Posted on by Art Powell

There is an ancient wisdom saying that happiness is the result of right action. Therefore, if one wants to be happy one should be careful in chosing one’s actions. This blogger would also say we should choose our actions ourselves rather than letting others do it for us.

These thoughts were prompted by an article in The Economist about educating bright children so that they can contribute the most to society. The issue is who decides what is “the most”.

My concern is that The Economist is evaluating education by the incomes and the numbers of patents that people produce in their careers. This is from a magazine whose writers are dedicated to continued economic growth at a time when further growth may be difficult. It may be that in the future success will go to those capable of coping without a lot of material things.

As this post is mostly about values I should state I value highly individual thought and decision making. People should be encouraged to have different life and educational experiences. Children should be raised “free range” and education should cover a variety of topics including cross discipline. One of my concerns about educational trends as reported by The Economist is that the goal is to have every body thinking the same – with a common devotion to economic growth. If we are to cope with negative growth we must have people educated to think outside the box represented by The Economist.

How do we define success? How do we measure success? Is economic success the responsibility of schools? For some people success is living a long time, or ending life with lots of money and/or toys, or having done lots of travel, having done lots of things or having had lots of sex. Each of us should define success for ourselves rather than going with another person’s definition.

Economics is about relationships and economic success should be about good relationships rather than resource exploitation. One of the fundamentals of good relationships is that there should be a more or less equal exchange between those involved.

Sometimes it feels as if a lot of people are prepared to sacrifice ethics for profits. Corporate culture appears to encourage this. That some major Canadian corporation (banks and telecommunications) encourage their sales people to use exploitive techniques is an indication that our economy is not based on good relationships

When the economy is on a down trend education is so young people can get good marks on exams. Some people spend large sums of money hoping to give their children a slight edge. If we were not so competitive we might find a greater happiness in co-operation.

The future is going to be difficult because we do not have the energy and mineral resources to support continued economic growth and even more people. To survive we need to educate children to think outside the economic box; we need free range children and free range education. We need people who will not accept the status quo and who will think independently of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom are dedicated to conning us into buying more stuff – or voting for candidates of their choice.

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Filed under: Economics | Tagged: Bill Gates, economic growth, Economics, Education, ethics, free range kids, kids, Mark Zuckerberg, profits, relationships, school, success |