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Education - for Adults Only Warning:The following article contains mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised. By Eamonn Sadler
B
ack at the dawn of human evolution men were simple hunter-gatherers. There was nobody to teach the Cavemen how to hunt and gather, so they learned how to do these things themselves by a healthy and enjoyable system of trial and error. Young men ran about in the fresh air giggling and chucking rocks at tasty-looking animals until they eventually got hungry enough to think of better ways. Of course Cavedads eventually gave Cavekids the benefit of their experience and taught them how to bring down a Tyrannosaurus Rex without becoming snacks themselves, but that was more about saving time and effort than anything else. Cavedad could then sit under a tree and get wasted on fermented fruit while young Ugh happily went out and bagged dinner. And that’s where the problem started. With the rise of agriculture, the Ugh Junior of ten thousand years ago became the natural labourer, working for Ugh Senior. Frolicking about in the bushes trying to kill dinner became a thing of the past and long hours at the plough became the norm. Hunting and gathering required knowledge and skill, but not a great deal of hard work. Long hours at the plough required a great deal of hard work and not a lot of knowledge and skill.
This was perfect, quickly-taught work for Ugh Junior while dad sat under a tree and got wasted on the beer he just invented. This new-fangled agriculture also meant that the clever man built permanent dwellings in which to live while his offspring – and those of other less clever people - tended his crops. This meant that for the first time the cleverer man could accumulate property and therefore wealth rather than chasing food around the countryside with nothing more than the spear in his hand and the cloth on his loins. Obviously some accumulated more wealth than others and over millennia the majority “have-nots” became increasingly dependent on the minority “haves”, giving the “haves” a great deal of power and forcing the vast majority of people into a life of servitude and obedience. Fast forward to the industrial revolution, and guess who had the financial means and resources to take full advantage of the new technologies? The same people who made their fortunes in the agricultural industry of course. So now armies of adults and children with no other choice went to work for pitiful pay in the squalor of the factories (this remains the very sad case in many developing countries to this day – Indonesia is one of them). This type of work required some reading and writing skills and a minimum of mathematical ability, so these things were taught as part of the training. But as industrial processes became more automated, fewer children were needed and, now that hunting and gathering was dead, the idea spread that childhood should be a time for learning about the world from the increasing number of knowledgeable scholars (most of them religious). Schools sprang up (mostly run by the church) and geography, science and (versions of) history, etc., joined the curriculum, all made possible by the ability to read and write. Learning, knowledge
and qualifications became the requirement for a better job and a better life, and that’s how it stayed until very recently. Today, in the age of modern technology, do our children really need to know about geography, science or history etc? Or do they just need the ability to read and write and the ability to process information, draw conclusions and make decisions? Because if they have all those things and an internet connection (which they now have in their pockets), they can know everything they need to know as and when they need to know it, and they no longer need to store massive amounts of information in their brains and regurgitate it during examinations. Surely all the information we need is now readily available in “the cloud” and we just need to know how to access and process it. So are we wasting our money on schools and clogging up our kids’ brains with unnecessary information when all we should be doing is teaching our kids how to read and write and Google? After that they could learn the specific skills required for their chosen careers. We could have fully qualified 15 year old architects, doctors and lawyers who just Google the answers for the pub quiz and get off their parents’ pay roll much sooner. It would also be the death of the TV quiz show which is surely reason enough. All I can tell you is I knew nothing about the history of education until two hours ago. Don’t let your kids read this!. To read more by Eamonn Sadler, go to www.eamonnsadler.com To find out more about live stand-up comedy in Indonesia please e-mail jakarta@thecomedyclub.asia text or call 0821 1194 3084 or register at www.thecomedyclub.asia
Thanks to all for the entries for the last issue. There were hundreds of correct answers but the lucky winners are: Henry P. from Kemang SEND YOUR ENTRY BY TEXT TO:
Last Edition's answer: Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise in Minority Report
0821 1194 3084
Can you name these famous actors and say which film they were making when this picture was taken?
⨳ for the macet mind ⨳ Across
1 (Inventor of) road surface (7) 8 Simple wind instrument (7) 9 Vagrant - fishing boat (7) 10 Question challenging virility (3,3,1,3,2,1,5) 11 See 10 13 Tell incorrectly (9) 15 Flexible body armour (9) 18 Norwegian playwright (5) 21 Two-wheeler (7) 22 Word with opposite meaning (7)
23 Suffer disadvantage (4,3) 24 For a win or a place (4,3) down
1 Computer link (5) 2 Terrier - heap of stones (5) 3 Firm resolve (13) 4 Quagmire (6) 5 Caring but condescending (13) 6 Japanese garment (6) 7 Muslim greeting (6) 12 Part of bridge (4)
14 Part (4) 15 Stronghold (6) 16 See 10 17 Charge with carbon dioxide (6) 19 Tendon (5) 20 I don't want it near where I live (5)
*answers in the next edition!
*Answers for Edition 93 Across: 1. Apiarist 5. Acid 9. Cream 10. Epicure 11. Ball bearings 13. Outing 14. Oppugn 17. Under protest 20. Bemused
21. Brace 22. Airy 23. Repeater Down: 1. Arch 2. Inexact 3. Rambling rose 4. Skewer 6. Churn 7. Dressing 8. Disreputable 12. Columbia 15. Upstart
16. Bridge 18. Demur 19. Fear
This Edition’s Quiz: the EDUCATION quiz Scan the barcode and answer the 10 questions correctly for a chance to win: A Hotel Quickly voucher worth USD 35. Download HotelQuickly now iPhone: www.hotelquickly.com/app/iphone Android: www.hotelquickly.com/app/android
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Jakarta Expat · 22 May - 4 June 2013