Creating robots or Creating thinkers?

I hate school but I love learning...


Most people would argue that the two are the same thing and that they go hand and hand. I believe that the idea of school, especially lower level education like High School, has a different structure than it should have. Being a very analytical person who really enjoys learning I have observed through out my years of school that school is not about learning, and i don't mean learning as in memorizing every single detail there is to know, i'm talking about understanding the concepts and understanding the main ideas and being able to connect and analyze them.

I believe that the school system is outdated. Many years ago when the concept of school first started there was no such things as the internet or electronics in general. The main goal of school was to get everyone on the same page in terms of the facts that they believe is true at that time. To do that it required a lot of memorizing on the students part to know all this information that would only be available through schooling. They were trying to make the knowledge that people know uniform. If you look at today's school system, educators still have the main goal of trying to get their students to memorize things rather than truly understanding concepts and being able to analyze it and make connections.

Today we live in a world where facts are accessible by a single click of the search button on google. So why should we as student stay up all night trying to memorize things like the year of the revolutionary war or how old the earth is when its as simple as just looking it up on google. Now with the age of smart phones we are able to access the internet every where we go. Memorizing facts may help you in things like jeopardy or trivia night. The school system that has trained kids to memorize facts for a test and ass soon as they are done with the test and walk out, those facts usually walk out of their brain and is never brought up again. Which is why many of the smartest kids in school don't do very well (ex. Albert Einstein) , because normally they tend to get bored because they aren't challenged enough.

With that we have built a generation of students who fear being challenged to think critically and beyond the facts. Personally I grew up in an environment where my parents always challenged me to be analytical and think critically and it became part of my natural nature. With that I found the intellectual value of challenging ideas or analyzing facts and taking learning to a whole new level.

With information and facts easily accessible to us with a simple step of clicking the search button, we need to make school less about who can memorize facts and turn things in on time, and more about who is able to think deeper and challenge ideas or able to analyze concepts and deeper understand them.