SCHOPENHAUER: How Education Makes You Dumber

Are You Experienced?

“In the natural state, humans form ideas based on their observations of the world. Experience comes before learning – this is how humans make sense of the world around them. When ideas are generated in this way, there is an obvious link between an observation and the subsequent idea. Traditional education flips this dynamic on its head. In traditional, or, artificial education as Schopenhauer calls it, the idea precedes the experience.” – Weltgeist

“What happens when you learn the ideas, before you have the necessary experience, is you will apply those ideas wrongly as soon as you step out of the classroom into the real world. The teacher is busy cramming the head of the student full of ideas, instead of teaching the student how to think in the first place. Children will then grow up with a worldview that is based on hearsay and opinion, and they are rarely equipped to handle the real world. Children are submerged in a ready-made apparatus of opinion and prejudice, and if the real world conflicts with this web of ideas – which is bound to happen as the child grows up, then he will not change his opinion but rather lash out at the world instead. Although lacking the proper term, Schopenhauer is describing here what we would call cognitive dissonance today. Education should seek to put observation before ideas and thus mimic the natural way in which humans learn things.” – Weltgeist

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