Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Crap we learn in school
Yesterday, I went to the school I attended when I was five years old for an open house. One of my sons is starting kindergarten next week, I suspect I will have to work very hard to make sure that he doesn't value much of the crap taught in today's school systems...
He will be attending the same school I did and I was happy to learn that he will actually have the same gym teacher who keeps it real. They still play dodgeball, kickball, have races where there are winners and more importantly there are losers. Some school systems don't want to shock kids into thinking that they are losers but reality dictates otherwise. In corporate America, I can say that even though I am wildly successful, I tend to lose more often in my day job rather than win. Of course, if you practice management by magazine or read any of the Covey garbage, I didn't really lose and created a win-win for both parties, but I refuse to inhale.
In school you are taught that working successfully alone is a reward as working in a team setting is cheating. Likewise sharing information with other people or even building upon the work of others is plaigarism. In school, effort is rewarded more highly than achievement which if were ever true in corporate America, I would be King of IT and all the IT executives would be working for me.
Over time schools help gas kids heads up in convincing them that they are very intelligent when reality dictates that only my two sons are (snuck this in to see if you are paying attention). Under the guise of confidence building this does help when competing on a local scale but reality dictates that if you think you are smarter than your work peers then you have a bigger problem.
The biggest bullshit thing that occurs in school systems is that they teach you for any problem, there is exactly only one correct solution and that there is someone in authority that can tell you what it is. Most folks in corporate America in authority acknowledge that they don't know the answer and that there is no one way to do things.
Actually, the real biggest bullshit thing that serves as form of indoctrination is that you will be promoted every year unless you are doing very poorly. I haven't yet gotten promoted to the next tier at work. Maybe I should walk into my bosses office and demand a promotion?
| | View blog reactionsHe will be attending the same school I did and I was happy to learn that he will actually have the same gym teacher who keeps it real. They still play dodgeball, kickball, have races where there are winners and more importantly there are losers. Some school systems don't want to shock kids into thinking that they are losers but reality dictates otherwise. In corporate America, I can say that even though I am wildly successful, I tend to lose more often in my day job rather than win. Of course, if you practice management by magazine or read any of the Covey garbage, I didn't really lose and created a win-win for both parties, but I refuse to inhale.
In school you are taught that working successfully alone is a reward as working in a team setting is cheating. Likewise sharing information with other people or even building upon the work of others is plaigarism. In school, effort is rewarded more highly than achievement which if were ever true in corporate America, I would be King of IT and all the IT executives would be working for me.
Over time schools help gas kids heads up in convincing them that they are very intelligent when reality dictates that only my two sons are (snuck this in to see if you are paying attention). Under the guise of confidence building this does help when competing on a local scale but reality dictates that if you think you are smarter than your work peers then you have a bigger problem.
The biggest bullshit thing that occurs in school systems is that they teach you for any problem, there is exactly only one correct solution and that there is someone in authority that can tell you what it is. Most folks in corporate America in authority acknowledge that they don't know the answer and that there is no one way to do things.
Actually, the real biggest bullshit thing that serves as form of indoctrination is that you will be promoted every year unless you are doing very poorly. I haven't yet gotten promoted to the next tier at work. Maybe I should walk into my bosses office and demand a promotion?
