I was amazed when I watched a documentary movie entitle : the evolution of the cave man. In this movie, the narrator mention few things about the cave man evolution; 1) he said that the cave man move from one place to another- once they arrive to the new place they started adapting themselves with the environment surrounding, 2) the cave man will give gifts to their mate, if the woman accept this gifts, it’s mean that she is belong to the cave man, 3) the cave man start to eat cooked food after 500 000 years. For sure, there are lots of other important information in this movie but for the purpose of this article, I will focus on what these three things mean, it’s merely about the preamble of human kind education.
What is education? Why do we send our children to school? What skills do we expect our children to learn and acquire? Education is the process of learning something (subject) and acquiring skills through various types of knowledge. We distinguish knowledge such as mathematics, science,language,geography and so on. So in the same manner, do we send our children to get all this knowledge? If it is, how can they learned this knowledge - should the school force them to memorize these knowledge and test it with a method which we call examination. When I recalled the documentary movie, I realize one act that may stimulate the cave man education . I realize that they ability to think (in adapting with new environment and so on) that promote their civilization. However, during those time, they tend to act more than think, they want to survive first than to settle down in one place. That’s why it took them 500 000 year to learn how to eat cooked food for thinking was not they priority. But what happen today? Our mailing technology evolve rapidly – we invented telegraph machine but within 100 years we create fax machine and then, less than 50 years we are able to write email in the internet. Now, we are in the (short messaging system) SMS era. The world is getting smaller every days, months and years when invented something new. What sparks these invention? Simply, it’s our ability to think of making new things-creating new way of living-and so on. In this modern world, we are so attached with the sense of settling down-making our self comfortable where ever we are, adapting our self accurately-even on the moon. Our new invention and technology really changes our way of thinking.
Over the years, we distinguish knowledge into different subject such as math (the skills of counting), history (the skills of understanding things from past experience), geography (the skills of knowing what this planet made of) or science (the skills of knowing how things work in this planet). Eventually, these knowledge once we acquired and understand- complete our reasoning to live in this planet but the most important thing is this knowledge indirectly force us to think -to ask the why, when, what, how and where questions –to develop our thinking skills. However, this basic skill was not thoroughly enforce in education. Thinking was the indirect skill that emerge while we are learning other subjects especially in the primary and secondary level. Eventually, what we care most in this level is the certificate- how many A’s you have achieved in the past examination? And how many D’s you have avoided? Our parents only cares about how good is your achievement in the examination rather than asking how far does your thinking skills have developed?
When we investigate further the post-education level - the higher the level of our education goes, the higher our thinking activities ability are needed. When we enter undergraduate degree- we will be exposed with other specific knowledge which come from this big branch of knowledge. For instance, Management can be divided into specific knowledge such as human resource, management function, organization culture and so on. We will study and understand this knowledge. Once we get to the other level which is the post-graduate level, then we start to apply our knowledge- try to put this knowledge to work in the real world (master degree) or even contribute to a new knowledge (PhD degree).
Generally, our main purpose to educate people are not only to pass them these knowledge but to make them actively to continue thinking- to stimulate our brain. Researchers indicate that when we think a lot, our brain cells tend to actively evolve. In other words, even when we are old or retire, we must never stop thinking. In conclusion, in this modern world, our ability of thinking evolve rapidly-our children IQ getting higher everyday- not only because of the education system we have but also relate to the sophisticated technology we acquired. For instance, PlayStation games- stimulate children brain and thinking ability. Simply, if we like to think creatively and actively- we can be as par as PhD holder. The only thing that differentiate between a thinker and a PhD holder is the certificate.
What is education? Why do we send our children to school? What skills do we expect our children to learn and acquire? Education is the process of learning something (subject) and acquiring skills through various types of knowledge. We distinguish knowledge such as mathematics, science,language,geography and so on. So in the same manner, do we send our children to get all this knowledge? If it is, how can they learned this knowledge - should the school force them to memorize these knowledge and test it with a method which we call examination. When I recalled the documentary movie, I realize one act that may stimulate the cave man education . I realize that they ability to think (in adapting with new environment and so on) that promote their civilization. However, during those time, they tend to act more than think, they want to survive first than to settle down in one place. That’s why it took them 500 000 year to learn how to eat cooked food for thinking was not they priority. But what happen today? Our mailing technology evolve rapidly – we invented telegraph machine but within 100 years we create fax machine and then, less than 50 years we are able to write email in the internet. Now, we are in the (short messaging system) SMS era. The world is getting smaller every days, months and years when invented something new. What sparks these invention? Simply, it’s our ability to think of making new things-creating new way of living-and so on. In this modern world, we are so attached with the sense of settling down-making our self comfortable where ever we are, adapting our self accurately-even on the moon. Our new invention and technology really changes our way of thinking.
Over the years, we distinguish knowledge into different subject such as math (the skills of counting), history (the skills of understanding things from past experience), geography (the skills of knowing what this planet made of) or science (the skills of knowing how things work in this planet). Eventually, these knowledge once we acquired and understand- complete our reasoning to live in this planet but the most important thing is this knowledge indirectly force us to think -to ask the why, when, what, how and where questions –to develop our thinking skills. However, this basic skill was not thoroughly enforce in education. Thinking was the indirect skill that emerge while we are learning other subjects especially in the primary and secondary level. Eventually, what we care most in this level is the certificate- how many A’s you have achieved in the past examination? And how many D’s you have avoided? Our parents only cares about how good is your achievement in the examination rather than asking how far does your thinking skills have developed?
When we investigate further the post-education level - the higher the level of our education goes, the higher our thinking activities ability are needed. When we enter undergraduate degree- we will be exposed with other specific knowledge which come from this big branch of knowledge. For instance, Management can be divided into specific knowledge such as human resource, management function, organization culture and so on. We will study and understand this knowledge. Once we get to the other level which is the post-graduate level, then we start to apply our knowledge- try to put this knowledge to work in the real world (master degree) or even contribute to a new knowledge (PhD degree).
Generally, our main purpose to educate people are not only to pass them these knowledge but to make them actively to continue thinking- to stimulate our brain. Researchers indicate that when we think a lot, our brain cells tend to actively evolve. In other words, even when we are old or retire, we must never stop thinking. In conclusion, in this modern world, our ability of thinking evolve rapidly-our children IQ getting higher everyday- not only because of the education system we have but also relate to the sophisticated technology we acquired. For instance, PlayStation games- stimulate children brain and thinking ability. Simply, if we like to think creatively and actively- we can be as par as PhD holder. The only thing that differentiate between a thinker and a PhD holder is the certificate.
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