Laments about the state of education are arguably as old as education is, or close to it. And they’ve always been a waste of time.
That’s because knowledge isn’t bestowed on us as much as it’s created. The Wright Brothers didn’t attend college, but it wouldn’t matter if they had. They invented aviation. And Jeff Bezos invented e-commerce.
Tomorrow’s billionaires and trillionaires won’t be taught to invent the future, but their curiosity and dissatisfaction with how things are done will invent the future just the same. Education is an effect of economic progress, and it’s about economic progress, while most certainly not being a driver of it.
The folly of being taught how to be smart or innovative came to mind a lot while reading Samuel Graydon’s excellent 2023 book, Einstein In Time and Space: A Life In 99 Particles. It’s evident that Einstein would agree about education nostalgists wasting their time. Or as they say in sports, you can’t coach speed or height.
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