Particularly "While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment", "while others sat in class and doodled..." and "while others were creating music..."
This seems remarkably naive. The doodlers did not all become artists, many were just bored or uninterested. The ones missing assignments were probably not reading books that fascinated them, they were probably playing video games or smoking/drinking somewhere out of sight. The musicians probably did have more fun than you.
But none of these people had life any more figured out than you. And if you're the sort of person that can excel at anything they put their mind to, just because they want to, then the world is yours to do with as you please.
That doesn't make you a robot, it makes you a god.
And if you're the sort of person that can excel at anything they put their mind to, just because they want to, then the world is yours to do with as you please.
That doesn't make you a robot, it makes you a god.
There is no such "sort of person". Which is fine, because that person is a strawman of yours: that graduation speech is about people who can excel at anything others put their mind to. Being the best at following orders is like the top price from the consolation price shelf of skills. As Plutarch said, the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled, and if you can't distinguish the interesting from the idiotic assignments, and fulfill them all with equal dog-like obedience, that's not very smart, and to think otherwise would be just as naive. If you don't, then that's not your graduation speech.
There is nothing wrong with learning for tests instead of coming up with your own challenges, or with learning instead of being lazy, or a mixture of both. There isn't even anything wrong with fulfilling the expectations of others even, as long as you know why you're doing it. If you don't, if you fulfill them just because they're there, not even to relieve your boredom but to because others expect you to, then you ARE on a conveyor belt without even knowing why and how you got there, rationalizations nonwithstanding.
Do you think people who blindly follow orders grow on trees, or are aware of the fact that's essentially all they're doing? Because I'd say no to both.
Pretty much anyone can excel at the level of dedication shown in the speech. The question is whether you can conjure up that dedication at will, to point at a chosen goal. If yes, god, if no, robot.
I disagree. While the majority of smart kids at school do follow the traditional route, doing their work, conforming to the system (sometimes because it's easy for them, and they may as well take advantage of their brains to get a decent job, and sometimes because they're simply blind), there are always a number of exceptions. You have exceptionally-bright kids who don't know what to do with their lives and slack in school because they're bored and lazy, but you also have exceptionally bright, almost enlightened kids who are extremely passionate about learning, but find themselves disgusted by the mindless conformism required to excel in such an institution. Not every person who can excel wants to excel at something so pointless.
What I see in this brief (I haven't seen the actual talk) is an understandable fear to get out of the education system.
Let's face it, from kindergarden to the end of college, what we have is a set of "levels", a fixed path with very very few points where you can actually decide something. The natural step is to reach the next level and keep doing roughly the same. More tests, more lessons... etc
BUT, when that system ends, there is a void. The adult world is not "a fixed system" or "the next level in the game", but a whole chaos, full of options, opportunities, uncertainties. And that freedom can intimidate, specially if someone has been focusing in excelling in the educational system and has the perception (not necessarily that's a real thing) that none of that is useful, that other people already have links (which a lot of people will form) with this new and weird "life outside academia"
I mean, it's a great thing, but I can totally understand that it's scary at first.
This is true. I think society has gotten better at stretching out the shelter over time. It used to be undergrad + law school, then figure it out. Now it's undergrad + banking/consulting/TFA + MBA + McKinsey, then figure it out.
Or for the lucky who were REALLY into programming, we knew early on that grades didn't matter as much so long as we learned enough to be valuable, since it's a field that's a relative meritocracy.
My experience, though, was the folks not handing in homework assignments were doing it out of laziness, not alternative studies.
I think this is just the other extreme of unschooling. The focus is on blindly excelling.
I "went" to high school. I graduated with a 95% average. In high school, there was a tie between me and some blonde girl to get valedictorian. I told my physics teacher that I didn't even care and to give it to her because for her, it was a huge point of self-validation. I got 100% in physics and calculus because I loved the subjects. I spent my summers studying calculus. Excelling was a by-product.
Through high school, I played sports, wrote music and had sex with girls. I did well academically too, even though (or because?) I stopped attending classes during high school and never went to class in university.
I graduated university from a top 10 university on the dean's list and I ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by taking my own route.
I love what I do and I loved every minute of university.
The problem I think is as she says herself: she focused on excelling, not on doing what she enjoyed. Maybe her parents are to blame. I don't know. But this is not at all a strike against the school system.
The school system is broken. But IMO, this is not why. It works very well for the 5% who enjoy academic pursuit.
I think this shows incredible insight for a 18 or 19 year old. Going against the grain will certainly provide more resistance, but if she moved that way after this speech, I think she's already an 'artist', at least in the Seth Godin sense of the word.
Is the new absolute standpoint a little naive too? Sure. And a little bit of a big jump from where she was? Sure. Binary Search algorithm on figuring out her 'self', and she's got a real early start on it.
The only hard part is knowing what you want to do with your life and how to make a living from it. Being top of the class certainly doesn't hurt your chances at success, if anything it instills dedication and discipline necessary to achieve whatever you decide to do next.
School is just a really long training level. It's not as fun as the game, but make the most of it and the game will be much easier to play.
"students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it"
I'm not so sure they're unaware of what they're doing. Don't most people go to university to "get a job"? Which typically means a 9-5 corporate cog paid to do the corporations bidding for most of your waking hours. That's actually what people want out of their four year piece of paper. Most people have already accepted and acknowledge that university isn't required to perform these jobs, but it's required to acquire these jobs, so they go through it.
There will be few who are there for the education itself, and perhaps go on to research positions for much lesser pay than the successful corporate cogs. But it's no mystery that the vast majority are there to willingly become part of the complacent labour force.
[+] [-] Nursie|12 years ago|reply
Particularly "While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment", "while others sat in class and doodled..." and "while others were creating music..."
This seems remarkably naive. The doodlers did not all become artists, many were just bored or uninterested. The ones missing assignments were probably not reading books that fascinated them, they were probably playing video games or smoking/drinking somewhere out of sight. The musicians probably did have more fun than you.
But none of these people had life any more figured out than you. And if you're the sort of person that can excel at anything they put their mind to, just because they want to, then the world is yours to do with as you please.
That doesn't make you a robot, it makes you a god.
[+] [-] ronaldx|12 years ago|reply
In fact, the doodlers were likely attending to the lecture, e.g. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1882127,00.ht...
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|12 years ago|reply
That doesn't make you a robot, it makes you a god.
There is no such "sort of person". Which is fine, because that person is a strawman of yours: that graduation speech is about people who can excel at anything others put their mind to. Being the best at following orders is like the top price from the consolation price shelf of skills. As Plutarch said, the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled, and if you can't distinguish the interesting from the idiotic assignments, and fulfill them all with equal dog-like obedience, that's not very smart, and to think otherwise would be just as naive. If you don't, then that's not your graduation speech.
There is nothing wrong with learning for tests instead of coming up with your own challenges, or with learning instead of being lazy, or a mixture of both. There isn't even anything wrong with fulfilling the expectations of others even, as long as you know why you're doing it. If you don't, if you fulfill them just because they're there, not even to relieve your boredom but to because others expect you to, then you ARE on a conveyor belt without even knowing why and how you got there, rationalizations nonwithstanding.
Do you think people who blindly follow orders grow on trees, or are aware of the fact that's essentially all they're doing? Because I'd say no to both.
[+] [-] Dylan16807|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexvr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaimebuelta|12 years ago|reply
Let's face it, from kindergarden to the end of college, what we have is a set of "levels", a fixed path with very very few points where you can actually decide something. The natural step is to reach the next level and keep doing roughly the same. More tests, more lessons... etc
BUT, when that system ends, there is a void. The adult world is not "a fixed system" or "the next level in the game", but a whole chaos, full of options, opportunities, uncertainties. And that freedom can intimidate, specially if someone has been focusing in excelling in the educational system and has the perception (not necessarily that's a real thing) that none of that is useful, that other people already have links (which a lot of people will form) with this new and weird "life outside academia"
I mean, it's a great thing, but I can totally understand that it's scary at first.
[+] [-] mathattack|12 years ago|reply
Or for the lucky who were REALLY into programming, we knew early on that grades didn't matter as much so long as we learned enough to be valuable, since it's a field that's a relative meritocracy.
My experience, though, was the folks not handing in homework assignments were doing it out of laziness, not alternative studies.
[+] [-] jotaass|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheez|12 years ago|reply
I "went" to high school. I graduated with a 95% average. In high school, there was a tie between me and some blonde girl to get valedictorian. I told my physics teacher that I didn't even care and to give it to her because for her, it was a huge point of self-validation. I got 100% in physics and calculus because I loved the subjects. I spent my summers studying calculus. Excelling was a by-product.
Through high school, I played sports, wrote music and had sex with girls. I did well academically too, even though (or because?) I stopped attending classes during high school and never went to class in university.
I graduated university from a top 10 university on the dean's list and I ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by taking my own route.
I love what I do and I loved every minute of university.
The problem I think is as she says herself: she focused on excelling, not on doing what she enjoyed. Maybe her parents are to blame. I don't know. But this is not at all a strike against the school system.
The school system is broken. But IMO, this is not why. It works very well for the 5% who enjoy academic pursuit.
[+] [-] svnfv|12 years ago|reply
You got away with that? Count yourself extremely lucky.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] prog101|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasallen|12 years ago|reply
Is the new absolute standpoint a little naive too? Sure. And a little bit of a big jump from where she was? Sure. Binary Search algorithm on figuring out her 'self', and she's got a real early start on it.
[+] [-] snorkel|12 years ago|reply
School is just a really long training level. It's not as fun as the game, but make the most of it and the game will be much easier to play.
[+] [-] grannyg00se|12 years ago|reply
I'm not so sure they're unaware of what they're doing. Don't most people go to university to "get a job"? Which typically means a 9-5 corporate cog paid to do the corporations bidding for most of your waking hours. That's actually what people want out of their four year piece of paper. Most people have already accepted and acknowledge that university isn't required to perform these jobs, but it's required to acquire these jobs, so they go through it.
There will be few who are there for the education itself, and perhaps go on to research positions for much lesser pay than the successful corporate cogs. But it's no mystery that the vast majority are there to willingly become part of the complacent labour force.
[+] [-] JonnieCache|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Inception|12 years ago|reply