Education - or Lack Of

Over very many years of involvement in training people in the intricacies of aircraft systems, and theoretical subjects associated with those systems, there have been hundreds of students pass by under my gaze.

My vantage point at the chalkboard or screen enables a great view of the general apathy out there.

There are some, a few, students who are attentive for most of the time and then there are those students who are ‘with you’ for some of the time. For every class there will be the odd one or two whose eyelids will droop almost instantly upon sitting down.

We are, are we not, inclined to blame them? Call them, perhaps, lazy and inattentive.

For many people it is not their fault. They are victims of subjective fatigue that has been driven into them in the same way that Pavlov’s dogs were trained to salivate at the sound of a dinner bell.

The fault lies with the system under which we are schooled from an early age.

Our parents were so happy when we spoke our first word. Perhaps there was some jealousy involved if the first word was the name of the other parent. Then we teetered on our trembling legs for a first step.

Joy.

“Our baby has been walking for three months now,” spoke the proud parent to the uncaring listener.

“No wonder he looks exhausted,” replies uncaring listener.

The thing here is that once we are past those first achievements we are encouraged to sit down, shut up and listen.

Scholastic achievements are often the product of learning, ‘parrot fashion’, a list of facts with nothing to back them up; nothing interesting to fatten the pot of knowledge.

In my formative years I was accustomed to wandering around hedgerows, along riverbanks and beaches and then going home to read. Anything. Mostly about plants, birds, fish, animals and stars.

Stars were fascinating.

The point, for me, was that the knowledge I acquired from the books could be verified by finding the objects in the pages in the hedgerows and trees and were, very often, part of the hedgerows and the trees themselves.

Fattening the pot of knowledge. Seeing, touching, smelling – all five senses could be brought to play in the search for information.

Education is not the same as learning or intellect. There are some great minds out there who have not had the chance to be educated and neither have they had the food with which to fatten their information base.

Equally, there are those who have intellect but no will to learn because they have had the desire to increase their information level squeezed out of them from an early age.

Dry facts on a repetitive basis will kill the curiosity of even the most ardent cat!

In these modern times the scholastic institutions are controlled by the cheque from the would-be recipients of knowledge; how fine it would be if the governments could see their way clear to fund education on a broad base.

Free education for all is the key to National success. To use the resources available in the Nation is a treasure that should never be overlooked.

Instead there is apathy.

Those of us in tertiary education are the recipients of the brain dead—or, at least, the brain numb.

Too many years of exposure to second-rate teaching methods that are ruled by the accountants have taught them only that they need to pass an exam and not formulate new ideas. Just soak up enough to get through and move on to the next level.

They suffer from subjective fatigue. The thought of sitting in a training room being given information by someone in a white coat is enough to send their minds into an oblivious state where the desire for sleep is overwhelming.

Never blame the student—blame the (cheaper) system that brought them to you.

Blame the lack of interaction created by large (cheaper) classes.

Blame the dedicated but unimaginative semi-trained (cheaper) teacher.

Blame the desire to get a certificate or diploma rather than knowledge.

Blame the crushing death of questioning, of curiosity, the desire to know.

Blame yourself for not making the information more interesting.