Imagine with me for a moment a world where Secondary School (High school) was never a concept for most. Where students would finish their 8th-grade studies and be introduced to the world as a junior citizens of sorts. This isn't to suggest we return to the era where 14-year-olds are suddenly paying taxes, working full-time occupations, and getting married. Rather, let's consider the four years of high school education (some countries add a 5th year) as a far less structured period than our current high school curriculum and a more focused developmental period of shaping minds and interests toward passioned occupations and away from institutionalization and compartmentalization. A literal period of self-discovery and impersonation that allows individuals to find individuality, as opposed to this “rounded” excruciating excursion through educational systems of systematic stymied shuffling. Where some people demand freedom from systems, others crave systemic ordering. Both are indoctrinated within an educational process that truly favors neither and serves no one except those in the administration employed by it.
To what value is our society then served? A great one if the trends towards “Open Classrooms” is anything to be remarked upon. Suddenly, within our midst, we are befound with articles claiming the new invention of education is to allow the students to decide their pursuits.
What a novel idea, and yet not really. Indeed this idea is not new, merely a too-late reaction to the increasing obviousness that modern education, as we understand it, is ancient and pointless. Especially in the rapidly expanding digital age post-covid, where exams are take-home and teachers are nearly expended by online learning and technology.
As is often remarked by college and high school educational administration personnel today – ask any question of a student, and they could give you the best answer possible within 10 seconds. “Phones down,” we tell our next crop of the best and brightest creatives and academics. Phones down, we order across full heads of active listeners who truly want to learn but are rarely offered the opportunity or information relevant to that process.
Phones down, lest you spend the ten seconds to find and regurgitate the information the person before you spent a decade to master. Phones down, lest you be inspired by another idea or concept that otherwise would never be presented within the classroom by a domineering education engineer.
To start, here is a brief history:
For this article, we will exclude the previous religious and military institutions of “education” as they relate to Judaism and Spartan teachings of the ancient Grecian era formally called the Classical Period (510-323 BC). We are also excluding Primary Education, as I believe the basis of this form of instruction is beyond reproach. Literacy, arithmetic, and cultural indoctrination during these critical periods of youth development are fundamentally important for the development and inclusion of the individual within a complex society, especially politically and awareness of our Constitution – the teaching of which is in sharp decline within our schools.
Instead, we need to travel forward from these periods to the early-modern periods within Europe (15th to 18th Centuries) to better understand the roots of Secondary Education. Here, many institutions arose to teach dialectics of various sorts, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and their corresponding texts, usually religious. With roots in ancient Greece, some of these institutions further rounded their education through the instruction of the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric), which became required teachings before the introduction of the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy). Many of these institutions were structured and designed around teaching future clergy members, as those members of science generally gravitated more toward the Academies of Science instead of the Institutions of Education. Indeed, global education has its heavy roots within the teachings of religion and state-focused indoctrination than that of intellectualism or general wisdom.
The development and widespread establishment of modern Secondary Schools didn't begin until the early 19th Century (1820-40). They didn’t begin a massive escalation until the mid-20th Century. By 1827, all public education became free of charge within Massachusetts, even though this was unpopular at the time with many electorates as they knew they would be required to pay for it through increased taxes. Before this period, many households, even the working poor, chose to educate their children through private tutors, vocational training, or religious institutions. These religious schools, founded around the 16th Century Protestant Reformation (Rejection of Catholic Dogma), led to higher Church attendance through increased literacy rates.
Even so, the requirements of learning Latin, Greek, and German for advancement into Universities were the predominant purpose of Secondary Education. The original intent and design of the secondary school were never about rounding citizens' knowledge or providing them valuable tools outside their future occupations - it was to cull from the rubes a ruby.
"...Raking a few geniuses from the rubbish."
-Thomas Jefferson
One of the fundamental problems with our current high school system is the massive drive by both guidance counselors and school systems, in general, to push students toward the university. Originally, as mentioned above, this made sense. The entire purpose of High School was intentionally to drive young minds into the select academics with the goal of 'rounding' education within generalized studies in preparation for specialization – such as clergy, administration, and teaching. As our civilization evolved, this became less and less relevant to the course of our societal goals. High school isn't as important in the modern era. Increasingly so, as our technology becomes more and more advanced, requiring less and less application of rudimentary knowledge and the pointless rounding of regurgitated information which is poorly applied and little understood to begin with. Even within the University system, the predominance of multi-degree study is becoming more relevant as a form of dealing with the evolving needs of increasing complexity. Multi-disciplinary studies can only be detracted with “roundness,” not strengthened. To whom is served to round the minds of individuals instead of teaching the core skills required? The administration, most obviously, benefits directly from increased funding for worthless and time-consuming studies of irrelevant indoctrination. If we lived in a world so populated with humans who were entirely capable of near-perfect regurgitation and recall of the information learned twenty years prior within a classroom, perhaps we could have that conversation.
We don't live in that world, and the idea of anything remotely centered around that argument is ridiculous and wasteful.
What employer needs a rising star employee who can recount three major cities of each state while another employee can recall such information through widely available technology? Even today, with the battles around climate change, we are hard-pressed to find an individual who can even appropriately apply the basic principles of photosynthesis to real-world applications and problems. Scientific notions instilled, if not installed, as far back as the 3rd grade for most students on this continent.
“Are you smarter than a fifth grader” is not even the relevant question. The relevant question is – is the 5th grader being appropriately served by wasting youth upon the consumption of irrelevant data points? Don't present a 5th grader who can recall three major cities per 50 states listed by population density in order. Google can do that effortlessly and far more efficiently without the dramatics of gold stars and bright egos. Rising stars? All I see are walking irrelevancy of vapid application. Vapid, the most relevant term here, is simply defined as “offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging.”
Yet, we made a TV show of such a concept. Want a challenge? Put a university student as an opponent armed with internet access and begin the true measure of the 5th grader. Since when did intelligence become so simplistic as to be quantified by one's ability to recite basic search results of otherwise elementary topics? Vapid, indeed.
This is to say we need less rounded study of irrelevant topics and more study of advanced knowledge and skills that can't be easily attained from a 30-second google search, which is fundamentally what the high school degree performs, except over four years instead of 40 seconds.
What value does information regurgitated over a decade give students when they can simply google the information and become aware of it? A case could be made regarding algorithmic isolation – individuals stuck within their personalized data feeds across multiple platforms catering to the same or similar interests. Isolation itself is a problem, but certainly not one requiring the solution of an entire half-decade of studies of completely irrelevant information to solve. To study the value of high school education, specifically, is to spend considerable effort attempting to even remember the nonsensical drivel we once spent so long trying to master, if just long enough to impress upon a test paper that has been long since forgotten. How often do you recall your gold stars and A+ in the everyday course of life from 5th to 11th grade? I would hope little unless your experience was earmarked by an especially interesting educational journey or one marked by athletics.
Get it? We don't write stories of classroom geniuses with perfect GPAs who go on to become mediocre employees with perfect workplace attendance. We tell stories of those who utilized those periods of development and overcame all the burdens and barriers artificially placed in front of them by a system designed to restrict and restrain that development. How exceptional are those students who manage a part-time job, score a 4.0 GPA, have perfect attendance, manage excellent reception with their educators, and somehow have time to hone their craft or passion? Those are the exceptions, as their diligence is so outwardly as to be almost entirely unbelievable.
Our world simply can't absorb the constant outflow of elite-ish students from a growing and simultaneously concentrating field of higher education. Rounded educational principles suggest intense exposure to generalized topics important to academic development - this is simply ancient thinking applied to modern problems. Everyone with a smartphone has the ability and opportunity for exposure to various concepts, ideas, and new forms of thinking – which is further evidenced by you reading this Substack right now. Twenty years ago, you and I rarely had an opportunity to speak and share ideas. Thirty years ago, it would have been extremely difficult to reach across the great pond and country and converse with audiences in France, Australia, South Africa, or even the southern states – yet there you are, reading or listening to these words. Absorbing different perspectives while developing your own.
If our goal with modern high school education is to maintain the current pipeline of young minds into University specialization while simultaneously destroying the future and potential of those young students, then nothing needs to change. Let our creatives be dulled, and our intellectuals be spoon-fed until another civilization rises to take our place as a world leader. The fact is that every high school or a university-educated person who occupies a position that doesn't require such a rounded education is fundamentally a waste of both that individual's potential and the education for which they spent two decades receiving and working towards. Our world does not, and never will need an endless supply of top-tier managers, academics, and safety-seeking adults. There simply isn't enough room at the 'top' for everyone. Most people wouldn't accept such a position or handle the time commitment and responsibility even if offered. That top, which the extremists often attack within our society, is not very desirable. The work hours are inhumane, the responsibilities are shattering to conceptualize, and the pay, though seemingly larger-than-life, is not always worth the effort. For those few freaks within our society who truly enjoy the masochism demanded of that work lifestyle – there will always be a cubicle waiting for you, especially once we remove those who wastefully occupy it while dreaming of regret and putting in only the minimum required - a process which is rapidly advancing with technology.
High school is a waste of time for most people. The preparatory nature of this study was designed, as it always was, to produce minds ready for highly specialized fields, not rounded awareness, which can be gained instantly and easily with modern technologies. For many creative and blue-collar types, high school is hard to adapt to and adjust within. For others, high school is hell, especially the introverted types. What used to exist within our society was not the endless need for indoctrination and regurgitation but rather the pursuit of knowledge, creative endeavors, and entrepreneurial spirit. For the few, and they are very few, who are truly invested in a specific academic pursuit or career – these are the types we want in those fields. Suppose you love working with numbers, curating art, or writing. In that case, you should pursue those avenues of study with fiery passion and resolve, not the safety-seeking of careerist advice from guidance counselor types who were so transfixed with a lack of career options they chose a literal career of giving career advice they were hard-pressed to apply. As the saying goes, “those who can't do, teach.” What of it, then, when your career is teaching career pathways toward success while exhibiting little? The irony!
None of this is to say we should return to the pre-modern era of America with ten-year-old boys working coal mines for a living. But that also doesn't mean the other extreme of funneling our best and brightest through a collage of regurgitating rounded nonsense is an improvement. On the contrary, this pendulum swing in opposition to the previous era only creates new and more complex problems to be solved, as opposed to improvements to the previous issues our civilization grappled with.
When has it ever been beneficial to constrict a creative to academics or an academic to the misery of writing creatively? We can pull a literal millennium of personal stories from individuals who possessed true passion and talent for a particular thing and were forced by circumstance or advice into something else, usually in the complete opposite of their desire. Even as I write this, I'm reminded of the famous scene Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke in the Sister Act movie franchise - where a singer, who wants nothing more than to sing, is being drafted into academics she has no talent for or interest in. Perhaps her mother's advice is true, and she would have ended up like her father singing on streetcorners for pocket change. Or perhaps she would have used her best creative years to hone her craft and art and find her true voice and passion, which undoubtedly would have been met with better success, or at minimum, less late-life regret.
What isn't a trope today is the fact that those who succeed usually start early and never cease. Justin Bieber, the musician, started his career making Youtube videos playing the piano, guitar, drums, and trumpet, which his mother encouraged (and could afford to support). He even made pocket change 'busking' on street corners for tourists to hone his craft. This effort and his mother's encouragement led to his discovery of his first Record Label. Not Julliard, and certainly not studying classical music composers at Harvard. Mr. Bieber can't even attribute the rounding of high school education to his success as he was discovered at the tender age of twelve.
Jeff Bezos had a glowing and rising career working at D.E. Shaw, a multinational investment firm. He became one of four Vice-presidents at the company. He had a glowing career path laid before him with an excellent salary and benefits. Cue 1993, Mr. Bezos saw an article saying internet commerce was set to rise by 2300%. Armed with a rented garage and all the “don't throw your career away” advice one could handle – he started selling books out of a garage online. He quit his golden-track career to pursue something meaningful, a service to be filled. A service that rested upon his pursuits, not a worn path chosen for him by academics and careerists seeking job security. His time in academics was helpful, and his success within those fields further proves his desire, as opposed to restriction. This isn't to say he wouldn't have been far better served, and thus the rest of us, as his customers, had his educational administration sought to serve his interests over their own.
Both examples are extreme, but they show that applying passion to one's pursuit leads to success. Both Mr. Bieber and Mr. Bezos went through incredible strife and struggled at various points in their careers. Even today and both continue to hone and apply their craft. One required the pursuit of academics to master their knowledge and application, and the other required a little investment by a loving parent and the freedom that youth gives to the mind and spirit before life piles on its stifling obligations. High school is an invasion of youthful pursuit in the desire to make everyone a pre-Amazon Bezos who listens to the career advice of senior staff and guidance councilors and, therefore, never accepts risk for the potential of the greatest reward. Yet it is those very years that we so quickly rob from our youth to facilitate careers for the previous generations.
Ask yourself, if you will, what four extra years of youthful freedom and the possibilities to explore any path of passion you could have achieved may have produced. Perhaps your outcome would have been worse financially, or perhaps your application of self towards something meaningful would have bettered your experience, if for nothing else, leading to less regret you might be plagued with today.
As the doctor once said in his book “12 Rules of Life”:
“Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.”
-Dr. Jordan Peterson
We must stop this endless pipeline of “Yes-Men” for “Yes-Masters.” Classrooms full worldwide of hapless youth fighting each other for cubicle careers, forcing corporations to hire them out of acts more akin to charity than need. Our political incentives bent for decades towards tax incentives for corporations to hire the “educated” versus the self-starter or self-informed. Much to perhaps you're unaware, but it is true – corporations are encouraged to hire the hapless be it by professional unions of administrators or directly through government tax breaks.
Our scientific fields need the best-inspired minds; not many minds wasting limited research funding on nonsensical mediocrity. Our arts need the honed talent of creatives, not the creatively bankrupted and destitute vying out of desperation over passion. These are issues we have created in our economy, not ones that need to be natural.
It is not natural for 100,000 ineptly-educated scientists to apply for a pool of funding fit for 1,000, where only ten might actually produce incremental success. It is not natural for 100,000,000 creatives to starve while a few undesirables are selected to prove themselves and inevitably fail due to a lack of experience and self-awareness. Holding a piece of paper on a particular subject matter does not make you an expert or even exceptional. That paper merely means you were trained by dozens of teachers who themselves were deemed unfit to serve the function of their pursuit. Further administered by thousands of other cubicle warriors vivaciously vying for veritable veneration of vocational virtue.
To those critics who would question what advice I would give a senior student in pursuing a career – I would give none. It's already too late for them to spend time honing a craft or developing a passion. If they require the services of a careerist counselor to seek their own pathways by that point, you've wasted what time you had, which isn't your fault but rather a damning account of how society itself has spent what time you did have to discover and begin mastery of such a thing.
A disservice that draws its foundational issue from the very dynamics of any classroom. One side is the creatives, the other side is pure academics, and the middle is a mix of both or neither. All sides are disadvantaged within the classroom. Mixing these types does not produce the results we need, nor does choking them through an Open Concept school which is fundamentally limited in funding and scope, benefit them entirely either.
Our attempts at the discovery of passion through the introduction of various topics as a form of “rounding” education, or the opposite – by selectively catering to the academics with topic-specific honored classes capable of moving at greater speed and depth continue this disservice - which doesn’t even begin to address the problem with regurgitation as a form of education, which outside of a select form of pure academics (Doctors, Lawyers, etc.) is almost entirely irrelevant. Especially if the data being regurgitated is entirely outside of the data being sought or required by the individual. Give each student the ability to think, the tools to conduct commerce, and the skills to discern a difference, and let them have a couple of years to figure it out before the stifling requirements of a mortgage, family, and cubicle. They won’t remember most of the information you taught them anyway.
Give each student the tools they need for success within the first grades, then let them find or follow their path forward. Let them fail, fumble, or succeed without coddling or hampering their minds within institutions that were never designed or deployed with their interests or, more importantly, ours. Stop wasting the critical periods of youth, a theft from the youthful by the not-so-anymore. Or, equally, stop cramming the uninterested into classrooms with those who have an interest. These added parties are nothing but a distraction and an entire waste of space. People will sort themselves out if you let them, just get out of their way and watch.
Phones down? Never! Phones up, gentlemen. We have advanced as a society to possess the greatest devices of the greatest capability in the history of mankind, and I'll be damned before I ever put down that device and be relegated to consuming only the knowledge some engineer of education has the capability of regurgitating upon a chalkboard.
Phones up, eyes open, and active listening turned to suspicion towards anything claiming greater authority or expertise - unless you are into that sort of thing.
Personally - Give me critical thinking, an open mind, and infinite data - or give me death.
As always,
Farewell and Good Luck.
-Dark Philosopher
November 16th, 2023 - Fixed Layout, Format, and Signature