The Death of Our Education System

I feel vindicated.

I hated school as a kid. Nothing was challenging me the way I wanted to be challenged.

My grade 3 teacher wanted me medicated…

I got so bored in grade 1 that I cut my pants off. Not holes in the pants, the whole thing (mom, part of me really wishes you kept those pants).

Going down the slide with no pants, in full view of all the teachers, wasn’t the smartest move.

I can count on both hands the amount of times I did homework in 12 years. But, you could always find me plugged into a video game for 4 hours after school every day.

Some kids just need a different kind of challenge!

Now?

I spend 50% of my free time learning everything I can. My wife likes to make fun of me because she once saw I was learning about Japanese strawberries, so when I say everything, I mean it.

Technological breakthroughs have made our existing education system outdated.

Fast.

Information is Commoditized

Thanks to the internet and smartphones, information has been commoditized. Anyone with an internet connection can find almost any answer within seconds.

Remember when they made us do math without a calculator because “we wouldn’t always have a calculator in our pocket…”

The days of memorizing information, regurgitating it on a test and forgetting it should be over. Education isn’t about memorization.

It’s about learning how to think, how to understand, and how to apply knowledge in the real world.

It’s about the creative process!

We need to focus on teaching problem-solving, creative thinking and experimenting.

Expensive Pieces of Paper

Job Requirements:

• 4 year bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business or equivalent experience

• …

• …

• …

Four year college degrees are becoming irrelevant as employers look for technical skills, innovation, and creative problem solving.

A piece of paper from a university is no longer a proxy for success.

This isn’t because knowledge isn’t valued.

Rather, we now have access to so much knowledge. There are resources available that can teach you most skills outside of medicine, engineering or law.

For FREE.

Or at a fraction of the cost of a degree.

Where AI Fits

Existing AI models can already score higher than 50% of high school students that take the SAT.

This will only improve over time as the models expand.

It is plausible that future education will be delivered to each student individually.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s 10 reasons AI tutors will become the norm in the next 5 years.

1. 24/7 availability

2. Personalized learning

3. Adaptive learning

4. Immediate feedback

5. Multilingual support

6. Accessibility

7. Cost-effectiveness

8. Student Engagement

9. Data-driven Results

10. Scalability

Alternative Education Options

We need to start exploring alternative methods of education. Public school enrolment is declining. Homeschooling Facebook groups have exploded. US States? Passing school choice legislation.

There are already great initiatives out there, I’ve learned recently about Acton Academy. Where cohorts of students teach each other!

It’s time to take our old dog of an education system to that nice farm upstate.

Thank you for reading this far, I’m humbled! Could I ask you for a small favour? Sharing this newsletter with 1-2 people is completely free and helps me out a lot!