"The Business of Learning"

“You cannot discuss the ocean with a frog-he’s limited by the space he lives in. You cannot discuss ice with a summer insect- he’s bound to a single season.”???Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

[DISCLAIMER & FACTS: I was fortunate to graduate from an institution of higher education that created worthy opportunities for me AND gave me a great value for my money. Most of my teachers evoked creativity and innovation, taught me ways to bring my gifts to the world. They inspired me to be better, to think for myself. I incurred no massive student debt with my education—it was affordable.]

When I think of higher education, I think of value and opportunity. The opportunity to increase knowledge for use in the real world, a solid return on investment. Nowadays, students are graduating with astronomical debt and earning degrees for professions with incomes that will barely cover, if at all, their student loan payments.?As a businessman, I would say that many of the institutions of higher education are failing their client-students. Something is very flawed with their business model. They have become unthriving environments by creating more debt and uncertainty for students.

Seriously, what is the value of acquiring huge debt for a degree with little market value or even a reasonable return on investment? For the past decade, polls continue to find rising negative opinions about the value and affordability of higher education. Now, more than ever, university officials need to rethink their business models. They need to define what value they are really offering their students. They need to get back to the fine art of teaching, conduct classroom activities that inspire and evoke human creativity. They need to create thriving environments, ones that spawn new ideas and make these ideas available to the rest of the world.

More troubling, with some due diligence, you will find a growing number of people here in the States who believe more and more schools have morphed away from teaching their students critical thinking skills, the basic building block of learning and life. This growing belief needs to be a concern to all of us who live in a free society, who care about the value of an education, the future of this Country.?We are witnessing the exaltation of the collective at the expense of the individual, a full-frontal assault on human critical thinking. Current programs may in fact be creating human entropy, wasted energy, the shrinking of human thought itself. They are creating conformity, weeding out, cancelling the freethinkers if you will. Debt is flourishing while hope languishes. Being jaded and disillusioned is an understatement at best.

The reason to support institutions with sustainable business and learning models is evident. Institutions that improve the critical thinking skills of their students can help to produce good citizens, especially in a democracy. Without such skills, one can easily be swayed by rhetoric, unable to analyze arguments and the ways that people use subjective evidence to support their positions, and prone to all kinds of societal biases that create division. Critical thought is a necessary ingredient for the survival of humanity.?Without it, people are prone to governmental and institutional abuses of power. History is full of such testimony.

Understand, I am not writing to create even more fear, there is certainly enough of that going around these days. As Winston Churchill stated, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”?I am not writing to bash educators or schools either. They are invaluable to human society. The world certainly needs institutions of higher education. However, these institutions need to have a higher purpose, to start teaching and giving real value to their students again, and not fall prey to the narratives of politics, class, and envy. Perhaps, that is for a different discussion. Just the same, groupthink does not work in free, innovative societies. History proves it. Sticking our critical thoughts in the sand will not work anymore. We must reject programs that do not allow for or teach critical thinking skills. Let us not become human ostriches. Think about it.

Some Reading ‘Food for Thought’:

“Critical Thinking and Analytical Mind: The Art of Making Decisions and Solving Problems. Think Clearly, Avoid Cognitive Biases and Fallacies in Systems. Improve Listening Skills. Be a Logical Thinker.” by Marcus P. Dawson (2020)

“Mind Programming: From Persuasion to Brainwashing to Self Help and Practical Metaphysics”?by Eldon Taylor (2015)

“Weapons of Mass Instruction: A School Teacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto (2010)

“How To Make the World Add Up” by Tim Harford (2020)

“Atlas Shrugged” by Ann Rand (1957)

“Color, Color and Communism” by Manning Johnson (1958)

“The Manipulated Mind” by Denise Win (2017)

“Philosophy 101 by Socrates” by Peter Kreeft (2002)

”Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto (1991)

“Becoming Bulletproof” by Evy Poumpouras (2020)??