There Is a Difference Between Learning to Think and Learning To Be Told What To Do

Illustration from The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Wikipedia)

by Lance Winslow

Whether you ask an educator, parent, or anyone who has gone through the school system they will tell you that we aren't teaching people to think, but we are teaching them lots of information.

Today's information won't be that valuable tomorrow, it will all be just known facts, many of which will not be needed, just like a good many skills aren't needed today, things which were taught to us when we were in school.

Further, this entire concept of rote memorization isn't all that great either, as all we're doing is depositing information into the heads of children sitting in nice little rows.

Okay so, let's talk about this shall we, from a homeschooling perspective.

You see, I would submit to you that there is a difference between learning to think, and learning to be told what to do.

In many regards our education system is all about getting our children to respect authority, and then without authority all we do is make them rote memorize information which causes them to stop thinking. How can that be good for the human mind? It isn't, and that's the problem.

Perhaps this is why we need homeschooling, because we need some people in our society to still be able to think once they are done with their learning, and once they go out in the real world.

If everyone is following authority, and only few people are actually thinking, then the onslaught of the population is merely being used by everyone else. How can that be good?

We all know the difference between these two types of teaching. Teaching people to ultimately just obey authority is going to be a disaster, especially when those same people who can't think rise up the ladder and are then in charge.

All they will do is continue on doing everything the way things have been done before, but as history has shown things haven't always worked out too well have they?

Does this mean that you should question authority? Well, I suppose someone who may have been brighter than me has stated that wisdom in so many words the prior. It is important to question authority, especially false authority, and therein lies the problem.

We have too many folks claiming authority who don't know what they're doing who desire to mentally enslave our children into their way of thinking. And if our children can't think for themselves then they will fall in line for any Pied Piper who was whistling an even remotely interesting tune. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on the Future of Education. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net

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