Ed/Acc
What is the purpose of Education?
Unlike most other animals, humans have a fairly long childhood period during which they are nurtured by their caregivers (parents typically) till they achieve mental and physical maturity. The reasons for this are largely biological. A number of animals are often able to stand on their feet (calf) and have some degree of physical independence right after they leave the mothers womb. Humans on the other hand simply do not have a wide enough birth canal or pelvic support capacity that would allow a relatively independent child to gestate in the mothers womb and then come out.
Separate from the genetic information store, humans also have memetic and other knowledge that is lent to them from the civilization they have constructed around themselves. This knowledge is absorbed over years of training, the active component of which we describe as formal education.
The purpose of education is to prepare children to participate in society as productive, value creating members and achieve full realization of their potential.
Is the current education system achieving that?
Eastern systems emphasize rote and mechanical mastery over true understanding, western parents often hold up the PISA scores achieved in certain countries and hold that as a failing of western education when the kids in the west are not at the same standards. However Eastern systems often fail to produce any fundamental innovation and original thinking in the students due to their emphasis on rote and mechanical processes that completely discount the “Why” of learning.
Western education often is good at getting to the why but of late has been lagging behind on providing younger children with exposure to advanced math and sciences. Education systems from the lowest levels to the highest levels are getting infected by the woke virus in which “where you come from” becomes more important than “Where you want to go”.
Scientific rigor, critical thinking, free speech is taking a back seat to woolu concepts that sound well meaning but often prove disastrous in practice.
Higher education in particular saddles students with high levels of debt that stifle them for life and leaves them underprepared to meet actual industry needs. Getting into a “good college” becomes the objective rather than a means to an end.
At a lower level teachers and administrators are getting overburdened with increasing workload
Eastern schools often produce burnt out kids with high stress levels, while western education seems to be creating a generation of children who have been brought up to believe in a pessimistic future in which they are either the victims or the oppressors.
While motivated, master teachers exist they are often few and far between which means education is non uniformly distributed. This erodes the premise of equal opportunity at the start of the life journey itself.
What is really needed today?
The last few decades have seen rapid technological progress and it is safe to say that the rate of such progress is only going to increase. Especially with the advent of AI, we are going to witness a radical acceleration of progress.
A number of jobs are likely to go down the way of horse buggies at the advent of cars. On the flip side however we are going to be able to get to many places much faster.
The purpose of education hence becomes to be able to not only not get steamrolled by the advent of AI but also to enable the learner to use AI and other tools as an Archimedean lever by which they can move the world.
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We need to produce original thinkers who can stand on their feet and meet the challenges of whatever life throws at them and carry the light of consciousness to the stars.
But what should education even teach when everything seems to be about to change and the pace of change is only going to grow exponentially? Is coding going to be relevant in the future? What about law? What about medicine? If we can't really predict the future, what is it that we should be focusing on teaching the kids to equip them with the necessary tools?
The answer is to go back to first principles.
In an ever changing environment we have to focus on what does not change. Pure sciences. The base stack of knowledge goes something like this.
At the very base lies Mathematics. It is universal and its rules do not change regardless of where in time and space you find yourselves. Physics builds on top of Math and gives us an understanding of the world we live in. Chemistry builds on top of Physics and gives us an understanding of molecular interactions which then eventually translate into Biology.
Having a strong foundational understanding of the base stack will lead to a better purchase in an ever changing and accelerating environment. The objective has to be to create mastery which can only come from deep understanding of fundamental concepts. Only true masters who understand the basics at a deep level will be able to leverage the tools provided by AI and other technological progress to participate in the journey of accelerating humanity.?
Separate to pure sciences we need to teach kids things that are needed on a day to day basis but not taught explicitly
How to think
Tools that help you understand the world around you and
How to persuade
Persuasion, how to convey and convince others about your view point. A core requirement of Acceleration is use of more energy, harnessing more resources. The objective has to be further your understanding of the world at large using a strong foundation in sciences and clarity of thought and then convince others of your understanding so that you may then be afforded greater resources to shape the world to your will.
Separate to that we have to teach our kids Personal responsibility, Civics so that they understand the proper role of the government and are active citizens who are actively shaping governance to the suitable optimums.
We have to teach our kids that the future is not set in stone. We have agency and the journey of life has to be about corralling greater and greater resources to shape the world to our will and bring about greater prosperity to ourselves as well as the wider human society at large.
The prime directive has to be increase and optimize the utilization of resources and energy to further the spread of consciousness to the stars.
In future articles I will expand on this idea of how such an education can be delivered.