I have proved it so many times that school is as good as black and white television.
How will you feel if you`re to come to my house and you find me watching T.V, black and white colour?
I know some young generation will one day be reading this my tutorial and they will ask, what is black and white television?
Black and white television was the kind of television that was not having all colour combination as today`s televisions do.
In those days (8os and early 90s) when we wanted to watch T.V, we did so through the black and white T.V. nobody dare do that today.
It is now ugly (though it was the best we had that time)
So why do I compare school with this ugly television?
Because, truly, it is.
If you take time to study the trends of things in the present world we are, you`ll see that school is more harmful than helpful.
The reason is simple. School prepares nobody for the practical world.
Over the time when I tell people this, there are usual three questions they ask me and I will answer them now.
First, without school, will you be able to speak English or become an author?
The answer is, English is a language. Since it`s a language, we learn it in school simply because that is the avenue our fathers thought was right. There would have been better medium to learn English (if English would be needed at all). I`ll explain this soon.
Becoming a writer doesn`t have anything to do with school. It has everything to do with education. School didn`t teach me how to be creative with words and how to market the words (which are the major works of a writer).
I taught myself. Yes, myself.
Second common question people ask me is, without school, what will you have been? A friend still asked me this about five days ago, and my reply to him was, without school if my father understood the true meaning of education, I will today be the richest man in Africa, or (I didn`t tell him this) a great inventor or an international evangelist, or something greater than who I am today.
The reason why this will be so is because I would have been in the real world earlier and learning the right things, making the right mistakes, instead of being caged to some four walls and being taught so many unrealistic, theoretical jargons.
The third question someone may want to ask me is, now that you are advocating that we should destroy school (though I am not saying that), how can we have doctors, lawyers or other professionals without school?
The problem we have is this.
We have been so much used to school that we have all forgotten that school is not the real source of education.
There are three ways by wish human beings get education in any field.
First, by observation. Second, by experience and third, by reading … all these in a pleasant and natural way.
For God shake, education is not what you get when you are compelled to get it.
I have a lot to say here but I am afraid so many people will not get my points if I keep on talking and talking, so let me give some practical examples.
I need you to give me two boys, age 16 each. Our assignment is to make two of them medical doctors.
You take boy A and give me boy B.
Take your boy A to the best university in the world and I will take my boy B to a good hospital.
Let your boy A pass through everything school has for him (including the stress, pains and compulsion)
My own boy B will learn by observation, involvement (experience) and library. He will not have any professor to shout on him. His major work will be to observe, ask questions and read on his own.
Six years after, we will bring both boy A and B to examine them. Which of these boys do you think will be a better doctor, a boy who learns in school or a boy who learns in the practical world of hospital?
You and I know the answer.
You will learn far much things observing lawyers and staying around law courts in two years than reading law for five years in the best university.
By nature, human minds don`t learn in theory or in strict, formal environment. We learn in practical and in a natural state (without any compulsion).
Can there be doctors and lawyers without school?
Yes, and better doctors and lawyer even.
However, there is a problem.
The whole world has been grossly deceived and it may take us a century or two to be free (if at all we will ever be). And you see, fighting against a trend that started thousands of years before you were born requires patience and understanding.
That is why I don`t advise people not to go to school. If you don`t go to school, you can have education, but you will have a real time problem if you intend to be something that depends on social approval (i.e. certificate)
Get me right. We can have excellent medical doctors, lawyers, political leaders etc without certificate and school, but who will validate them as excellent?
How will they cope in a society like ours when certificate is what everybody uses to judge you?
Now you got my point.
Someone like me do not have any certificate. I left my (good) certificate in school and I will never go there to get it because I believe certificate is not the right meter for anyone to measure me.
How far can I go fighting against this common trend?
Well, I am not even fighting against it. I am creating my own life instead. I will never become a professional anywhere where the certificate will be the gate fee. I will never contest for any project or award if my certificate will be the gate fee, and please, don`t cry for me, I can never become the president of my country (Nigeria).
I am okay by all this. But certificate cannot stop me from becoming a millionaire or an evangelist of Jesus.
Certificate cannot stop me from teaching Africans entrepreneurship, can it?
Then, I am okay.
Conclusion.
As I always say, I will not tell people not to go to school (because the world system is still, unfortunately, all around school), but I will always tell Africans, don`t believe in school more than you believe in your shoes.
The reason why you wear your shoe is to protect your foot from stones and maybe, to add to your beauty. You don`t really care about your shoes, do you?
The real thing you (truly) care about is your feet.
Care about your education. Be educated. Learn. Read. Research and try life.
You want to be a successful business person? You need education. You have to be educated, not by getting some degrees, but by reading many financial and business books.
After then, pull yourself into the real world and try things, make mistakes, learn and grow your business
I love you and wish you best of luck.
COMMENT BELOW
EmoticonEmoticon