A Tomorrow that Never Comes: Quality Education

This is a brief post on the education in an ideal Just Society. Please, see previous posts on the topic to know about the dogmas and systems this kind of "futuristic" society entails.

Disclaimer: No, I am not an educator. I am just a normal person, a computer programmer, who happens to think about all kinds of stuff. Moreover, as an attempt to improve my communication skills, I practice writing on this blog. Hence, the content you are about to read is not the words of an expert or the result of dozens of educational studies. It is solely my perspective on the topic.

Is There Really a Problem?

I would say so. In my view, education must be more than simply acquiring knowledge. Education is about giving people enough light so they can see all the paths that light illuminates, any of which they can take at any moment in their lives. It is also about letting them taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that is, allowing them to distinguish between good and evil, but not necessarily in the sense exposed by religion.

I believe today's society is educating us to be technical experts, but not rightful and prudent citizens. There is little effort in educating people to live morally in society. We learn science, language, history, but there is not much emphasis on ethics and moral principles. Moreover, even the current good technical education is not free, regardless of its level.  Therefore, I believe a good educational system should:

1. Help people make educated decisions;
2. Help them distinguish between right and wrong;
3. Be accessible to everyone;
4. Allow people to acquire knowledge to perform a useful task in society.

This is the list of educational goals society should attempt to tackle, and do so in a top-down order. This would be an educational approach which I like to call decision-focused, because it prioritizes helping people making correct and educated decisions over providing them knowledge to perform a certain task in society.

Nowadays, I feel we are approaching these goals upside-down, an education approach I like to call knowledge-focused. We are currently attempting to provide education according to market and industry demands. As it is, however, we haven't even successfully and fully tackled the issue of education accessibility yet. Therefore, as it is, society is far from being able to seriously tackle goals 2 and 1.

And You Have a Solution to All of It, Right?

Well, I have ideas. Whether they are solutions or not it is up to the reader. First of all, to make education free for all, we need to make all educational institutions non-profit or public. This would require them to live off of government funds or donations.

However, you may ask, wouldn't this lead to a melt-down of the educational system? I mean, do you really think public money and donations can fully support high-quality education? I don't know. What I do know is that profiting from education does not sound right. Many people either can't have access to quality education or have a lifetime of debt due to having it. Neither situation is acceptable and the only way to solve it is to make it free. Making education free levels the play field for students of all social classes and potentially mitigates the issue of social class stratification in the long term.

In order to make rightful citizens out of ordinary people, in addition to simply turning them into technical experts, more radical changes in the educational curriculum needs to be made. Students should be required to take classes on ethics, moral principles, politics, philosophy and problem solving from early ages up to college. This will help them form critical thinking and question results based on their perspectives on a variety of topics. It may also help them build social skills as they work together to resolve problems. Last, citizens will better know their rights as citizens and how to protect those rights or protest when these are in jeopardy.

Being able to know and do all these things are all very important in the formation of a citizen, regardless of the professional role one assumes in society. It helps keep citizens in control of society instead of having it be controlled by corrupt politicians and other governmental evil doers.

Does Education Have a Future?

The future of education is in the hands of every citizen in every society. The right for education should be universal and all of us should demand from our governments that they play their role in protecting this right. Life is a struggle, a battle, but changes only come if one takes action. Look into you naked soul, what is it really telling you? Educate yourself, envision all the paths you can take, and make a decision.

I hope this post has been educational to the reader. :) At the very least, it was much shorter than previous ones, which is also be a good thing. Happy holidays to you, the invisible reader, and may 2016 be filled with enlightened decisions and life-changing actions.