The Goals of Education

Perhaps this is all for the “greater good of society.” It’s true: the whole job of schools is not to teach students basic facts and useful skills. The most fundamental mission of schools is to teach students to be good citizens and good neighbors – to cooperate with others who need their help. School does teach students ways of life that benefit society as a whole, for example by promoting recycling. A classic example is the sharing that school promotes, which the business world does not. Since school is about promoting the goodness of basic human nature, money is of secondary importance, and school should not teach how to become the richest person. But even for the “greater good,” educational organizations are easily allowed to be manipulated. Besides harming creativity and independent thought, schools often (unintentionally and unknowingly) follow big business with the mindset that teaching the ways of big business is necessary for student success in the “real world” of big business. And this is true – assuming success means receiving a job in which the former student is manipulated by corporate executives who, while workers are laid off, receive ever-increasing salaries of hundreds of times the average workers’ salary. Does it ever occur to most schools that they don’t need to and perhaps shouldn’t only teach their students the way of the biggest company in a field when alternatives exist? School administrators often claim Microsoft software has to be taught because it’s “the industry standard.” What they don’t realize is that teaching proprietary software condones a consume-consume mentality (rather than a creative, intellectual, or independent mentality) and that their argument is baseless because the software in ten years will be so different that only a few concepts – like restricting rights through licenses – will be relevant.

But even at the root level, current curricula has a fundamental flaw. Concepts are introduced, covered very quickly, and then left behind because it’s time to move on to the next concept. This teaches students to memorize useless facts for a test. After rushing through and concentrating on memorizing facts, equations, and concepts for tests, the student loses any real intellectual interest. Focusing on the “concepts” doesn’t help either because it means memorizing opinions, which is even worse than memorizing facts. Material learned through current methods is quickly forgotten when it’s no longer necessary for grades. With a loss in interest and a loss in knowledge, current education has not had the long-term positive impact I think it should have.

Rich and Famous Dropouts

• Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. He dropped out of Harvard to work on Microsoft.
• Paul Allen founded Microsoft along with Bill Gates. He attended Washington State University, and dropped out in his sophomore year.
• Michael Dell made his billions by building computers. According to one of his teachers, “hell never go anywhere in life.” Dell attended the University of Texas at Austin, but dropped out to custom-build and sell computers.
• Donald Newhouse built his family business into a publishing and television giant, including Vanity Fair, Glamour, and The Learning Channel. Don Newhouse dropped out of Syracuse University.
• François Pinault owns the Gucci brand and has owned Samsonite luggage. Pinault dropped out of high school.
• Jack Taylor founded and owns Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He dropped out of Washington University to join the Navy.
• Steve Jobs, of Apple, dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon after only one semester.
• David Murdock owns Dole Food Company (including the Dole pineapple). Murdock dropped out of high school.
• Ralph Lauren of . . . well isn’t it obvious? He dropped out of the City College of New York after two years.
• Sir Richard Branson owns the Virgin brand, including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Radio, Virgin Music, and Virgin Books, and over 60 others. He never finished high school.