Objectivized education system

Have struggled for a long time, I decide to write it out.

I feel at a loss. After taking the class for a month, I can see clearly my distance with the general students. Every time when I blog, I am struggled with what kind of things to write, what kind of attitude to present, and how deep can the thinking and writing be. It is hard for me, I have to say, to write to the public. I feel terrible and I don’t know what to blame, except myself. I feel like, the time is coming for me to make the decision on how should I go on. And I should really make a careful reflection on my whole life up to now.

I am fragile, to some extent, that I care about other people’s opinion on myself. I tend to be easy-going, positive, and quiet on comments. Sometimes, I may have my own opinion and I may think in mind how to express. But I seldom speak it out. Some other times, I just really can’t understand the saying and can’t follow. I feel bad for my poor understanding of English and cultural difference in some aspects. When I speak less, I tend to think less, as I’m dominated by my subconsciousness that I will not say it out. I try to hear other people’s saying and feel like I may (or may not) think the same way as them. I feel like I don’t have to think on my own as there is no need for me to express my own opinion. However, the more I think in this way, the more I realize how dangerous I am in such a dumb situation. If I speak less, I would think less. And as I think less, I would have less and less to say. Realizing this, I began to think, how did I put myself in this situation and why did I do so.

Why don’t I like to say things/opinions out? It seems I don’t have such a custom to say things/opinions out. I remember in my early education, I was told to be quiet in the class. I knew that every question/problem that the teachers asked would follow with correctly standardized answers. And I knew that I just need to “literally” remember the answers and I could get a good score on exams. Grades were always the unique assessment of students’ performance in my early education. It seemed I didn’t have the motivation to ask new questions or give new answers. “Practice makes perfect” – a golden rule for studying. I kept memorizing book contents and practicing exam questions. I left no time for creative and critical thinking as in my mind it was just a waste of time and made no use for exams. I was told (can’t remember exactly, maybe I was just self-proceeded) to study whatever useful for getting higher scores. I kept this kind of studying experience and went to a decent university. Still, life in university wasn’t full of creative and critical thinking as majorities of the students were spending time on tested study and experiment. The way of passive thinking seems to root deeply in my mind, and in the mind of the major society.

Studying is an important way to create and promote thinking.Thinking is a skill that needs practice. However, such exam-base assessment of study has severely impeded the purpose of studying, which is to facilitate individual’s deep thinking. Once students fail to get the chance to exercise their thinking rationale, they tend to be more passive, more indecisive, and more easily affected by other people’s saying. This situation is how I have seen from the general society. People in my nation tends to mute their thinking and saying in front of the public. They consider themselves too trivial to have other people hear their voice. And they think their voice may have little possibility to make any difference to the things/events and to the society. In the end, they turn out to be more conservative in expressing themselves as they never think of themselves to be unique to the society and to be contributable to the society if they can just speak out their desire and thoughts. Majorities of them are immersed in their own circle, waiting for the minority to change the society and accepting any results that left to them.

It seems that something went wrong, either the social culture or the education system. I can’t decide which leads to which. The education system has been objectivated to fit the societal pursuit of money and power, instead of humanity, science, arts, and beliefs. People tend to pursue whatever useful to make money/make a living, to buy house, car, to educate the second generation, even with the same system of objectivized education. They may realize how skewed the education system has been to deprive their desire on learning things they really enjoy. However, they don’t think their voice can make any change except their own anxiety. they turn out to be silent to endure the secular life.

The society is cruel. It distorts what is really valuable and what is merely trivial. The objectivized education system has led to little critical and creative thinking but sophisticated way of living. To make real change, we have to reshape the society’s value perspective. We have to reform the education’s evaluation and assessment to be able to reflect and inspire extensive and intensive learning. We have to give students the opportunity to achieve their dream in their desired and valued way. We have to show them how important, unique, talented they are to the society and how they can lead the society and the world to a bright and prosperous future by their effort and their voice.

Now, after all these words, I feel really a relief. I’m glad that I realize how I was affected by the objectivized education system. And I realize how important I can be to speak out my thoughts to the public, to inspire the majority to express their thoughts and to make actions together to change the status quo.

Note: This post is archived and migrated from my wordpress website. Some opinions may be outdated.