This week’s issue of my Performance Improvement Ideas (PII) newsletter features 9 key questions I strongly recommend every parent ponder seriously over, to accurately discern how well the schooling his/her kids get will prepare them to function as vocationally competent and financially independent adults in society.
Here are some signs and symptoms apparent in today’s society that convince me most of our conventional schooling systems are NOT equipping learners to function as described above.
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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter
Monday 15th May 2017
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.
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PII 066: There’ll be No Need to Force Kids to “Finish” School If They See MORE Formally Schooled People Doing Well Financially [Hint: 9 Questions That Indicate How Conventional Schooling Shortchanges Learners]
This week’s issue of my Performance Improvement Ideas (PII) newsletter features nine (9) key questions I strongly recommend every parent ponder seriously over, to accurately discern how well the schooling his/her kids get will prepare them to function as vocationally competent and financially independent adults in society.
The cartoon below, quotes Einstein, in illustrating the FACT that our kids (and us adults) ARE NOT not all wired to learn or achieve in the same way!
Here are some signs and symptoms apparent in today’s society that convince me most of our conventional schooling systems are NOT equipping learners to function as described above.
Young people who actively seek ways to get money off you without doing any work or adding any value to you. Adults who constantly scheme and plot to do the same thing.
Personnel in banks who manipulate the computerized systems in their workplaces to skim money off your bank balance, or apply illegal transaction charges to your account.
Telecom companies operatives who subscribe your mobile number to silly services you have no interest in, and/or deduct airtime from your phone for phantom services. These are a few examples of the kind of activities happening with ever increasing frequency in the Nigerian society.
Most of those people involved in doing the above naughty things are SCHOOLED people, often with at least University level education.
Yet they find it necessary to engage in crooked activities to make money for their companies and themselves.
Like I’ve said in a past article, schooled people who steal are manifestations of a cruel paradox.
I say this because we all know that we are told that if we want to end up well in life, all we need to do is go to school, get good grades and then get good jobs.
Sadly, what we see in society proves that many well schooled people who find good jobs with good companies, still go on to steal and cheat at work and in life.
That’s why they get sacked and sometimes sentenced to prison. It is why many of them demand and accept bribes where they work. Many MANY examples abound in the past and present history of Nigeria – as I am sure you, the reader, know!
But why do they do it? Why do well schooled people steal?
I’ve answered that question in an earlier article.
[See [Podcast] Real Reason Why Well Schooled People Commit Fraud (Tayo Solagbade’s “Difference Between Schooling & Education” Series)]
It’s because they do NOT know how to make money, or more money and they are AFRAID that the money that have is not (or will not be) enough.
You see, the schools did not teach them how to make money. Only how to work for money – as employees, trading time for money.
And that limits how much they can get. So when they want more, not knowing any better way, they often settle for crooked ways to get it.
Simply put therefore, conventional schooling shortchanges learners – but many do not know it!
The questions outlined below highlight glaring contradictions between what we are told “schooling” WILL deliver to learners, and the realities the learners end up facing upon graduation. Parents who truly love their kids will carefully study these questions and use the insights they gain to better guide their kids’ education.
- Why is it that girls willing to dance seductively and/or half-naked in TV musicals today in Nigeria can end up earning a better living – income wise especially – than those who choose to find jobs based on their school qualifications, or even those who become entrepreneurs? This happens not because the latter career options don’t work, but because Nigerian society the ladies have to operate in gives LESS reward for such “work” compared to the former.
- Why is it that some of the world’s most celebrated sports achievers are from dirt poor homes that saw sports as an outlet to escape poverty, compared to formal schooling?
- Why is it OKAY (and not child abuse) for people who lose their parents in their formative years or who were born orphans, to work in their free time – as “kids” and young adults – to pay their way through school? I know persons who did that right here in Nigeria. I schooled with them!
- Why do schools not give financial education to kids when the teachers know that understanding how to make money in and out of paid employment is often a determinant of how well people do in adulthood? Especially when money and how much of it they have will tend to be the primary criterion on which they will be rated – regardless of any other positive qualities they possess?
- Why don’t schools teach selling/self marketing skills when the ability to sell and sell one’s self will be crucial to the ability of the student to achieve desired progress in or out of paid employment AFTER s/he completes schooling?
- If the products of Nigeria’s formal schooling systems were doing so well in the large numbers they are being turned out, then why do we have armies of them roaming the streets with certificates in hand, looking for non-existent jobs, while being described by potential employers as unemployable? Also, why do so few of those who do well in our schools ever get to be voted to make good things happen for us in public office, with their brilliance?
- If the products of our conventional schools were doing so well in the real world, we would not have such growing number of kids unwilling to do the hard work of studying to pass exams without cheating – Or would we?
- Why do we have kids who want the benefits that can accrue from having a qualification, but do not want to go through the required process of “working/studying” to earn it? Why do they so eagerly “game” the system, in connivance with parents, teachers and examiners – the latter being the supposed custodian of the educational system being so raped?
- Have you noticed that the entertainment industry does NOT need laws or adverts to make adults of all ages eager to learn what it takes to partake and succeed in it? Does it occur to anyone that youths with all kinds of academic qualifications enroll and succeed in Project Fame and other reality shows etc? In other words, their academic schooling rarely matters to their ability to excel in this area – so why don’t we just find those who thrive best at it, and train them as early as possible in their lives?
What is happening with all these contradictions they see in society today, is that our kids are being “taught” that being the most academically brilliant with the best grades does NOT matter as much as being willing to cut corners to get what you want.
They see what we do – and refuse to listen to what we say, because they know the latter is NOT true.
Evidence of this is seen in the fact that our TV/Radio and newspapers give superior coverage to news about celebrities in various fields that are often drop outs or poorly schooled.
Out kids also see politicians accused of fraud walking free despite countless visits to courts – and even those who serve jail sentences for stealing being rewarded on their return with heroic welcomes!
While that is happening, they encounter honest and hardworking adults daily – including their own teachers – who never get rich or famous, despite being well schooled! And they also see those who chose to follow their own paths in life, rather than go the conventional schooling route, doing a whole lot better than schooled persons.
It is the mix of all the above that makes schooling so unattractive for kids over time, especially as they grow older – and that is why some choose to drop out.
If truth be told, would one need to force kids to study hard or attend school, like we did in our time, if they saw formally schooled people doing well in large numbers in society?
Case study: Shina Peter told his mum at age 8, that he no longer wished to attend school, choosing instead to live with and apprentice under Ebenezer Obey, so as to pursue his passion of learning to play the Guitar/music.
In a recent (2015) interview, Shina Peters was asked if he regretted not getting a formal education. He replied saying he had no regrets and that he had achieved so much success professionally and financially pursuing his dream as a self-taught musician that he employed well schooled persons, including PhD holders.
Now, THAT is a happy and fulfilled man speaking his mind right there. I believe BEING HAPPY AND FULFILLED is what matters most in life, and each of us as parents need to guide our kids to achieve that end.
Shina is NOT alone. There are many like him. Their examples prove schooling is NOT an end in itself. It is a means to an end – the end being each person’s definition of happiness and fulfillment.
A person’s creative genius is a crucial ingredient needed to achieve that optimal state of being.
Any schooling system that does NOT enhance the learner’s ability to put that genius to use in achieving that state is NOT healthy for the child.
You have an obligation as a parent to challenge your society to do that for your child. If it does not, then you have a duty to find a way to fill in the gap created and if any damage is being done to your kid’s creativity, you must take steps to stop it.
This is what I have been doing for my kids, and I will continue to do it for them, showing them what matters, until I am sure they can carry on by themselves, taking necessary protective measures to preserve their creative genius.
What is your child’s genius? Do you know?
Many parents do NOT know that schooling is a means to an end, and NOT an end in itself.
That’s why they focus so much on “schooling” their kids, and pay little or no attention to EDUCATING their kids in readiness for real world relevant success outside school.
This is why we have so many people who leave school with brilliant grades and go on to struggle to make impact in life.
It is why (as Robert Kiyosaki notes in his book) we see C students becoming more successful and employing A students after they all leave school.
It is also why we see UNSCHOOLED persons or school drop outs doing far better in the real world than their schooled counterparts.
I argue, as a Best Practice Parenting Advocate, that a parent’s NUMBER ONE role in giving his/her child an education is NOT to pay school fees, uniforms, textbooks etc. Neither is it to pay for access to summer school and exams.
[Workshop for Kids – by a Kid] Build Your Own Battery Powered Toy Bike!
Continue reading…
The knowledge and understanding of subjects has no moral purpose. It may lead to discontent.
Education is not about ‘preparation for life’. Nor is testing about ‘preparation for the tests of life’. Education is not ‘about’ anything except education. Debates, lectures and discussions with the title ‘What is education for?’ are popular, but they embody an instrumental mistake about the nature of education: education is not for anything. It is an end in itself. If all the problems of economic and social life were solved and people did not even have to work, we would still seek knowledge. This is encapsulated in Socrates’ vision of eternal life as an endless series of conversations and debates with the greatest thinkers.
Read full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/our-voices/battle-of-ideas/education-is-not-for-anything-it-is-an-end-in-itself-8198029.html
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Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
http://www.tayosolagbade.com
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement
Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
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[IMPORTANT NOTE:====
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old, NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
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