Why Did You Go to School?
To learn, right? True . . .
But that’s not the main reason
you spent 11 to 17 years⁽⁷⁾ sitting on your butt
Why did we go to school?
As children, we didn’t really have much say in the matter.
But after an initial period of disorientation—the anxiety that can come from being separated from mother and father for the first time—most of us looked forward to going to school every day.
If not school itself, seeing our friends.
We also became proud of our accomplishments—but discouraged when we received low marks or failed a subject.
Nevertheless, school and college have become modern coming of age rituals, final graduation being proof of the completed transition from childhood to adulthood.
Whatever our experience while at school, we were there for reasons that were not only out of our control, but mostly out of our parents’ control as well:
➢ It’s compulsory in almost every country. So our parents didn’t have much say in the matter, either.
➢ To learn. Our parents probably chose the best school they could afford on the expectation that we would learn more and learn it better.
➢ Child minding. For some parents, having their children looked after for most of the day is a great boon. Enabling both parents to have an income.
➢ Indoctrination. It’s natural to want to pass our beliefs onto our children. So many of us select a school for our children that reflects our religious or secular beliefs.
In some countries, the government curriculum mandates various courses aimed to foster certain beliefs and traits such as national pride, good citizenship, and/or other values the politicians or education bureaucracy deem to be essential. Or beneficial (usually to them rather than the kids).
➢ Because everybody else does. Few parents try to create a different learning environment for their children to that offered by schools. Or even consider the possibility. Even in the United States, which has the loosest regulatory environment of any country, only 4% of children are homeschooled.
And possibly the main reason:
➢ Certification. The progression from primary school to high school, to university or college results in a series of certificates which most people believe enable us to be more financially successful adults.
As demonstrated by the different “pay grades” of primary school graduates, compared to high school graduates and college and university graduates.
Most people equate education with learning. But as you can see from this list so far, learning may not be the primary goal of education.
To see why this could be the case, let’s consider two periods of everybody’s life: before school, and after school or university.
⁽⁷⁾ Compulsory Education per Country in Years https://wonderingmaps.com/compulsory-education/
Every Child Is a “Learning Machine”
What do you think are the two most powerful and enduring learning experiences of your life?
These are two skills you learnt entirely on your own.
They are two activities you engage in every day.
Let me put the question another way: Who taught you to walk and talk?
Sure, you may have had a little bit of help. But basically—unless you had a disability and needed access to additional support—your only teacher was yourself.
Aside from wanting to walk and talk like everybody else, children also want to know Why? About everything. Every child is born insatiably curious.
They ask “Why?” so often it eventually drives most adults crazy.
Then they go to school. Where, unless a particular subject interests them, or they’re lucky enough to have an inspiring teacher, they zone out.
Meanwhile, out of school they continue to learn all sorts of interesting (to them) other non-certificate stuff. From throwing hoops to programming Dad’s computer.
Education, Learning, and the Real World
When we “graduate” into the real world, we revert to our preschool method of learning. Learning something because we want to or need to.
A friend of mine—let’s call him George—graduated from university with a degree in economics. He landed a job at BHP, the big Australian mining company. As part of his job, George had to learn about metallurgy. Hardly surprising given the nature of his employer.
Eighteen months later, his boss commented that George knew more about metallurgy than anyone he knew with a university degree in that subject.
The result of on-the-job learning.
Nothing really surprising about that. Except that George had acquired more metallurgical knowledge than a university graduate in that subject, in half the time—all while doing his job, as well.
And his economics degree?
Never used it.
Your experience may not be as extreme. But, like George (and me), you spent ten to sixteen (or even twenty) years of your life at school and university “learning” stuff.
➢ How much of what you were taught do you use today?
➢ How much of what you were taught did you have to unlearn when you entered the real world?
I have yet to ask someone those questions and receive “everything” and “nothing” in reply.
This is true even for graduates with professional degrees in such fields as medicine, law, finance, and teaching, where you’d expect the program to be highly targeted.
Nevertheless, one teacher told me she had to unlearn everything she’d been taught about how to handle students in the classroom after she’d graduated into the real world.
While a finance graduate, who today is a successful investor, said the only things he brought from college into the real world were the accounting basics needed to analyze company balance sheets and profit-and-loss statements.
In my own case, all I retain today from my 10 years in primary and high school are reading, writing, and arithmetic. Plus some higher maths I use occasionally.
I passed French—but I can’t speak it. Though I can read it (if it’s simple enough). Even on my occasional visits to France, this poorly mastered skill has been of little use to me.
Years of wasted time.
I have a university degree in economics—but when I got into the real world I had to unlearn almost everything I had been taught.
Looking back, I realize the only truly useful skill I acquired at university was the ability to do effective research in the library and elsewhere.
I also became pretty good at billiards.
Far more significant than anything else: as editor of the student paper I was introduced to the publishing business, where I’ve been ever since.
This extracurricular learning experience was my greatest takeaway from all the years I spent at university.
But I’ve yet to receive a piece of paper “qualifying” me in this field! (Unless you count all that green stuff.)
Use It or Lose It
The ultimate test of whether you’ve had a real learning experience is whether you use it.
Because if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Once upon a time, I could solve complicated mathematical problems in my head.
Quickly.
Today I can’t.
I’ve been using calculators and spreadsheets for so long, that ability has disappeared from lack of use.
Sure, we didn’t spend all those years sitting in class and learnt nothing.
Obviously, we absorbed enough to pass our final exams and get that all-important graduation certificate.
But how much did we retain?
One of my high school classmates defined “education” succinctly:
“All year you cram your head full of stuff—and then spew it out over the exam paper. And it’s gone.”
Studying for exams isn’t called cramming without good reason.
So most of what we “learnt” in school and college we used to pass the certification exam—and we then promptly began to forget it.
Theory versus Practice
If you want to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, pilot, dentist, or accountant, after achieving a bachelor's degree (and in some cases a postgraduate degree as well) you’ll need to spend several years as an intern before you can set up your own practice.
Why?
Simply because there’s a big difference between university and the real world.
At university, the primary focus is on the theory of the subject. Which, depending on the course, doesn’t mean you won’t also practice what you’re learning. For example, if you take a writing course, you’ll get lots of practice writing different assignments.
But a requirement for many professions is practicing the theory you’ve learnt under the guidance of qualified professionals.
In other words: using it.
For example, a friend of mine told me that, when he got free dental treatment at a Chicago university, the dental intern told him that he was going to get the “A-class” procedure.
Not for him, but because the intern’s primary focus was his rating from his supervisors.
Thus—depending on your choice of profession—the progression from bachelor’s plus postgraduate degrees followed by the necessary internship can take 13 or more years.
The Regulatory Environment
Education as we know it is a product of the regulatory environment.
This environment is based on two misconceptions:
1. To learn something, you need to go to school.
2. To be certified, you need to go to school.
Proof of these statements come from the comparison of public-school students with the homeschooled.
In two words: Higher performance.
According to ThinkImpact, public school students [in America] received an average score of 21 out of 36 on the ACT [American College Test], whereas homeschooled students received an average of 22.8.
As for the SATs, homeschoolers scored a nationwide average of 72 points more than their traditionally schooled counterparts in the United States in 2020.⁽⁸⁾
Needless to say, homeschooling is not an option for everyone.
But there are other ways you can reduce the number of years your children need to spend to get those essential graduation certificates.
⁽⁸⁾ Homeschooling vs Traditional Schooling: pros and cons
How You (and Your Kids) Can Beat the System
Can you get a high school graduation certificate without going to school?
In the United States, the answer is yes.
In many other countries, the answer is no.
Graduation certificates usually come in two “flavors”:
➢ Passing an exam (or series of exams)
➢ Passing exams, plus a variety of other requirements depending on the jurisdiction.
In certain states of the United States, passing an exam plus having someone (whether a parent, a teacher, or a school) certify that you have spent a certain number of hours studying the subject is all that is necessary to gain a high school graduation certificate.
A certificate that will be recognized as a college-entry ticket in almost every other country of the world.
By contrast, many other countries have a host of additional requirements. From the general (certain subjects must be taught to a specified standard) to the rigid (it’s 10:00 a.m. on a Thursday and you’re 9 years old so it’s maths).
The SAT Model
In most countries, the ticket to university or college is a high school graduation certificate.
But not in the United States. The only exam you need to pass is the SAT.
Anyone can take this exam, from anywhere in the world. The only qualification required: the ability to pay the necessary fee.
That’s it.
Interestingly enough, in addition to the US, universities in 87 other countries will accept the SAT as an entry qualification:
Some universities will have additional requirements such as a minimum score on the SAT.
A second option is:
The “General Educational Development Test” (GED)
The GED was developed during World War II by the American Council on Education to enable military personnel who hadn’t graduated from high school to pursue tertiary education after the end of the war.
From this beginning, the GED—a high school equivalency diploma—became available across the United States and Canada as an option for people who had not finished high school.
As a result, it gained the reputation of being “for dropouts.” Actually totally unfair, given the wide variability in the quality of American high schools. And thus their graduation diplomas.
Regardless, the GED is recognized by virtually all employers, colleges, and universities not just in the US and Canada, but world-wide.
In 2011, GED’s parent, the American Council on Education, and the British company Pearson, teamed up to “redevelop and administer the General Education Development test [as] a for-profit business.”
As of 2016, the GED had local affiliates in Bangladesh, Mexico, Myanmar, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.
This American credential is recognized everywhere. The same cannot be said of high school graduation certificates offered in many third world countries.
For example, the GED program requirements offered in South Africa via the Boston City Campus & Business College are:
Minimum of a Grade 10 Certificate and 16 years of age to enroll in the programme and take the GED test.
Meaning a South African high school student can skip the last two years of school. And—
On successful completion the learner will be issued a USA High School Equivalency Credential issued by the Department of Education for Washington, DC.
What’s more, a South African GED holder who has only finished grade 10 (of 12) can enter a South African university if he or she has been accepted by an American one.
Any fourth- or fifth-grade high school student who is able to pass the American exam may be able to accelerate his or her graduation from school to college by a year or more.
For example, most Philippine colleges have three entry requirements: an admission exam, an aptitude test related to the specific course being applied for, and an interview.
The foreign credential gives what’s called “a backdoor entry”: you can skip the admission exam entirely.
In Australia and New Zealand, students with a GED plus SAT are eligible to apply for admission to many degree courses.⁽⁹⁾
So if you (like me) can’t take advantage of this, having graduated from school yonks ago, now that you know what’s possible, how about adding 2 or 3 years to your childrens’ lives in the real world?
[PS: And save a bunch of money too!]
With these two American certificates, you and your children can cut two, or even three, years off the time needed to spend in school in order to be “certified” as “eligible” to enter college or university in almost every country of the world.
⁽⁹⁾ University with a GED®: Australia & New Zealand.