Children are sent to school to earn “credits” and to learn to memorize, not to learn what they want in life. Why does this system endeavor to promote memorization and not self-realization?

Does the current education system cleverly take over the minds of children before they learn how to use their mind?

“After all, the only thing of enduring value to any human being is a working knowledge of his own mind.”

Why don’t schools even acknowledge such a thing as a mind exists? The major object of all schooling is to force the students to cram their memories with facts instead of teaching them how to organize and make practical use of facts.

This cramming system centers the attention of students on the accumulation of “credits” but overlooks the important question of how to use knowledge in the practical affairs of life. This system turns out graduates whose names are inscribed upon parchment certificates, but whose minds are empty of self-determination.

The schools began as institutions of “higher learning”, operated entirely for the select few whose wealth and family entitled them to education. Thus the entire school system was evolved by beginning at the top and working back down to the bottom. It is no wonder the system neglects to teach children the importance of defining their purpose in life when the system, itself, has literally evolved through indefiniteness.

It wouldn’t be fair to critique the system and not present ideas needed to fix it so thinking objectively–

WHAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT TO YOU AND I, AND ANYONE SEEKING A “HIGHER EDUCATION”:

Ideas are the beginning of all human achievement. Teach all students how to recognize practical ideas that may be of benefit in helping them acquire whatever they demand of life.

Teach the students how to budget and use time, and above all teach the truth that time is the greatest asset available to human beings and the cheapest.

Teach the student the basic motives by which all people are influenced and show how to use these motives in acquiring the necessities and the luxuries of life.

Teach children what to eat, how much to eat, and what is the relationship between proper eating and sound health.

Teach children the true nature and function of the emotion of sex, and above all, teach them that it can be transmuted into a driving force capable of lifting one to great heights of achievement.

Teach children to be definite in all things, beginning with the choice of a definite major purpose in life!

Teach children the difference between temporary defeat and failure, and show them how to search for the seed of an equivalent advantage which comes with every defeat.

Teach children to express their own thoughts fearlessly and to accept or reject, at will, all ideas of others, reserving to themselves, always, the privilege of relying upon their own judgement.

Teach children how habits become fixed through the law of hypnotic rhythm, and influence them to adopt, while in the lower grades, habits that will lead to independent thought!

I’ve yet to see any Self-Development classes in any curriculum. Have you? Weird and pathetic. Anyway, here’s a few more-

Teach children the value and nature of self-control.

Teach children that cigarettes, liquor, narcotics and over-indulgence in sex destroy the power of will and lead to the habit of drifting. Do not forbid these evils- just explain them.

Teach children the danger of believing anything merely because their parents, religious instructors, or someone else says it is so.

Teach children to encourage the use of their sixth sense through which ideas present themselves in their minds from unknown sources, and to examine all such ideas carefully.

Teach children the full import of the Law of compensation as it was interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and show them how the law works in the small, everyday affairs of life.

Teach children that the space they occupy in the world is measured definitely by the quality and quantity of useful service they render the world.

Teach children there is no problem which does not have an appropriate solution and that the solution often may be found in the circumstance creating the problem.

Teach children that their only real limitations are those which they set up or permit others to establish in their minds.

Teach children not to have opinions unless they are formed from facts or beliefs which may reasonably be accepted as facts.

Teach children that all schoolhouses and all textbooks are elementary implements which may be helpful in the development of their minds, but that the only school of real value is the great University of Life wherein one has the privilege of learning from experience.

Teach children the value of harmony in their own minds and that this is attainable only through self-control.

Teach them that man can achieve whatever man can conceive and believe.

You may be surprised to hear these ideas were originally written almost a century ago by best-selling author Napoleon Hill, a man who made it his Life’s purpose to find the secrets of living a life of “freedom” and “success” in all aspects: mentally, physically and emotionally. These thoughts were hidden in a vault since being written in 1938 until their release last year in 2011, over forty years after the author’s death. Why? Because his family and advisers felt it was too controversial to publish.

He believed the only way these teachings would be implemented would be through private institutions adopting them first. Only then would public institutions slowly follow and even this wasn’t guaranteed. The public education system was rarely altered both then and now, a fact which Napoleon was very aware of. Has much changed since Mr.Hill’s years? Unfortunately not.

So, what can you do about it?

Teach yourself.

Don’t forget to live blissfully while you’re at it,

– J

via: Outwitting The Devil by Napoleon Hill, 2011