very costly mistakes youths make about school

school, learning and education

1. School equals Job: school may have guaranteed people jobs in the past, but it doesn't any longer. These days, schooling is more a product of choice and a means to an end, other than an end in itself. Gone were those days when paper qualifications qualified people for job placements. Talent has never been as relevant as it is now. Skills are the new crude and anyone who isn’t ready to get his hands and mind creatively dirty is not going to get anywhere. New inventions, ideas and concepts are the in-thing now. Everyone is looking for a way to break away from the norm, a way to off-set established precepts and find easier alternatives to them. The good news is that with the advent of internet and digitization, idea execution has never been easier.

2. You learn in school: of course school teaches you things, both things you know before and things you've never heard of. The real deal however is what you learn. Learning is to a large extent a personal experience. You choose to learn what you want to learn, whenever you want to learn, although some lessons can be accidental. You don't need to wait to get into a higher institution before you learn. Read books, watch quality movies, observe your environment, be very sensitive and you would never fail to derive invaluable lessons that may never appear in a school curriculum.

3. Good grades matter: Good grades don't matter, only if you have no knowledge to show for it. I had a course-mate in University who was quite elderly, at the end of our programme, she graduated with a second class lower degree. The thing is that she may not have good grades, but several years later, she still remembers details of courses which I can’t even remember of. On paper, I am better than this woman, but you dare not take two of us into an interview room, I’d quit because I know that she will perform better than I would.

4. School equals education: I've heard young people wish for the semester to end so they can quit the stress of reading; of learning. Even more severe is the syndrome among final year students, they all want to graduate, not to go and apply the knowledge they have acquired, but to finally break free of the daily routine of studying, of learning. Guess what? Schooling is just a drop in the ocean of learning and knowledge. If you really wish to be educated, to derive lessons from everyday experiences and books, you should never equal school to education. Being literate does in no way make you educated. Education is a lifelong process, which only ends in death. An educated person is someone who can apply whatever he has read, experienced or learned to solve day to day problems. Schooling doesn't make you educated.

5. Your course of study defines you: there is this story of one of the finest rappers in Nigeria right now. He studied Law and indeed was called to bar, but instead of practicing law, he chose to practice music and has gone further to win awards in Acting and comedy, he is no other person than Falz the bahd guy and he is just a drop in the ocean of those whose course of study never defined them. While in school, every History and international relations student believed they were going to be Nigeria's next ambassador to the U.K, law graduates thought of themselves as the most learned of students who would sit as judges or top lawyers defending and deciding the Fate of people, then there were the in education students who endlessly suffered from the false stigma of being doomed for classroom teaching. Fast forward to ten years later and you'd realize that several people are in fields other than what they studied.

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Onyeoziri Favour

(Blogger, writer, Digital marketer)