Off and on, I have youngaged myself in ‘school education’ & some amount of collegiate stuff for many years now, though am sorta oldaged currently.

And so, someone suddenly asked me a few days ago, as to what my ‘learnings’ are, from my such love-hate affairs. This was in the context of the content/process described in the post: adolescents, their parents, ‘career’ choices, ‘counseling’ & life – some suggestions & notes of May 7, 2022.

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So. Here goes my list – without any significant explanatory notes or political correctness or even in some order.

I shared most of them during the aforesaid discussion.

(Please also note that there are exceptions to the following takes/opinions – but they are not at all statistically significant enough to merit more than a passing look & acknowledgement…)

Children are NOT created equal – even within the context of siblings. (In fact, they are like the rest of us – aren’t we all very different from each other?)

Children occupy various places in the scheme of possible rainbow-like capabilities (am NOT talking about the farcical and bloated ‘gender difference’ LGTBQ+ supremacist/exceptionalist nonsense here!), thanks to evolutionary imperatives and genetic lottery with the environments providing a nudge/reinforcement.

Equality of any kind (leave alone in ‘education’) – is merely a myth. Because, Diversity is the basic fact of life. But one needs to be ‘kind’ and ‘considerate’ because that’s also how a given Society progresses as a whole, albeit in zigzaggy ways.

Social stratification is a biological-societal fact; happens in multiple domains – and many a time happens around areas that a given society needs/celebrates or values. This may change from time to time and situation to situation. Education being valued most of the time, also confirms to stratificational contexts.

‘Social Justice’ is a fashionable nonsense. There never was one in the human pasts, there shall never be one in future too – assuming Homo sapiens sapiens would continue to exist as a species. Even our two hands are not created equal. Of course, fingers/toes aren’t. However we all need to be kind and considerate, moderated by evolutionary prompts & vice versa.

How far a given child ‘succeeds’ in education (or life, if you will) is mainly determined by the evolutionary psychology, genes & parentage. There is scope for Agency, which accentuates the inherited traits. Environmental factors are not super-critical, though they do play their part. Nature trumps Nourishment for the most part.

The factor of parental attention is very important for learning. A significant proportion of attention-deficit disorders in kids are explainable by the lack of meaningful parental attention.

Equality of effort cannot by itself ensure equality of results/outcomes.

Equality of opportunity is never really possible, because equality of ‘status’ to avail of the former is never really possible to enforce. (‘status’ defined in terms of mental capabilities, genetic heritage & evolutionary adaptations)

The gender differences (am ONLY talking about the males and females of a given species) are real; they have a significant influence on shaping skills, capabilities, perceptions & engagements – including in ‘education.’

Affirmative action invariably & merely creates yet another entitled, jealous privilege-accumulating class. Nepotism via generations of reservation beneficiaries is the answer to negate the basic idea of usefulness of fair competitions.

Competitiveness & appropriate skilling/adaptations are useful ideas in Education or Life itself – because that’s how we have evolved. Of course co-operation is also a significant way to progress as in our evolution.

Indirect presentations by the given set of adults around a given child invariably wield a huge influence.

‘You can be anything you want to be’ is a sweet, comforting myth. But one can try, because of one’s Willpower and the appropriate use of Agency.

Imagination & Will power are the ones that differentiate pupils sharing similar backgrounds; but, even they are predicated on genetic heritage/baggage/lottery.

‘Differently-abled’ is at best a despicable condescension. If a given being has some biological/physical/learning inadequacies with respect to an aspect, it does not mean that, the being would definitely be very ‘able’ in some other aspect. It is utter fakery to spout such ‘differently abled’ nonsense. (but yes, one can be considerate to folks having some inadequacies, at least by NOT putting then down)

IQ is THE important indicator of intelligence – in fact, the single most important & fair assessment of the potential of a given child/adult. It correlates significantly with (if not explains) many things/aspects of our normal/average lives – marks/grades, jobs, wealth, happiness, health, following & longevity… (DMK Dravidian M Karunanidhi was a high IQ individual, but of course scum)

About 5% of a given ‘population’ is elite (not merely in terms of power, pelf etc – but in any given field) and this determines the directions taken by a given Civilization in a given context.

Emotional Intelligence & the illustrious nonsense spouted around it are but a hogwash. (Even Daniel Goleman, who delightfully created the buzz around it kept on changing the context and the definition of EI)

People forever talk gratuitously about ‘unlearning’ – however, this is nonsense; once you learn a thing, you may forget some aspects of it, but can never unlearn it; one can never reach a ‘tabula rasa’ state with respect to it.

There are NO different learning styles, but only different teaching styles. (Anyone talking about ‘different learning styles of students’ is at best ignorant, but normally a charlatan)

Phased/spaced reinforced/repetitive learning + ‘divide a bigger problem domain/context into smaller pieces, tackling each one of them and then putting them together’ is the way learning happens – in fact. any learning, subject to bio & evolutionary factors.

Apprenticeship modes of learning (if possible from the Masters) is the way by which our Civilizations have nurtured Excellence. That’s the way it is AND that’s the way it will be. This will likely continue to be the best-outcome mode in Education.

The effect of Teachers on pupils/students is overestimated, if not grossly overrated. (but, it is actually a myth spread by Teachers themselves, which we would realize if we poked around sufficiently enough)

Like in any statistical grouping/sampling – some 5% of Teachers may be good at best. They would provide the chancey sparks to a given child, who again belongs to that 5%. And these statistically insignificant case-studies would be used to set-up convenient narratives.

Upgrades in Quality of Teachers (or Children) happen over generations – and slowly & steadily the ranks of 5% get strengthened.

This gradual accretion would of course create the societal issues associated with ‘Elite Overproduction.’ Sometimes cullings happen – like the ones systematically done by Stalin, Mao et al. Sometimes, the real cultural/academic elite are neutered/castrated as in #DravidianModel – Dravidians have no use for Intellectuals or Thinkers. They only need relentless foot-soldiers to peddle propaganda and to reinforce foisted but useful perceptions.

Various schools (educational establishments, especially in ‘higher-education’ – including in the NITs, IITs, IIMs ++ of Bharatiya contexts) exist mainly for network purposes, location of relatable peer groups etc. Actually network-effect is their main value even. Not much significant knowledge is gained from average Teachers & Professors of all kinds of schools (elite and average),

Mixed age class-rooms are the best – because they mimic life and have strong evolutionary heritage; but scaling of it is an intractable problem.

Assuming ‘class rooms’ have to be used for ‘education’ – the set of Montessori approaches to learning is the best mode of education. But some aspects of it need to be Indianized/localized.

Non-Montessori Schools are overrated; what a child studies for 12 years (up-til 10th grade/SSLC – Secondary School Leaving Examination) can be done in 1 year max – provided some basic numeracy, reading+writing skills are there. Schools mainly exist for outsourcing basic parental responsibilities.

Life-long learning is possible via 4Ps. Passion Project Play Peers.

Happiness & Learning is ‘fun’  kind of ‘wisdom’ are terribly overrated. (Learning can be joyous of course, but in moderation – learning happens all the time, but the ‘economical or societal value’ of it varies)

Rote learning is a very important aspect of Education. (Anyone saying otherwise is faffing, to be charitable)

‘Master X in 30 days!’ kind of books/approaches are but huge jokes. If I write such a book on subject X, I would write, ‘Begin today and Master X, may be 🤞🏾 in 4 years?’

The effort that goes into learning any skill of something of educative value is significantly loaded with ‘boredom.’

Critical Thinking cannot be explicitly taught. Anyone pretending to teach ‘Critical Thinking’ is at best deluding himself/herself. Don’t signup for courses that gratuitously claim to teach ‘Critical Thinking.’

Wokism is for terrible losers – so, it is totally reserved for entitled progeny of cushy-classes, aristobrats, entertainment industry clowns & assorted socialites.

‘Gap year’ in education is essentially a holy nonsense – and is useful only for elite kids as a time-pass & to virtue signal; only these ones can afford to ‘discover themselves’ at their indulgent parents’ expense – can ‘benefit’ by it.

Not everyone needs to know about Periodic Table, Mechanics, History, Integral Calculus, Tamil ‘Sangam Age’ poetics etc at the High School level. There are very capable and successful people who do not know Fourier Transforms. There are very happy folks who do not know how to write poems in chaste Tamil.

‘Liberal arts education’ much sought after by the moneyed & cultural elite addresses the elite overproduction problem in the Indian society – merely pointing to the uselessness of it to the normal, honest & hardworking people. ‘Liberal Arts’ are in general, pure fluff. But are a great way to time-pass; body doing time, while the brain has literally walked out of the skull in protest.

Societies mass-produce accountants, clerks, legal folks, random grads, literature-philosophy majors, blathering sociologists, literary critics, economists, historians, political hypothesists (appending ‘sciences’ to this is a crime)  and the like – because they are very easy to ‘produce’  but are difficult to assess the usefulness/quality of.  However, the fact is that, they would also be easy to displace/replace. Societal peace & progress would depend on how to redeploy this circa 95% of the total population in the context of technology developments making them redundant & next to useless. (these folks need entertainment as opposed to any reasonable/useful education)

Here’s where the rest circa 5% come in. They would dream up replacement pathways for the masses, as they have always been doing; the future is firmly for makers, doers, designers, sellers and cosmonauts – in other words, Entrepreneurs who are souls behind Enterprises. Unfortunately, Entrepreneurship cannot be formally taught, but has to be experienced via multi attempts at success and learning all the way – to eventually emerge successful.

When the 95% folks think they belong to the 5%, they merely become living examples of Dunning-Kruger effect.

When self-directed (auto didactic) learning happens, aided by the pretty much free availability of graded resources on the Internet, it will swell the numbers of  5% folks.

Ideal learning which aids Human progress would pivot on the 5% individuals who have got all the basic Varnas in the right, dharmic proportion of mutually aiding character traits – shudra, vaishya, kshatriya & brahmana.

Nothing like a startup (or better, a series of startups – with their failures and successes) as a fine, multi-faceted learning tool/environment. Ah, the pleasures of fulfillment and the way they operate as founts for raconteuring…

The world that we inhabit, our earth – is not merely a planetary body – it is an incredible start-up for life, intelligence & consciousness as we know it, to be scaled up and migrated to other parts of the livable universe in future. Brave new worlds await us.

The Order of the Universe (=Rta) and that which sustains that order (=Dharma) will set us Humans free.

Hence anything, any ‘education’ that helps in this progress & seeding of human consciousness, is a great thing to pursue.

Go figure. (even as I am figuring it out…)

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Postscript:

Of course, am sure the above listing (as a draft reviewer put it) would be viewed as – very cynical, negative and all that. But it is a distillation of truths and facts-of-life, as experienced by me. YMMV. Feel free to debate without ad hominem; am open to learning from the experiences of other reasonable folks too.

The above views do not mean that I do not engage with all Teachers & kids. I continue to do that – because I know I am a good/useful teacher & have confidence in my teaching style. But I do not have any random illusions or romantic ideas – at least not any more.

Do consider the above pointers as somewhat of an amalgam of off-the-cuff and random idiosyncratic thoughts over the years, evanescent insights, stray observations, startling takes, personal rabid opinions and filtered personal stories etc – nothing more, nothing less.

…Of course there are people with much, way better IQ (and accomplishments & sanity/energy to match them) than me in the very limited circles that I move in (for example, in the otherwise very mediocre Tamil scene) – like for example, the young folks that I got to know via Social Media: Badri Seshadri, Aravindan Neelakandan, Sridhar Tiruchendurai ++; there are also much, much younger people than I, who are such – for example Sundararaja Chozhan++; all power to them!

…so I know, I have a long way to go; fact is that I too do NOT belong to that high potential 5-10% folks and am among those struggling to make that higher pay-grade.

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(Thanks for reading this long-form post, if you have come this far)

((Please note that I keep revising (upgrade/downgrade) my opinions based on emergent data that I chance upon. I do realized that there are more of such pointers, even as I type the ending words here – but this will suffice for now. Also note that the ‘5%’ used in the notes is just a reasonable placeholder figure, it could even be 2% or 10%, latter being the best case))

(((END)))