Is what is taught in schools useful?

I'll start by saying it upfront, I am biased on this topic. Much of what has made me successful in my life, professionally and personally, I did not learn in an educational institution. I wonder if this is the case for most people.

In the great movie 'The Gods must be crazy', there's a fantastic line near the beginning of the movie when the narrator paints the contrast between the simple life of Bushmen in the Kalahari and 'civilized' people in the modern world. This is not literal, but the line goes something like: Men have made their modern lives so complex, their children need to spend the first 20 years of their lives learning how to survive in it.


What strikes me is that with all the time we invest in education, from primary school to secondary school to university and sometimes master's degrees and beyond, there's an awful lot of pretty important stuff we are clueless about when we start our adult lives.

I'm not talking meaning of life here, or even how to solve world hunger. I'm talking about much more practical things, like how to shop for insurance... or how a mortgage works and what different types exist... the risk and return of various ways to save for the future... why even save for the future, and when to start... How about the hows and whys of sustainable development, free trade and fair trade, corporate social responsibility and why seek to work for an employer who is serious about it... Also, what good employers really value and look for when hiring. Things like problem-solving abilities, self-reliance, creative thinking, ability to deal with ambiguity, and so on.

When I think back to my schooling, including my university studies (marketing major), much of the stuff I was taught was very academic, theoretical, conceptual. I've worked in marketing for the past 10+ years, and I can't recall even one instance when I thought: 'I learned this in college'.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't go to college. If they (or their parents) can pay for it, absolutely. It's a great buffer before having to go into the real world, and many employers will look for it on paper even if they don't necessarily expect a lot from it.

I've been volunteering an hour a week for the past few weeks in a class of 11 year-olds as part of Junior Achievement. I'm teaching a program called Our World, which is aimed at introducing under-privileged kids to the concepts of international business, how countries trade and why, etc... Very good program... Made me realize my kids don't know most of this stuff either. When I see how engaged these 11 year-olds get, how they quickly can relate the subject to events in their own lives, I wonder if we are making the best use of kids time when they're in school.

Maybe we should spend less time on ancient languages, or centuries-old literature, or science that will get covered in later years anyway, and spend more time better preparing the next generations. Preparing them to survive yes, but also to care, to want to make a difference. Teaching them not to accept the legacy of past generations (careless spending, budget deficits, bankrupt social systems, environment, inequality, poverty, ...) as a burden, but as a challenge that is theirs to solve.

Our future is truly in their hands. Their habits as consumers, their decisions as leaders, their choices with regards to fellow humans across the world, will have tremendous impact on the quality of life of future generations. Our world - their world - has changed enormously in the last 20 years. Educational systems and curiculums haven't. We must adapt what we teach and how we teach it to the world our children will live and evolve in. Are we ready to do that?