So here it is, my final blogpost for the PSD1 thinking and reasoning module. Time went by quicker than Ten Walls killed his DJ career this summer and I had a lot of fun writing about the way I apply subjects covered in class in my day to day life.
I think the world would generally be a better place if these kind of lessons were part of a mandatory curriculum in earlier stages of the educational system, I’m not saying that we should harass 8th graders with deep philosophical questions but you could stimulate this type of reasoning in high school instead of for instance the mandatory year of theology I had to take.
I feel like there are a lot of flaws in our current educational system, from an early age we are taught to behave and think in a certain way, the “coloring within the lines” metaphor is the most common used example to explain this up until it becomes a cliché to say so. But the way our creativity and curiosity are being killed goes way beyond arts and crafts. Every assignment you get in the Dutch educational system up until your finals in high school is limited by a very clear set of boundaries. There is no room for personal exploration of interests and students are being dismissed on their ability to forcefully take an interest in things like math and geography. Some might say that this is because the educational system is designed to fit the needs of today’s society and I can tell you from personal experience that this isn’t the case at all. In the time I’ve spent in classrooms learning languages and chemistry among others the world has given birth to entirely new industries which require a vast amount of skills involving computers and software.
You spend your days going to class and having to raise your hand to announce you need to go to the toilet and ask for permission, then all of the sudden you’re mature enough to make one of the biggest decisions in life which will result in a long period of financial debt. You begin to orientate on what your interests are because up until this point most of your days have been spent figuring out how to determine molarity, how to chart the biodiversity of a region and finally where your place in society is. Then you visit different universities and all of the sudden you find out that you are expected to have experience in working with things like Photoshop and InDesign or even basic coding competence.
I see minor adjustments being made, special schools which only work with iPads and such while across the channel in Britain they are teaching code in elementary school. The Dutch government needs to reform the way we educate the coming generations to assure we can compete with emerging tech-based economies and stay ahead of the pack in this ever evolving world economy.
The Rational Mindset 