School System, special schools and meaning of life

[Daniel_piano]

These days I thought much about school and school system and would like to share my ideas, feelings and get others opinions
It happened that I came in contact with people on different schools and universities and I've known them and heared their story
Incidentally I was looking for information about special schools, like the "Sudbury" https://www.sudval.org/ and so I eventually get a lot of mixed feelings from the two experiences and the elaboration on them

It seems to me the general feeling for the school system and how it affects humanity life is very very depressing if not sickening

I've heard stories about universities where you really understand that the teaching, learning, and especially the social context of it, nowadays simply has  lost all its meaning and all its sense
Actually, life itself nowadays had completely lost any sense since we're moving toward an infinite circle doing the same things everyday like robots completely being unaware of what the originary meaning of life in nature is/was
We're eating, just to be able to work, just to be able to eat again, so we can work again and we work so we can eat, so we can work again.....

It's a vicious cicle where social relationships, paternity, maternity, discovery of life, link with nature , all of this is lost, it's just like a bunch of robots doing mechanical actions and having mechanical thoughs everyday just waiting the day of their death when not only they will experience the pain of a life without meaning but expecially the pain of death before anything could get a meaning

Of course, human-robots can still delude themselves in thinking that they are actually living their life in its wholeness because there are a lot of materials things to be bought and a lot of commercial entertainment to be used so that anyone can turn down its inner self voice and still believe that life is life even when it's not life anymore and believe that life is freedom even if we're all slaves of the vicious cycle of human conception of life;  human: the only animal so stupid to destroy everything, the only animal that will last few time before extinction and yet who believe to be the smartest animal in the world with all its scientifical and political notions

What's the role of school in all of this?

I don't know but it seems to me that school with its promises of being the freedom of thought, the freedom of creativity and the land of knowledge its just nowadays another ways of enforce our intellectual slavery and our deluded thoughts
School, and expecially university, just rapresent fake freedom, fake intelligence, fake knowledge

They seems to me out of context and capitalistic places where you learn a lot of useless notions for the major part, and in a bad way, and where the most important knowledge is simply forgotten or not taught
If school was supposed to be a place where human curiosity and its social spirit can grow with passion free of intellectual snobbery, free of intellectual dishonesty in a global way where every field of our curiosity is stimulated with the help of people of any kind, any race, any gender and any age, then I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're living in a world without school and without instruction

I've over 10MB of letters and feedbacks from people experience with their university
To say that they're sad and sickening is an understatement
The saddest thing of all is that they seem to have understood something about the reason why everything is so wrong and so unsuited to human nature, yet they still are deluded in believing that the problems are concrete stuff like money, fundings and teachers while missing the bigger picture, the profound reason why everything is so wrong, the natural reason that encompass every concrete problem and has roots in the world existensial crisis

The true nature of the problem, the problem of how humans turned every life experience in something mechanical, boring, lifeless, dry, stereotypical and narrow and how this happened to learning too, to the goal of learning and to the meaning of learning.... the true nature of the problem is overlooked by anyone except few sensitive people, researchers and teachers

And while someone has already done a lot for primary, secondary and high school, college and university are still untoucheable in their status symbol of the good, intellectual and smart society, so no one dare to say anything; except all those people that can't bear it any longer and are compelled to finally hare their voice hear dabout and their depressing experience

What's the problem with schools system and university, other than the concrete problem like lack of materials, lack of good teachers, lack of fundings, lack of money ?
The true problems with this sad school system are more of a psychological and existantial nature

The true problem are the narrow world of the vicious cycle we are experiencing, the narrow of a non-global instruction, arrongance, haughtyness, lack of meaning social relationships, lack of stimulation to live every day as if it were the first day on this world, the lack of of stimulation to curiosity but also the lack of learning as a game at any age, the lack of learning freedom, the lack of thought freedoms, the lack of see the fun aspect of learning and experiencing the world with the awe and joy of a child

The sad thing is that if you want to stay away from all this fakeness and dry complexity you're not given credits for the courage or value of your toughts, you're just considered less intelligent, or someone that say something is bad just because you can't have it and you wouldn't be able to cope with it
So while maybe a farmer in his little farm in a beautiful countryside is experiencing the joy of simple life and is regaining the contact with the true meaning of life, a lot of people will always be ready to flame him as an ignorant and praising their fake high intelligence and instruction

The majority of faculties/class in universities are just about learning sterile concepts, to be able to do a sterile work (if you can find it, that is, but it's very likely that your Ph.D is simply useless) and even when what they're supposed to teach is usefull it is teached in such a sterile, dry, arrongant and narrow minded way that the results will be people with lot of notions in their poor confused head, notions that they will forget in a couple of years, completely alienated from the social contexts of life and ready for a work where you're working so you can buy something to eat, so you can still be alive the next day so you can work again to buy food so you are still alive the next day on and on, on and on, till the day of your death or the death of this raped planet

The saddest thing of all is that learning and intruction was meant to be a way to cultivate social relationships and friendships at any age with people of any age, race and gender group
Kids with adults, children with kids, old people with kids a place where anyone can learn from anyone without considered himself or herself just more intelligent because of nationality or age and snob other people just because they have not experienced something yet or because they have experience those things a lot of time ago

Yes, place like Sudbury school, where awareness of the uselesness and danger of the standard school system find its logical solution in a more human and more suited to human nature learning system where there are no barriers to learning, to intergenerational frienship and study partnership and where curiosity is really stimulated everyday, especially through meangiful relationships despite any labels or stereotype
A little microcosmos where learning gets back its true meaning of lifeful experience and daily application of your knowledge
Places where eveyone is free to find the matter he/she believes in more, organize it and the way to learn it and apply to it to his/her everyday life with the people he choosed to and at the time and place he/she choosed too

This should be like a sign of hope, after all
But the depressing thought is how this has been applied to primary schools, secondary schools and high schools but not to the sad, often useless and arrongant world of college and univesity
Is the world so self deluded not to see that this untoucheable institutions are full of spoiled, decomposing, lifeless mirages of intellegence, knowledge but especially mirage of life, mirage of a social life of social brotherhood or simply a life meaning?

The true meaning of instruction was basically that: have a better world, use the knowledge to respect our nature even more and use intelligence to support the weakers and help others, to construe a world free of labels where relationships with any people are the true core of a long happy and meaningful life
If instruction becomes just a series of notion, to be tested on exam days and to be forgotten the very next year, then it's not instruction anymore, it's capitalistic brainwashing, or lifeless life of lifeless robotic jobs training

Instruction was a right side of the brain activity and our nature is basically suited for the right side of the brain
Nowadays, life it is all in the left side of the brain, but expecially Universitity are made to stimulate people who basically use mainly or solely their left side of the brain and there is little meaningful or suited for someone who use mainly the right side of the brain

It seems strange nowadays, but once upon a long a long time instruction and learning was really considered as the weapon to fight violence, arrongance, cruelty,  dishonesty ... it was considered the seed of democracy and freedom and it was taught that if anyone could get an instruction there would have been no wars, no crimes and no sadness anymore and life would have got a even superior meaning of respect and ageless brotherhood

Go figure

Daniel 

[pianodoc]

Hey Daniel,

Carrying a heavy load?  Yes, the school system is a microcosm of the society in which it operates.  With the current direction of public thought in the United States, it would be easy to say that schools will only reflect that.  However, if you go looking, I think it's possible to find like-minded individuals, as well as programs to meet your focus in life.

As to the rat-race of the work world....  Here is the key:  Use the time you have to find something that you LOVE, (as well as finding a way to get paid for doing it!)  Then your time spent at work can be a fulfilling and rewarding part of your daily experience.  Follow your passions, get involved with the world.  Work for change, or whatever inspires you.

Good luck!

[Goldberg]

Remarkable! Over the past few years I have conceived ideas very similar to yours, although I have never got round to putting them into words quite like this (rather, I've shared my beliefs openly with friends in verbal communication). I am quite positive that I agree with Daniel's post entirely, although maybe a few passages will warrant a closer reading a little later on, when I'm not running out the door.

I've come to view the public school system as an evil institution that tends to deprive students of free thinking and also encourages mediocrity and obedience. But, unfortunately, you have to also keep in mind (as you have, no doubt) that it would most certainly not be like this if the general society hadn't let itself degrade to its present state of general immorality, indifference, and lethargy.

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, however, because I KNOW for a fact that there are many exceptions out there, but I am still convinced that in the big picture Daniel is quite right, and if people don't become more cognizant of the issue, it will make itself unfortunately manifest in a few decades.

[willcowskitz]

I know exactly how you feel.

The educational system is designed to diminish creativity and creative thinking because it is a danger to the society in it's current or planned form, because it is optimal for The System if people are robots. To get a job one needs education, this is not because they can teach us such valuable things in school but to force us through that mind numbing process of sitting in class and tuning your brain to only absorb information with least amount of criticism involved, and once we've done that we get a passport for society that works as a "proof" of that we possess knowledge on the subject involved in our possible "careers". In fact all this information is freely available for people in libraries, book stores or on the Internet (check out www.wikipedia.org), but that is besides the point, which is overly evident when one looks at the material they have to study in a university - its packed with loads of irrelevant studies on secondary subjects; for example if you want to become a programmer you have to take courses on totally unapplicable theoretical fields of mathematics just to gain more credibility that you will need for your future boss that is most probably going to be an idiot already so deep within the system that all he wants to see from your part is this piece of paper that states you have earned your passport for society.

Little aside from the topic, according to old conceptions the right side of the brain processed mathematical thinking whereas the left was dominant in linguistic abilities (correct me if I'm wrong). However, the modern theory on this is that the left side is used for understanding details of things, whereas the right builds understanding of the whole image. In this sense what you said about the correspondence between the side of the brain and society, it perfectly applies as the society really wants us to be focused on details and to work on them as *efficiently* as possible, without seeing the big picture where all the details that we play with become totally pointless, resulting in lack of motivation to keep the machine going.

Don't worry though, we'll see the system go DOWN one day, we live in a universe, part of chaotic nature that is bound to undergo radical changes from time to time. Then, we can concentrate on understanding ourselves and the existence instead of ripping our hair due to stress from filling out our taxes.

[bravuraoctaves]

People are taking shortcuts too many.

[Daniel_piano]

I'm so glad to hear that so many people share my thoughts, I was sod because I thought to be alone but now I feel better because I know i'm not the only one

Thanks!! Awareness can change the world little by little, and if not of everyone at least of those who deserve something better and are ready to experience it in this collective ignorance and trance

I want to keep this thread active because there's more I want to discuss about school and universities

Thanks again
Happy Holidays

Daniel