choice or deviation. Students’ schedules revolve around their core classes for their whole
educational career, but when they enter the real world, most of this knowledge is
forgotten and never used again.
Contemporary philosopher Alan Watts once gave my favorite speech
(http://genius.com/Alan-watts-what-if-money-was-no-object-annotated) entitled
“What if Money Was No Object?” This speech touched on the same
points I have mentioned, but instead of referring to education, he
referred to people’s jobs and hobbies. His speech revolves around
one central idea: “...Somebody is interested in everything, anything
you can be interested in, you will find others will. But it’s
absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like.”
He touches on the fact that our pursuits need not necessarily be
profitable but rather based on interest alone, which is why they’re
called interests. “When we finally got down to something, which
the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do
that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most
important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time.”
College is where a student’s education becomes more personalized,
but why not start sooner? College brings the introduction of majors and minors. If
students will eventually have to choose what they want to focus on in their education,
why not alter the education system so that students choose majors earlier to deepen
their understanding of their skill (or subject) of choice? Students would enjoy their
learning more and build stronger career paths. This system would relieve students of
stressful classes that they don't want to devote their time to. If students’ education
revolved around a subject that they enjoyed and wanted to pursue, then outside
distractions would be eliminated and they could perfect this one subject. The more
familiar a student becomes with a certain aspect of their learning, the better that student
will become at that aspect.
Now, this system has one flaw. How are 100% of students supposed to
decide what they want to do with their life in middle or elementary school? Few students
decide early on that they want to be a musician, engineer, teacher, etc. The majority of
students who are not yet ready to follow their passions should not be left in the dust. I’m
not recommending we totally abolish the system we already have for public schools. A
traditional course could be offered for these students in the hopes they one day discover
what they want to do. Of course, not every student has a passion and not every student
will discover a passion in the future, but for the students looking to go above and beyond
with their learning, this program could help feed that desire to master a skill, subject, or
talent.