Being Different

When you are young you are told that being different is bad.  You are told that you should try and fit in.  You should try and make friends by finding people that you have things in common with.  You are conditioned to succumb to peer pressure and to walk, talk, and act, like everyone else.  Being different is punished, often with exclusion, bullying, harassment and in some cases physically.

Being different is something that you quickly learn you don't want to be.  Some people don't conform and they stand out at all costs, and sadly they often end up enduring the most pain.  The irony is that those people are stronger than everyone else and they are ahead of their time in accepting something that when they get older they will realise other people were jealous of them for.  It's hard to get a kid to believe you when you tell them that others are jealous of them when they are being bullied but it is true.

When you get older what you are told gradually changes until you reach a point where you are being told the exact opposite.  From a time when you were a kid being told you need to fit in and conform and be the same as everyone else you come to a time when you are told you need to be different, you need to stand out, and you need to compete.  You are prepared for the world of work and coached for interviews with advice like "make yourself memorable" and "make an impression", and "be bold, be different, make them remember you more than anyone else" which all flies in the face of what you were conditioned to believe for most of your life up until that point.

If you think our schools don't teach people what they need to learn to be able to get a job and to be able to do anything of merit then you are right, but the contents of the curriculum are a tiny portion of the problem with the school systems we have in place.  The entire learning environment is fucked up beyond recognition as anything but constructive.  School is the antithesis of the working world.  The bulk of what you learn you will never use, neither in your job nor in your personal life.  The emphasis and the importance placed on these things is undue and unwarranted.  When you have a system like this it is no wonder that the majority of people don't want to be there.

If I was to reform the school system the first thing I would do would be to encourage individuality and choice.  I would do that by making simple changes.  Scrap uniforms entirely and let students wear whatever they like.  You need to be comfortable to be productive.  Extend the range of subjects offered on a much larger scale and make classes elective.  Instead of offering a set curriculum, offer the 3 core subjects of English, Maths and Science, adding a fourth for ICT, and then make students pick the subjects they want to do with them.  This privilege is something at present is only afforded to students attending University, College, Sixth Form, or doing elective GCSEs in their final years of High School or Secondary school.  That's not enough, spending years before that opportunity learning things you will never use is wasted time and effort and ultimately it causes resentment.  Students need to be given greater say in what they want to learn from a much younger age.

If you want to prepare children for the real world you need to stop filling their heads with lies and useless information, completely change their negative environment and turn it into something positive and constructive.  If you want creativity you need to nurture it, not stifle it and suffocate it under a shroud of regulation and conformity.