Amazing article

If you are even remotely interested in education you should read this article. 
In case you didn't know, the author is the one who participated in the iGEM competition entry about banana-smell E.Coli culture. 

I found the part he wrote about his success being 'because he dropped out of high school' rather than 'despite dropping out of high school' to be especially compelling statement... Apparently most people seem to have disturbing tendency to equate schooling and education regardless of the educational content of the schools themselves. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but in nyc many kids really do waste their life away in third rate schools and third rate colleges with scarcely any education being given in the process... I mean, I've had numerous experiences of sitting in a cafeteria for six hours staring at a wall since half the teachers didn't come to school because of the weather, and from what I'm seeing many kids today go through the same experience today. And for the children who really do opt out of the inefficient school system the city  practically spits them in the face by providing them with 'job education.' Sure, it would be nice to provide some job training to a thirty/forty years old homeless man. But to bunch of teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them? How can you tell if they aren't interested in more intellectual pursuits? And yes. The bureaucrats will probably cringe at the mention of 'intellectual pursuit' despite their higher-than-thou stance on matters of education. They'll probably say 'intellectual pursuit' have no place in real life. In their world learning to fix other people's toilet for a lifetime is considered more realistic compared to learning to develop a vaccine, or teaching children.

Here is the vicious cycle.

The people who run the education system are so severely undereducated that they force little children to live upto subpar standards and punish anyone who deviates toward a better life using methods they do not have the ability and the will to comprehend. The undereducated children then graduate and come back to run the system, the same way as they were taught.

In this society fondling little children is considered the height of perversity while relegating them to what is for all intends and purposes a life of bonded servitude under their 'betters' is considered normal. I consider them to be the same in terms of potential psychological damage to the child.


The world as a whole seem to be too caught up in demons of its own to be able to understand just what knowledge and education is. Mathematics and Sciences are pretty darn easy. Perhaps even easier than the arts, because you don't need as much 'gift' to be successful in the matters of maths and sciences. 

Quadratic equation was once the height of mathematical pursuit, solved only by people devoted to the mathematical arts. Now middle school children and moderately well educated gradeschoolers can solve that as part of the standard curriculum. 

Quadratic equation itself didn't somehow magically become easier. Human beings didn't suddenly evolve better brain in last few centuries (and if any teachers are doubting this please quit your job now. You are a threat to little children). The mathematical method for solving and teaching quadratic equation however, became easier, more streamlined and to the point compared to its archaic predecessors. The same goes for the basic Newtonian physics. 

It's only logical to assume that whatever we consider to be height of learning today will inevitably end up in high school curriculum in a century or two. 

The education system as a whole is deliberately pushing people away from pursuit of anything that cannot be understood in a ten minute  glance because they think future middle school/ high school curriculum topics are too difficult for the masses to understand. In the end, it all works out as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the so called educators and public servants gets to sleep at night while generation after generations of children are assigned to a fate they did not choose and does not comprehend.