Hello everyone!  Hope your work week is going on well.
Last night, I was reading an article on the great men in our generation. What I observed was that, most of them did not go to school, have poor education foundation or they were a failure in school.

In my mind, your education an expansion as a human is absolutely of the utmost importance.  But, since obtaining my undergraduate degree, I have come to a very startling and disturbing realization for our country that; school is a huge waste of time.
Sure, it teaches you how to write essays, stories and how to do basic trig and algebra.  Sure, it gives you a place to go and be under adult supervision while your parents are at work and you are in some of your most rebellious stages of your life. But as for personal growth as a person and becoming a contributing member of society, it is absolute rubbish.
Here are 10 reasons why I think school does nothing to expand your mind. 

1.You are exposed only to select ideas:
School teachers cum lecturers have their hands tied.  They are only allowed to teach certain things, and much of the curriculum is based on off standardized testing garbage.  They are only allowed to use certain books in English classes, have to teach certain topics in history, and it leaves little room for creative thinking or spirited debates.  And forget taboo topics like religion, sexuality, different cultures, government debates, and examining the psychology of people, which all became the basis of conversation in the pyschology, theology, and philosophy classes that I took in college.  And without talking about these things, how can people ever learn that it is okay to explore different ideas and talk with people about different views without feeling threatened or defensive?  By avoiding these topics, school sets our students up to become hot tempered narrow minded bigots.

2. There is little room for stimulated debate:
As I said before, school allows for very limited thinking and does its best to suppress conflict.  But by not teaching students how to talk about their differences in opinion without feeling threatened, students instead chose to put down ideas that were different than theirs because in school different = dangerous. School fails to teach students respect for other peoples opinions.

3.You live with your parents:
Sorry to all the parents in the world, but living with your parents is the biggest hindrance to self discovery.  There is nothing harder than trying to explore your own mind and questioning beliefs and values that your parents hold dear and then being guilted or bullied into saying you agree with them.  There is certainly no harder people in the world to disagree with than your parents, and its not until you are certain about a way that you feel that you can really talk about it with your parents.  By living at home, you just keep yourself immersed in their way of thinking instead of finding your own.  Living on campus was the best thing I could have ever done for myself.

4. It teaches you no useful skills:
Who learned how to vote, create a budget, cook decent meals, do basic home repairs or function as a useful and contributing member of society in high school?  No one ever!
 Most people go on to experience life, broaden their own horizons, and become much more opened minded and educated through self education.  But still, many will continue on, drinking beers at bon fires and posting pictures of their quads and dirt bikes on facebook and ridiculing those with different ideas or opinions than theirs.  And that’s pretty sad.

5. There is a difference between education and school:
You can be very intelligent without school. The problem is kids love learning until they are put into the systematic factory of creating workers we call school. Kids should be able to choose what they want to learn so they continue to be enthusiastic about learning. If kids hate learning they will never truly absorb the info. On top of that what kids are learning is completely pointless and will not ever help them. The real use of school is to teach kids to sit down and deal with things they hate (what you will have to do in most jobs).

6. It teaches you things that dont relate to your future job:
I want to be a video game creator when I grow up. I have been in school for 9 years and I did not learn anything that relates to the job I want. I even asked my teacher if a video game designer job is good. The teaches said that kind of job is "stupid" and that I should choose another job that relates to what you were taught in school. It is a waste of time to learn stuff that you will not need in the future. I have to do a research paper on something stupid and boring and I had no choice.

7. Not everyone is going to be rich when they grow up because of school:
You can have a nice job and become "rich" without going to school. I do YouTube videos for a living and make money off of that. I get about $20 per video I upload on average. You can probably tell that $20 isn't enough so you can probably assume how many videos I upload...... I do it because it is fun. I like to do it and school didn't teach me anything that has to do with it.

8. “...If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”:
I really like this quote and believe it is true. Not every kids are the same, and they will not learn in the same way. I feel like schools are trying too hard to force kids to all learn the same things and take the same classes. If someone isn't learning the information very well, (and if we won't even use it anyway) why is that being taught to us? Let the kids choose which classes they want in order to help them in the future. A lot of the information we learn from elementary school is what we need, because that's the foundation that we build off of. When we begin getting into high school, we should start figuring out what we want to do for a career. I think we should be able to start choosing classes that are going to help us. Some of this stuff that we learn at school we're not even going to use. Even certain math subjects, the only people who will use that information is those who want to be math teachers! A lot of us don't know where certain countries are, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think we should be taught useful subjects. I just don't get why we're taught Pythagorean theorems when we should be learning geography, how to balance a checkbook, or how to begin a business.

9. Could do this at home in half the time:
My pal and I realized that we could easily accomplish equal learning and more, simply on our own time at home, instead of attending meaningless classes with unintelligent and poorly motivated students. Often, we find ourselves in classes with no application to our daily lives, or even to the curriculum.

10. It is an avenue for waste of talent:
You can imagine how many talents that have been wasted in the name of school. Some lecturers sexually harass their female students (which may have a negative implication on the life of the student), many students indulge in acts such as hooliganism, gangsterism, cultism and other devilish acts, all in the name of school.

Ignorant is a disease !!!

If you combined what you learnt in University with Business .... You will be better off than a Drop-Out because you wouldn't need a loyalist to tell you what it is , you already familiar with the languages of Business !!!

OP U talk true but Education will still add few things. We have more Poor people than the Rich who are not educated. Can you learn English without going to school? Jes av @least ur Diploma, speak good English and Do ur best.

Burn ur certificate den dat wud be fine and we will all do d same sir

Unfortunately, most of us have cloned our success in life in our certificate.
The fact is that,no 2 persons has the same capability. In our higher institution of learning, many ppl does not deserve 2 be there, they would av done better by going for vocational training.

gbengress1: Unfortunately, most of us has cloned our success in life in our certificate.
The fact is that,no 2 persons has the same capability. In our higher institution of learning, many ppl does not deserve 2 be there, they would av done better by going to vocational [size=pt25]schools[/size].

shey u c urself.... I tot u wia talking abt skus

I don't waste time reading crap but i think you should quit school and please don't forget to create a thread on'if education is cost,try ignorance '...bye

OnyeEgo1: Burn ur certificate den dat wud be fine and we will all do d same sir

This is not a matter of burning certificate...The truth is that we have been totally brainwashed in this country that, if you don't go to school, you are totally useless.
May I ask u, what is the qualification of Dangote, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc!
The fact us that, the school is only there 2 enslave ur mind

Too voluminous and I didn't read it. -_-

All I could decipher is/was, "cry of a frustrated drop-out".

gbengress1:
This is not a matter of burning certificate...The truth is that we have been totally brainwashed in this country that, if you don't go to school, you are totally useless.
May I ask u, what is the qualification of Dangote, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, seun himsef, etc! Thomas edisson.
The fact us that, the school is only there 2 enslave ur mind

But u forget that they left school because dey were already made.

gbengress1:
This is not a matter of burning certificate...The truth is that we have been totally brainwashed in this country that, if you don't go to school, you are totally useless.
May I ask u, what is the qualification of Dangote, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc!
The fact us that, the school is only there 2 enslave ur mind

You have a point though but it doesn't mean you should discourage Undergraduates or University aspirants.

Most of our so-called graduate(first class for that matter), can't practicalise what they were taught in School.

SMH

FrancisTony:


You have a point though but it doesn't mean you should discourage Undergraduates or University aspirants.

Most of our so-called graduate(first class for that matter), can't practicalise what they were taught in School.

SMH

To be frank, this article is not about discouraging undergraduate, but it is meant to open our mind.
The truth is that, many don't have the potential to excel in schools, but unfortunately, you see them bury their life there, whereas they would have done better by doing another thing.

FrancisTony: Too voluminous and I didn't read it. -_-

All I could decipher is/was, "cry of a frustrated drop-out".

A frustrated drop- out? Wat gave u the assurance? Probably part of the things you were taught in your school.
Unfortunately, you were not taught how to think!

gbengress1:
A frustrated drop- out? Wat gave u the assurance? Probably part of the things you were taught in your school.
Unfortunately, you were not taught how to think!

OP you made a strong points there.
goin to school is not same thing as being educated.

I am a living example on that.
I dropped out of secondary school.
thought myself photography, Cinematography
and graphics design. today I've trained over
15 graduates and have 3 as employees.

school is good but education is more important!

gbengress1:
A frustrated drop- out? Wat gave u the assurance? Probably part of the things you were taught in your school.
Unfortunately, you were not taught how to think!

school did not teach me how to make money, how to be famous , how to have sex.... pls don't tell me it's common sense ...

Op made very strong points. I have always had this idea too

Personally I have learnt more from television, internet and meeting people than I ever did in school

There are some of my mates who kept getting the A's but their general intelligence is pretty low

WarRLaY: school did not teach me how to make money, how to be famous , how to have sex.... pls don't tell me it's common sense ...

@ d bolded, most of wat u itemise were not taught in school. But instead of us to be freed to think technically, schooling limits our level of reasoning.
But as you pointed out that it is just common sense, unfortunately common sense is common but the use of common sense is not common

Waste gini? Na fron ifa or babalawo u learn english?

@Op am sure u are already seeing the effect of why school was a waste of time just reading all the comments on here already....what you pointed out are facts and will make any sane person reflect on the decay the planet is facing already..

I daily think about all this and am even one those that realize that my 4 years at the university was a waste of time. I can boldly say that i didnt learn anything useful and had to start re-educating myself. there is no way my kids will be going to any organized school if i ever have one

macof: Op made very strong points. I have always had this idea too

Personally I have learnt more from television, internet and meeting people than I ever did in school

There are some of my mates who kept getting the A's but their general intelligence is pretty low

I can say it anywhere that i did not learn anything from school academics..everything i know today is by my sheer willingness to know

Will you take offense if i say that i don't understand you?op

Op if u dey skul..u can dropout without any reasonable thing in mind..I bet u..u'ld be d worst Fool dan u eva wia..dnt poison people's minds please cos in as much as u boast of billionaires dt are dropouts..I can still show you billionaires that discovered themselves in skul

schooling and being educated is not one and the same but I think school makes it possible for some people to achieve their full potentials e.g. wole Soyinka etc also for u to know that not all those who went to school are educated and can make positive impart on the society e.g. Goodluck despite his academic qualifications he is still not qualified as a good leader. I rest my case. God bless Nigeria

Funny thrend...To go to school is not by force but neccessary..

This topic iis very strong, I guess what the op is saying is 'school is not a matter of do or die' education is important but self education is more important, I remember when I was in second school and they teachers tend to teach some crazy topics, and I'll be what is the essence of this topic to my future, they teach so many things that isn't applicable to your life. But it will be the best if u can get ur CV, u don't really need to have a PhD but education in this time of the world is very very essential.

Majlaw: Waste gini? Na fron ifa or babalawo u learn english?

OP is talking about University Education not Nursery, Primary(Basic) and Secondary education.

gbengress1:
This is not a matter of burning certificate...The truth is that we have been totally brainwashed in this country that, if you don't go to school, you are totally useless.
May I ask u, what is the qualification of Dangote, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc!
The fact us that, the school is only there 2 enslave ur mind

show me those two people boldened and I'll show you more than 10,000 people living in abject poverty for not going to school, so its disadvantages is fatal compared to its advantage.
NB: dangote school in Egypt, so don't include him there

beejaay: @Op am sure u are already seeing the effect of why school was a waste of time just reading all the comments on here already....what you pointed out are facts and will make any sane person reflect on the decay the planet is facing already..

I daily think about all this and am even one those that realize that my 4 years at the university was a waste of time. I can boldly say that i didnt learn anything useful and had to start re-educating myself. there is no way my kids will be going to any organized school if i ever have one

You have said my mind. I initially frowned at the topic but realised that the op made valid points. Points so deep many posters can't even see the point.

A valid point is we aren't allowed to think just imbibe and regurgutate . its quite sad. If you go against the norm you are foolish. School in Nigeria is about the paper qualification which by now many know gets you nowhere except you have the appropriate skill.

Even the lecturers are to blame or how to you explain an electrical engineer who can't change a wall socket.

I had a classmate of mine back in school who was so good in repairing gadgets that I was surprised he was in my class instead of engineering from microwaves to TVs he could repair them. He actually had a soldering iron in his room to know his depth of knowledge in these issues. Engineering boys brought their stuff to him to fix. Now that what I call ironic.

Anyway I feel a basic education is neccesary I.e school cert which is even dismal in Nigeria now

. Then follow your dreams there's nothing as successful as doing what you want and you can only do that if you are allowed to think.

Crap.

Are u educated @Op ?
If yes wia?

Nonsense! DO NOT ATTEMPT to mislead gullible minds with this idiotic post of yours!