anarchovelocirachel:

“we just finished describing to you massive problems in the world cause by too powerful governments and as a solution we offer more government!!”

The best. 

I hope my kid never goes to college. I hope he doesn’t have to. I hope that in the next 18 years, we figure out a better to learn and teach kids. I hope that one day anyone can learn anything that is being taught anywhere in the universe simply by logging in.

A lot of top colleges already offer free education online. Not receiving a diploma in exchange for what you learned isn’t the problem, society expecting one is. Perhaps we need to rethink how we perceive who is “qualified” and who is not.

How many people do we alienate because we base what they can learn and where they can learn it form on what kind of kids they were before they fully matured. 

I’m not just talking about high school grades and SATs. The dichotomy of the education system starts at a young age. We place certain kids in “gifted” programs or in “honors” programs and we place others on an education path with less expectations of those students and equally less contributions to those students. All of this happens well before high school, it happens in elementary school, before some children even develop a sense or drive for learning or a focus on a particular skill or knowledge set. 

Some people are late bloomers. They don’t figure things out and get their life in order until 20, 21, 25 years old. But for them, it’s already too late. They have 50 or 60 years of life left, but we’ve already sealed their fate. These people can’t get into better schools and they aren’t typically considered for better jobs. Not at 25, 35 or 55 years of age. We don’t view them as qualified. And we don’t give them a chance to prove it. 

I’m not saying let anyone into any school. Not right away, at least. But we need to gradually relax the acceptance program while also improving how colleges teach. 

There are people willing to pay to be taught and people willing to get paid to teach yet colleges put canyons between them. Application processes are ass-backwards. If people want to pay to learn, let them. If they flunk out, that’s their problem. 

There just seems to be this artificial divide between consumers and producers in this market and I think we can find better ways to bridge both sides without sacrificing the quality of education.