Freedom in Education
If I asked you to collect rocks in a desert, you'd tell me to shut up and then move on with your day.
If I asked the same favour, but paid you this time, you'd be more eager to get on all fours and scrounge around in dusty crevices.
Maybe those extra bucks will buy you something nice.
Or maybe you're a geology student, and I never had to ask you in the first place.
This rock-collecting date of ours is not just a romantic daydream of mine, but a way to show you the power of meaning in education.
Or anything, for that matter.
To see this, we'll take a trip into the world of scientific papers.
Four studies looked at modern education systems and explained why previously high-performing students began to fail.
Three wicked culprits were behind it all:
1) Lack of meaning in the work (Balduf 2009)
2) Work unrelated to their personal goals (Glynn et al. 2009)
3) The inability to work on their own terms (Reeve and Jang, 2006; Reeve 2009)
I shudder to even type them down...
But labelling them is how you can leave a meaningless education in the past, and craft one you love.
Our work should motivate us, and while discipline is a good friend for kicking us in the ass when we slack off, we also need the freedom to change course and chase what matters to us.
Like magpies to jewels, we're always eager to hop on new paths.
It's dangerous.
But as with anything in life, the magic is in the balance.
With the bravery to unlearn the restrictions of school and explore your true curiosities, you'll avoid these three traps and have fun as you learn.
And chances are, you'll discover something precious at the end of your tangent, even if you never saw it coming.
Learn what you want, when you want.
No guilt. No fuss. Just freedom.
Happy reading,
Odysseas
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(Idea from How to Take Smart Notes Chapter 13.3 by Sönke Ahrens)
P.S Here's the references for the papers above, which I almost couldn't be arsed to include, but you deserve better:
Balduf, Megan. 2009 "Underachievement Among College Students." Journal of Advanced Academics 20 (2): 274-94.
Glynn, Shawn M., Gita Taasoobshirazi, and Peggy Brickman. 2009 "Science Motivation Questionnaire: Construct Validation with Nonscience Majors." Journal of Research in Science Teaching 46 (2): 127-46
Reeve, Johnmarshall. 2009. "Why Teachers Adopt a Controlling Motivating Style Toward Students and How They Can Become More Autonomy Supportive." Educational Psychologist 44 (3): 159-75
Reeve, Johnmarshall, and Hyungshim Jang. 2006. "What Teachers Say and Do to Support Students' Autonomy during a Learning Activity." Journal of Educational Psychology 98 (1): 209-18