Andy’s New Media Blog

I was a little bit troubled in class today by the number of people who seemed certain that Illich’s ideas will never come to fruition because of their belief that certain people just aren’t self-motivated enough to take their education into their own hands.  I talked a little bit in class about my belief that institutions make people apathetic because they are completely unresponsive to the specific needs of individuals and are almost always structured in a way that encourages promotion and power over justice and democracy.  I want to talk a little bit more about it because I feel that it is an excuse that has been justifying inequality throughout history.  Needless to say, I completely reject the idea that some people are inherently less motivated or educationally inclined to others.

I would challenge anyone to find someone under the age of 6 who doesn’t have big plans about all the things they are going to accomplish when they grow up.  We laugh at kids because they have no conception of how difficult it really is to become an astronaut or a doctor.  It’s when kids get into school and realize their dreams have nothing to do with the reality of their situation that they become apathetic.  Including preschool, I’m going on my eighteenth year of school, and I can count the number of teachers that actually inspired me to study further outside of the classroom on one hand.  Illich is totally right when he says that our current educational system is a colossal waste of money.  It may sound cynical, but I feel that if most people are honest with themselves, the lessons that they use every single day and affect their lives in the most meaningful ways by and large were not learned in a classroom, despite the fact that we each spent nearly forty hours a week there for twelve years of our lives.  This problem is compounded further for people that come from far less privileged circumstances than I do and may have to work or care for relatives in addition to taking a full course load in order to achieve equal status with those (like me) who have few impediments to their education.  It might be easy to say that certain people are unmotivated or unwilling to receive an education, but if you look at the circumstances of most individuals it becomes obvious that the vast majority of “underachievers” are people that don’t easily fit into boxes and as such have been pushed to the margins instead of being allowed to reach the fullness of their potential.