Just Another Brick In The Wall

We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control…All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall. All in all, you are just another brick in the wall. Pink Floyd

It is difficult to be a child of the 21st century -  to be a part of the most educated generation of the human race. I’m afraid the people around me are all masters of their own field – educated, more educated, most educated. Everyone knows everything. Alas! They don’t leave room for me to discover anything new.

Their ocean of knowledge is so deep that a new drop of creativity is a strictly forbidden in their already established knowledge of ocean. I still can’t forget my physics teacher’s words when describing Albert Einstein, “You know Einstein left school at a very young age and still he was the greatest scientist of all times. You know why? Because he was passionate.  But this new generation is only passionate about  wasting time”. Yes sir I thought, we are wasting our time studying something for 8 hours in the school every day (which has to be mugged up at the end of the session). Then  we return home from school where we need at least 2-3 hrs to complete our homework. Then we have to assist Mom with chores and then go to sleep to be prepared for another day at school.  Huh! Where’s the time for passion?

I bet if Einstein had wasted so much time everyday he wouldn’t have been so renowned today. Today we all are so caught up in the cobwebs of so called ‘educated’ era that getting out of it seems impossible. Schools are a good example of the irony of this situation. They promise to nurture the special gift of every child  while recognising his/her unique aptitude. They are supposed  to be the temples of learning but  we get caught up in a maze of stale thinking and rigid attitudes. For example, if a particular child is recognised for his/her outstanding academic skills then this wonder child is unofficially appointed as a lifetime examplar. This adulation creates a barrier for other children who want to recognized in the same field but are overlooked because of the teachers’ attitudes and the precedent set by the high achieving student.

But why does his happen?  Probably because a school is made up of  a highly educated faculty  with an entrenched attitude of accomplishment and they are very conservative  about welcoming new talents. I remember how my parents advised me to take a one year break from football. Their reasoning was  that people would be far more interested in my academic accomplishments than in my  prowess on the football field.

Do you see how education has stopped us from being children?  The demands of education  make it almost impossible  to play and enjoy life at a physical level.

Our parents and teachers are forgetting that inspiration to create in the science, business, technology and the arts often come during recreational moments when we are not overloading our brains with force-fed academics and old knowledge.

I think this era of education is back firing us today. The more education we acquire, the less inner  space we leave  for new ideas to germinate. Everything has become too competitive and life is too regimented.  Where is that spontaneous joy of just being human? I think we need a few more people like Galileo to upset the status quo with some radical ideas from out left field.  If by chance another Galileo-type radical  came along  to question today’s value systems, he won’t be hanged to death, but he would certainly have to go through the biggest test of his life. Why? It is because today people are so ‘educated’ they delude themselves into thinking they know it all!  No one is allowed to challenge them.  The moral of the story if formal education is making our human minds so closed up and inflexible, then personally I would prefer to be uneducated.