I kept so much opinion to myself when we were discussing about traditional learning. I was afraid that I might be too assertive and become fallacious or appear to be appealing to some form of anger. But there's so much more inside me...
We have spent around 6 to 8 hours a day for around 200 days a year in that cell-type room, wherein half of that life had already been spent asleep. As of now, that's more than 3/4 of our lives away from our family and friends, stuck in a cell, forced to absorb information which is most of the time irrelevant to our lives.
How can we consider the student factor when the child we're trying to blame is innocent. He was born into this world with natural curiosity and a faculty of wonder, almost all of the time accepting what is revealed to him in his environment: religion, culture, morality. Everything is a matter of orientation. At such a young age he was already made familiar to the cell-type environment. It was the bad text books, horrible teachers, unjust and intolerant punishments, standardized tests that encourage memorization and not learning, unnecessary censorship, disregard for individuality, non-liberalism and anti-libertarian doctrines, it was these things that destroyed his real love for learning.
Just a few days ago, we had this field trip with Lakbay Kalikasan for Ms. Sche's class. It was astonishing and I learned so much, more than I could have in a lecture in a cell with some boring history teacher. I am so thankful that Ms. Sche organized something like that and I believe and demand that all professors should be more like her. A percentage of the big tuition we pay each term should be for travel and outbound education. How I wish...
Anyways, above is a video by John Taylor Gatto. He has amazing replacement models to our current traditional education system. Although I do not entirely believe in all of his beliefs, I would have to say that he greatly influenced the way I think. I read this article about him before that changed my life. haha.. I think I lent it to a friend. I'll try to look for it then maybe make you guys read it if you want.
peace.
