| Chieh on Education / Knowledge as a product The desirability of an education is a complex formula involving cultural, family, and personal factors. In eastern countries such as Japan and Taiwan, cultural and parental pressure to excel in school is so high that a dedicated pursuit of education becomes a social norm. In poorer countries, the offer of an education is so rare that a high school diploma looks like precious metal. There are still many parts of the world where kids have to work to support their family. For them, doing homework is the only way to get out of the labor force. In these cases, knowledge becomes a desirable commodity that teachers give out to students. Under those circumstances, schools can afford a little arrogance and still keep the student's attention. But if we compare those circumstances to circumstances here in the United States, we will quickly realize how education has depreciated here. Social pressure to excel is practically zero compared to that of the eastern countries, and parental pressure is much lower in the United States. I remember once getting a B in a math class, and my father literally stopped talking to me. But if some of my friends got the same grade, their parents would have bought them a brand new bike. Growing up as an Asian kid in America comes with an enormous amount of parental pressure. I will always remember how my parents brainwashed me on education. They constantly talked about another cousin of mine that made it into Harvard. It was as if my own life would have been a failure if I fell short of this achievement. When I was young, it was almost as if every one of my cousins attended to an Ivy League university. The parental pressure is a manifestation of how the society views education. Unlike students in many foreign counties, the smartest kids in America are rarely on top of the social food chain. I remember back in Taiwan, it was always the smartest boys who got the girls. In America, the smartest boys get wedgies. The cultural emphasis in the United States is not on education. When we turn on cable television, we see that the biggest stars are sports figures, pop singers, and movie actors. Seldom do we see engineers as superstars on MTV. This lack of cultural pressure further decreases the desirability of an education here in America. There is also an opportunity cost for learning. In other words, there is always something better to do. When I was young, I grew up in a relatively poor family business environment. Anybody who has ever grown up in a similar environment knows that a family business equals child labor. I remember having to work during every holiday and many of the weekends. The only excuse I had to get out of work was the need to finish my homework. At the time, homework was definitely more fun than working. Before the arrival of television, video games, and the Internet, there were not a lot of better things to do. Competition for an individual's time was very much restricted. But just look at all the entertainment existing today to compete against learning. When I was growing up, homework competed against working for my parents, and homework always won. Today, homework is competing against watching television, playing video games, and talking to friends on the phone. It doesn't take a psychology degree to guess our children's preference. It is becoming harder and harder for our kids to ignore all these distractions and concentrate on learning. The opportunity cost for today's children is yet another twenty points down for teachers in America. Unlike the case in many Third World countries, the offer of an education is not rare here in the United States. In a sense, the success of our public school system has itself devalued education. It is simply a law of economics that when we increase the supply without changing demand, the perceived value of a commodity decreases. Unlike many poorer countries, an education here is not a privilege, but a right. As a result of our success in public education, we have inadvertently made education less valuable. It is not as if you are the only person in your town to have graduated from high school. And unlike my generation, kids today are not likely to be the first to go to college. As a psychological result, an education no longer appears as special as it used to be. This is not an argument against our public schools, but another reason why education is less valuable in the eyes of American students. In a way, these conditions all appear to be side effects of affluence. Many other nations would love to be in our shoes, but we are the ones who are here, and so we must solve these new challenges to education. Teachers in America are often blamed for the relatively poor performance of our children when compared to students of other countries. But we have overlooked the fact that teachers in America are operating from an extremely disadvantageous position. From my own observations, I do not believe that our teachers are somehow worse or less caring than teachers in other countries. I believe the problem is largely based on how we have designed the education system. We are still using traditional ways of teaching while the world around us has changed. The rules of the past do not apply anymore, and we must innovate accordingly. This brings us back to the general attitude that I previously described. Our schools can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines watching the entertainment industry luring our kids away. It is time for us to lure them back. This is where things get interesting. How are we going to make homework more appealing than video games? Most kids if left alone with chemistry books and some toys will probably choose to occupy themselves with the toys. So at first glance, it doesn't seem possible that education can compete against entertainment. But perhaps you have heard the old adage, “If you can't beat them, join them!” If a chemistry book cannot compete against a toy, then we just have to make the chemistry book look like a toy. This suggestion may sound like asking teachers to turn water into wine. But it really isn't that difficult—if we can change our current education philosophy. If our new system can make chemistry appear more interesting, then we are on our way to making the process of learning look like play. The purpose of these essays is to show you this very possibility and the steps needed to achieve it. This is the starting point for the following series of essays. We will begin by eradicating the faulty assumptions, and then start reconstructing education from the ground up. The major difference between our new model and the old one is mainly the concentration on motivation and cost. We are first going to jump into the minds of our students to understand how we can convert learning into a fun exercise. We are then going to look at how the latest technologies can help cut educational costs while increasing teacher productivity. By looking at education under new lights, we will be able to build an education system that is surprisingly different from the current one. We might even come to wonder why we kept the current system for so long. |