directly related to the "system", but I also don't agree with some American culture that many practice (to my mind, more than Malaysians) - fake smiles and self-centeredness. Authenticity and selflessness (composed of compassion & wisdom) are the two most important values of a human being (that I look up to).
One can be intelligent, for all I care, but selfish.
[To be continued]
[I need to stop here to hit the sack. I ran through all the reasoning in my mind too many times before deciding to 'drop out'. And from the very beginning, it was always between University of London's distance learning Law Degree and an American Degree. Back then, I still had some idealism and fantasy about the American Degree. So I decided to experience the reality for myself for a semester. There, I extended another semester to give it all my best to try to convince myself that it was worth it. Turns out, my heart and mind unanimously disagreed. I simply decided not to lie to myself any further. I am forgoing such surficial "knowledge", desire for "certification", desire for "recognition", desire for "status", and desire for people to look up to me (social acceptance).
Vienna Looi likes a link.
TED Talks Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw re...
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TED Talks In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.- RECENT ACTIVITY
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TED Talks Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?
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TED Talks In Rajasthan, India, an extraordinary school teaches rural women and men -- many of them illiterate -- to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and doctors in their own villages. It's called the Barefoot College, and its founder, Bunker Roy, explains how it works.
As you said I'm free to comment on everything, I'm about to use this opportunity ;)
ReplyDeleteGood post about education, I have to say.
I agree that the education system need reconstruction, that it's inefficient, don't know about the costs as it's free in here.
and BTW,
you didn't dropped formal education but you switched to distance learning, mechanisms are pretty the same I think ;)
I think higher education is more about signalling then about actual learning.
I mean, one can learn a lot only of one doesn't limit himself to university education alone.
But the point is, that having a degree shows people around that you're somehow clever enough to do that and that you're able to learn efficiently.
And somehow one may learn some social skills like teamwork or presentation, so it's not that bad ;)
And the last thing I have to agree with is:
I too don't believe in UN, concept of nation or nation states.
But as I believe in freedom, I have to believe in democracy too :)