“You cannot discuss the ocean with a frog-he’s limited by the space he lives in. You cannot discuss ice with a summer insect- he’s bound to a single season.”
Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
[DISCLAIMER & FACTS: I was fortunate to graduate from college. That created excellent opportunities, and the return on investment was worth it. Most of the teachers evoked creativity and innovation; they taught me ways to bring my gifts to the world. They inspired me to be better, to think for myself. I incurred no massive student debt with my education—it was affordable.]
When I think of higher education, I think of value and opportunity. The opportunity to increase knowledge for use in the real world, a solid return on investment. Nowadays, students are graduating with astronomical debt and earning degrees for professions with incomes that will barely cover, if at all, their student loan payments. As a businessman, I would say that many higher education institutions are failing their client students. Something is very flawed with their business model. They have become non-thriving environments by creating more debt and uncertainty for students.
Seriously, what is the value of acquiring massive debt for a degree with little market value or even a reasonable return on investment? For the past decade, polls have continued to find rising negative opinions about the importance and affordability of higher education. Now, more than ever, university officials need to rethink their business models. They need to define what value they are really offering their students. They need to get back to the fine art of teaching, conducting classroom activities that inspire and evoke human creativity. They need to create thriving environments that spawn new ideas and make these ideas available to the rest of the world.
Even more troubling is the growing number of people in the U.S. who believe academic institutions have moved away from teaching critical thinking skills. This ever-increasing belief needs to be a concern to all of us who live in a free society, who care about the value of collegiate education and this country’s future. We are witnessing the exaltation of the collective at the expense of the individual, a full-frontal assault on human critical thinking. Current programs may create human entropy, wasted energy, the shrinking of human thought itself. They are making conformity the new norm, weeding out, canceling the freethinkers, if you will. All while debt continues to flourish while hope languishes, with more students being jaded and disillusioned, is an understatement at best.
It is evident that we need to start supporting institutions with sustainable business and learning models. Institutions that improve their students’ critical thinking skills can help produce good citizens, especially in a democracy. Without critical-thinking skills, one can easily be swayed by rhetoric, left unable to analyze arguments and discern how subjective evidence is used to support arguments, and prone to all kinds of societal biases that create division. Critical thought is a necessary ingredient for the survival of humanity. Without it, people are prone to governmental and institutional abuses of power. History is full of such testimony.
Understand, the intention is not to create even more fear or criticize educators; there is certainly enough of that going around these days. They are invaluable to human society, and the world certainly needs higher education institutions. However, these institutions need to have a higher purpose, to start teaching and giving real value to their students again, and not fall prey to the narratives of politics, class, and envy. Perhaps, that is for a different discussion. Just the same, groupthink does not work in free, innovative societies. History proves it. Sticking our critical thoughts in the sand will not work anymore. We must reject programs that do not allow for or teach critical thinking skills and demand more. The next generation of leaders deserves it.
Some Reading ‘Food for Thought’:
- “Critical Thinking and Analytical Mind: The Art of Making Decisions and Solving Problems. Think Clearly, Avoid Cognitive Biases and Fallacies in Systems. Improve Listening Skills. Be a Logical Thinker.” by Marcus P. Dawson (2020)
- “Mind Programming: From Persuasion to Brainwashing to Self Help and Practical Metaphysics” by Eldon Taylor (2015)
- “Weapons of Mass Instruction: A School Teacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto (2010)
- “How To Make the World Add Up” by Tim Harford (2020)
- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ann Rand (1957)
- “Color, Color and Communism” by Manning Johnson (1958)
- “The Manipulated Mind” by Denise Win (2017)
- “Philosophy 101 by Socrates” by Peter Kreeft (2002)
- “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto (1991)
- “Becoming Bulletproof” by Evy Poumpouras (2020)