Education: The Good Parts

Before we could make changes to education system, let us first appreciate it's good parts. How the present education system itself have lead to valuable companies like Google out of a Ph.D. program, Databricks out of a research project and the importance of academic rigor in building sustainable products.

1. Exams as deadlines motivate us to study diligently

2. Percentage of marks as evaluation to help gauge understanding and learning

3. Peer learning, the method of studying year by year. That is 9th grade after the 10th grade. And Master’s degree after a Bachelor’s degree helps avoid the anxiety and mental torture to understand advanced topics without the necessary level of understanding.

4. Structure for the day - A predictable, simple daily structure is required to keep a sense of permanence. There should not be Fireworks.

5. Timing for studying, opportunities for cultivating reading habits, student-friendly learning environments.

6. Tenure - a linear progression in knowledge over time for stable growth and holding.

7. Infrastructure - Study rooms, playgrounds, student clubs, the protection offered to students in society.

8. Education is a 15 to a 20-year project at the Earth scale

9. Face challenges regularly, monthly, quarterly and yearly in exams, tournaments, competitions.

10. Practice collective meditation. A student spends about 3 hours of uninterrupted concentration on the exam, detached from the world.

11. Builds resilience - If the exams are well utilized they would help build resilience (the ability to bounce back).

12. Improves Grit - The rate at which output increases with given focus and effort. Grit acts as a multiplying factor.

13. Education has a framework for incremental improvement

14. It provides sufficient time to explore other interests. You do not need to attend every class, as there is a minimum attendance requirement Which is helpful to focus more on one over the other.

15. Growing up with peers for the social skills development

16. Learn to build community thinking inside the classroom

References

1. https://databricks.com/blog/2021/10/21/simplifying-data-ai-one-line-of-typescript-at-a-time.html

2. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html