To Change the System

What is an ideal educational system? The answers to this question may various and different, depends on each persons, but I think we can agree on the same thing that the system needs some change. Why does the system need some change? Is there anything wrong with it? What is wrong with the educational system these day is, it make us think alike. We go through the same mold at school which teaches us how to think and act the same way. There is no room for a different idea or someone who is just different in a school. The ways to change this are breaking the rules and freeing the education.

To break the rules means breaking the old rules, to get out of the comfort, the old things that we used to do and start doing something new. We tend to do the same things as our parents did. We feel comfortable in the old ways, social norms and masses because they are safe and easy to live in. So we were taught to be the same from parents, teachers and people around us. When someone, who is different, likes Holden from “The Catcher in the Rye”, comes along, he will be excluded as an outsider from the society. But being different and think differently are good things, all of scientific breakthrough came from that. We still think the world is the centre of the universe, if there was no Galileo, who thought differently and proved it to us. In Holden’s case, he steps out of a social circle, criticizes and sees it clearly. He is different from people who think the society nowadays is fine. If being different is a good think, why can’t we be that? We are already different sine we were born but we went through school which make us the same. We should start with teaching everybody to be different. No more of the old memorizing method which teachers only teach students what to memorize but not to think. Imagine a school where teachers teach students to think differently, to think by themselves and to have their own ideas. This teaching method will be more like a conversation with questions and answer. The teacher will asks and allows students to think and answer freely. This will create a constructive argument, argument of ideas and thoughts which is the origin of knowledge.

Another rule to break is the classroom. All the subjects are to be taught in a classroom in a school. While the subjects are about the outside world, the classroom is a confinement, keeping students inside. The classroom is a box with four walls which talks about the outside world but never lets students experience it first-hand. We should get out of this box, take down the walls and go outside. This style of classroom is more like the classroom of Mr. Keating from the film “Dead Poets Society”. He teaches his students by taking them out for a walk or play sport with poems. His teaching is out of ordinary but he inspires his students to love poetry and seize the day.

One of the ways to change the educational system is to free the education. To free the education means making it free for everybody. We are talking about money here. It seem like we have to pay for everything to go to a school. We have to pay for a uniform, books, tuition fees and all other hidden costs, just to receive an education. It will cost a long period of time for a child and lots of money from parents, if it starts from kindergarten until it ends up with a bachelor degree. The parents have to pay a large sum of money which considered being an investment with a risk outcome. It is a risk outcome because we cannot be so sure that the investment will pay us back, in forms of good job with nice salaries or even a good life. This kind of investment is excluding people who do not have enough money to get a proper education. So we should stop charging people for an education but give it for free, at least from kindergarten to university. It is possible to make a free education, look at the examples from France or Germany. The two countries have free education and they do not end up so bad on the world’s economic chart. By making a free education, the government is investing with the population in the country. The outcome of this investment will be in a form of human resources which have a potential to develop and to prosper the country. Therefore, free education is a great investment.

Education is not just about making people smarter but it is also about making people know how to think for themselves and to think differently. Thinking and having different ideas can lead to a great knowledge which can transform the world into a better place to live in. It may possible or impossible to do as the ways I suggest, changing the educational system. But we should try to change it into a better system, sooner than later. It would be great if we succeed. If we fail, we can be a bit proud to know that at least we tried.