Take a second to think about how the school system works:

1. You step into school at a certain time every day, Monday through Friday.

2. You sit at desks with dozens of other students, learning the same thing, and taking the same notes.

3. Later on, you all take the same test, regurgitating what you “learned”.

4. Everything that you now know is based on the thoughts of the teacher and school board.

Wait, wait… don’t colleges and the workforce say that they want unique individuals? What students do in school is regurgitating what they took notes on, without actually analyzing what they’re supposed to know. What does this sound like?

An assembly line.

The workforce is changing rapidly, with tech companies like Google and Facebook turning the office into more of a playground, just see the video below. More and more companies are now paying people for what they know, not for acting like a machine on an assembly line.

Google wants individual people. Facebook wants individual people. Apple wants individual people. How else do new, groundbreaking products come out? A touchscreen phone, called an iPhone? Psh, nobody wants that! Many people thought that a touchscreen on a phone would be terrible, and disastrous for Apple. Well, we all know the success of the iPhone. In fact, Wall Street projects that the one billionth iPhone will be sold on July 20th.

The One billionth iPhone, supposed being sold this Wednesday.

Most companies now want individual workers, those who don’t usually follow the crowd. Most schools want students who do follow the crowd.

See the disconnection?

What’s the solution here? I say it’s time for education reform. The school system was set up for the Industrial Revolution. Why else would students go to school Monday-Friday, and at around the same time as those in the workforce? Now that the workforce is changing and becoming more flexible, education should be the same way.

You can be a part of education reform just by homeschooling. By teaching what you want to teach, not always based on what others expect them to know, you can be a part of the change. We’re not even getting into your kids owning their own businesses, that’s another post, but you may be better at teaching your child how the workforce works than a teacher.

Lastly, I’d just like to share a song I found not too long ago called “Bored of Education”, by Propaganda. He uses a beautiful play on words between board and bored, describing how the school system changed how we all “learn”. You can find the music video below, check it out.