What Our Schooling System Had Done to Our Brains?
Our institutionalized education had trained us in these 7 unconscious ways of thinking
Introduction
In today’s world of information overload, our schooling system is still struggling to catch up with the technologies and opportunities as they are yet to make a place for themselves in the school syllabus.
For example, digital entrepreneurship and affiliate marketing are booming now, and many are earning 6 digit income from it. Yet our education system is training the students to get a good job in the market.
I feel there is still confusion in our society between being trained and being educated. When a lion at a circus obeys its master, do we call the lion a well-trained or well-educated? Think for yourself.
Our “Institutionalized” education system over the years had trained our brains to think in a certain manner.
The following are 7 unconscious ways of thinking that got imparted in our brains from our traditional education system.
1. Becoming a Perfectionist
The perfectionist mentality stems from the fear of failure and not looking bad.
That’s why people who are fearful generally hesitate to take risks or get into decisions real quick.
The institutionalized education system had trained our brains to be afraid about the Failing grades thus hindering our drive to learn the lessons through the trial-and-error methods.
The penalties and punishments of getting an F grade have induced our brain to think in a certain pattern and to become risk-averse.
2. Structured way of thinking
Since the school has a rigid structure of learnings in terms of syllabus and curriculum, it fails to teach the kids creative thinking.
Our current education system is not one size that fits all. We are all humans; we are all different.
This is because, we come from different demographics, backgrounds, communities, cultures, etc.
Also, everyone has a unique talent. Schools should be a place that should help the students to bring out and nurture their unique talents.
For example, I am a more artistic and visualistic person. My brain gets more involved and creative when it comes to working with Colors, paints, pictures, and any sort of visuals.
When you ask me to work out an abstract math problem or study the aerodynamics of physics, my mind shuts off instantly because that’s not my element.
That’s why kids are conditioned to forget the fact that they are talented in some ways and due to the academic pressure from the schools, the parents also forget to nurture their kids on their natural talents.
They are conditioned to follow the herd and get into a Mob mentality.
Eventually, this is making them chase their careers but not their ideas and dreams.
3. Taught us to be reactive rather than proactive
This is a huge thing. During our school days, how many of us got disappointed when we get an F or a failing percentage in our exams.
Followed by our grades comes a piece of long advice from our teachers, parents, relatives, etc.
This train our kids’ brains to be more reactive to the grades or any thing that doesn’t go in their way.
The school fails to teach the kid how to take constructive criticism in a positive way and how to handle the failure in a graceful manner.
4. Always waiting for the instruction
As Bob Proctor puts it, we humans are naturally creative and expressive.
Since our school system is programmed with giving a standard set of instructions like homework, tests, and assignments, our brain got trained to do something only when we have a set of instructions.
Don’t get me wrong here. We need some guidelines for doing certain things but what I meant here is that our schooling system is not exposing the kids to uncertainty.
In other words, when you get to a corporate place, no one will spoon-feed you.
No one will give you step-by-step instructions but they expect you to get up to speed from day one.
As you climb up the corporate ladder or in your own business, a certain thing is an uncertainty.
Unfortunately, our schooling system failed to train us in facing uncertainty instead, it trained us to get scared by seeing the failure.
5. Always needing an Acknowledgement
Due to this grading system and putting the kids inside a box kills their self-confidence instead, the grades and the perception of being perfect kills their natural flow.
When a teacher rules by fear, the student becomes helpless but seeks acknowledgment and validation from their teacher as he doesn’t have any room for experimentation of his own.
6. Imparting “Follow the herd” mindset
This is one of the main reasons that the majority of the population chooses employment over entrepreneurship.
While searching for the right career, our education system had trained us to focus mainly on which career yields more income rather than which career is right for our natural skillsets, that aligns to our character and is going to make us enjoy our jobs.
A global poll conducted by Gallup has uncovered that over 85% of people are unhappy in their jobs.
The education system always imparts one thing which is “Get good grades and get good job that pays you well”.
Trust me, this is not wrong, but it is just a piece of a puzzle which lacks the whole picture. America’s top business strategist and coach Tony Robbins says “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure”.
The institutionalized education doesn’t inculcate the knowledge on how to identify your own potential.
It doesn’t teach you how to find a career that aligns with your character and attitude.
If you want to have fulfillment, you should do the job that aligns with your natural skill set. For sure, there are some areas that need to be mastered, but you must not choose a career that drains out your energy.
If you are an analytical person good at programming, but not natural at people skills, then your first focus should be on your strengths, which is honing your programming skillsets.
Later, on top of your mastered skillset, you can stack up your people skills. By the time you start working on your people skills, you would have already gained a lot of confidence mastering your programming skills.
Hence stacking up another skill will not take up much energy because your soul is already fed by your natural skillset. So the education system trains our brains to follow the herd rather than thinking outside the box.
7. Your Grades determine your status quos
A very straight forward one, if you are a below-average person like me during the school days, you might have experienced this.
You know how a Straight-A student is being treated by the teacher versus an average student.
The straight-A student always gets a premium service and treatment. No offense to the credibility of the student. However, the system failed to identify the uniqueness of all other students.
I can give my own example, I was a below-average student all through my school days. I was terrible at math and science but was good at computer science.
In 9th grade, I failed in math and science but got an A in computer science. Today, I am working as an IT project manager handling multi-million-dollar projects.
When I look back at my school days, I was treated in a humiliating manner just because I failed in those subjects.
I was not given an environment to analyze, nor my teachers had given me an opportunity as my school was hell-bent on the grades.
For a very long time, I was under the impression that only good grades determine our status quo. Later I realized it's not the grades but it’s your natural ability, interest, and attitude towards a particular subject.
