School is wrong

I'm going to (once again) shift gears and try an opinion piece:

I never liked school (I will add specifics in future blogs). That probably sounds funny coming from someone with ~20 years of formal education, and I'm certainly not saying it was without value, but something always struck me as not quite right. For the longest time I couldn't put my finger on it, so I did what I usually do when I'm trying to 'wrap my brain around something' - I stripped it down to the basics. I envisioned a primitive, isolated 'tribal' village and asked myself:

"What would they teach their children and how would they teach it?"

And the answer is (I think) obvious. First, they would teach the necessary survival skills (i.e. hunting, gathering) and second, they would teach the folklore (religion, history, art, music) that makes their lives more than mere survival.
Now teaching survival skills would have to be rigorous - there would be stress, intensity and sometimes danger.
But teaching folklore would be entirely different. That would happen around the fire at night. It would be relaxed, entertaining and pleasurable - a hiatus from the rigors of survival.

And THAT pinpoints my problem with schools. They take subjects that are supposed to be enjoyable and turn them into tedium. They do that by teaching (and evaluating) everything as if it was a survival skill when the entire point of much of it is enrichment.
That explains why I love history but hated history class. (History is about courage and cowardice and cause and effect - NOT names and dates). And it explains why I love literature but hated English class. (Literature is about emotion and inspiration and enlightenment, NOT memorization and analysis.) I could go on and on.

Then there's this: I recently saw a picture of a 1920's office. There were rows and rows of desks in a large room. It looked just like the 1920's classroom environment. Unfortunately, it also looks just like the 2009 classroom environment... Given how much everything else has changed since then why haven't classrooms?

So, what's the answer? ...Heck if I know... I'm great at analyzing problems and I'm great at solving 'technical' problems. But solutions to societal problems? Not so much...

Humans kind of mystify me -I don't get them - at all :-)