Modern education system of our time is producing educated people but with least knowledge of use. Students strive to learn a lot of subjects of which they excel in only limited and also only limited people are able to do. Putting an effort of almost 16 years to finish university and ending up as master of none is a real pity. Education system of past was concentrating on useful knowledge gain through student teacher interaction and without restriction of school boundary. It produced great people in every part of globe but our modern system failed to do so and we can count on fingers the number of people who left an impact during last 2 centuries.
Almost all great achievers of their times received minimum formal education or a combination of formal and informal education. Formal education as defined by current situation is simply a diploma generating mechanism. This formal system can be traced back only to 500 hundred years. West mainly developed it. Its a famous story that when British planned to take India, their Consultant told them that education system of India was producing people with useful knowledge and skills and this must be changed. Therefore they introduced disciplined education system where students were memorizing the logarithms that were of least practical use for them. This disciplined system is also mentioned in a great book ‘Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and The Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives’ By Jeff Schmidtas. He wrote, ‘For understanding the professional, the concept of ideology will emerge as much more useful than that of skill.’ In short skill is missing from our disciplined minds!’
Almost all great achievers of their times received minimum formal education or a combination of formal and informal education. Formal education as defined by current situation is simply a diploma generating mechanism. This formal system can be traced back only to 500 hundred years. West mainly developed it. Its a famous story that when British planned to take India, their Consultant told them that education system of India was producing people with useful knowledge and skills and this must be changed. Therefore they introduced disciplined education system where students were memorizing the logarithms that were of least practical use for them. This disciplined system is also mentioned in a great book ‘Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and The Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives’ By Jeff Schmidtas. He wrote, ‘For understanding the professional, the concept of ideology will emerge as much more useful than that of skill.’ In short skill is missing from our disciplined minds!’
What exactly was the system and reasoning which produced greatest
minds of their times? There were two major reasons behind the success of that
system. First one was undisciplined education system. The system was not
forcing one to become some one but it was facilitating him/her to become what
he/she intended to become. It was a flow of knowledge from teacher rather
than the books. Second reason was concentration on a single subject rather than trying to learn many.
Undisciplined education system implies that there was no boundary for
place or content. One needed not to go to college or university to get the
knowledge. It could have been achieved at any place. The greatest scholar of
his time Avicenna learned astrology
from a grocer who happened to be an Indian with its knowledge. In old times we
frequently heard that great journeys were made by students to reach some master
of its time and gain knowledge from him/her. As a result of such journeys the student
was not attending classes from the master but in fact was spending time with
this great master. During that time he/she was able to learn the habit of
education. Ibn Khaldun considers this habit of education more important than
education itself. Famous British Historian Arnold J. Toynbee
considers Ibn Khaldun, the founder of philosophy of Economics, some branches of
Psychology and Study of Civilization as creator of the greatest valued work. This
habit was neither achieved through spending a semester with the teacher nor
with 40 minutes lecture a day. It was almost 24 hours in touch scenario. It is
known that Avicenna was able to takeover his teachers by age of 14, this was
the main reason! It also implies that content was not strictly dictated. Students were able to choose subject of their choice. We know it can be of great value as also mentioned by Hazret Steve Jobs in his lecture at Stanford in 2005.
In Islamic school of thought teacher has always been important. It is
said that great Caliph and companion of Prophet Mohammad, Hazret Ali stated, ‘who
ever taught me even a single word is my teacher’. Teacher student relationship
has always been key to success. A student used to be proud of his famous
teacher and vice versa. When a student was able to supersede his/her teacher,
the teacher was more than happy. A teacher used to have thousands of students
of a certain subject. Bahudin Zakeriya, a great scholar based in Multan is said
to have more than 20,000 students attending his lectures on religious matters
at same time. Today a similar approach is used using World Wide Web by ‘coursera’
a web site providing free online courses from leading University teachers from
Stanford, Princeton, John Hopkins and many others.
The second reason was that minds were concentrating on a single
subject. Modern science is telling us that human brain can learn almost anything it
wants. A child can learn several languages before age of 5 and many other
things. In fact it is the half-truth and half-truth is always more dangerous
than a complete lie. Yes our brains can learn almost every thing, but not in
the way modern formal and disciplined education system is promoting. Looking
back at giants one can see whether it were Greek, Pagan, Roman, Muslim or
Modern Age scientists, they worked on a particular issue for a very long time.
This long-term interaction with a specific subject did not stop them from
becoming master of other subjects also. Almost all great achievers were good at
Philosophy and Logic, which are quite contradictory subjects. Therefore being
an expert in one field does not hinder success in any other.
From Muslim achievers till 12th century one can see that most of them
were equally good in many fields. It took only 2 years of Avicenna at age of 16
to become the Royal Physician. His statements about healthy body and combating
with diabetes are same as used by modern age doctors. He is also considered as
father of clinical treatment and diabetic diagnosis. (Ref: wikipedia, Avicenna)
He acquired basics of all this in 2 years. Similarly he wrote few hundred
treatises on Mathematics also. There are numerous such cases. Similarly Al Jazari, the father of Robotics spent his whole life working on mechanic systems.
He was also inventor of world’s first automatic water extracting system and
drink machines (Ref: History Channel, Al Jazari). Similar has been cases with
Galileo, he was unfortunately enrolled in modern medical college but when he
discovered his interest in mathematics, he shifted to it and later worked in
that field, and this happened because he accidentally attended a geometry
class! We all know that Darwin spent a good part of his life studying evolution
although he was intended to become a doctor but ended up as a naturalist. Sir
Isaac Newton worked extensively on selected fields. However unfortunately the
gravitation theory proposed by him was exact copy of the theory explained by
Ibn Khaldun in his famous book Muqadimmah (1378).
One can easily see that modern formal education starts with a bit of
this and a bit of that approach. A student may end up spending 16 years of
education to become Jack of All but Master of None. When we see the successful
athletes or sports men we clearly see that most of them have concentrated on a
single skill and succeeded. A similar approach is required while educating the
children. Quoting Ibn Khaldun, the greatest evaluator of civilizations, one can
see that he wrote in Muqadimmah’s part on education system that a child should
start learning music, then astronomy, logic, philosophy etc. for 2-3 years each
and religious education should not start before age of 7. Considering this
suggestion of 2-3 years, one can see that great mathematician Omer Khayaam
spent 3 years learning math, Avicenna spent 2 years to become a physician.
For a comparison reason let us calculate the time required to gain a
good base of a certain subject as per modern education system. If a student in
formal modern system studies on average 2 hours a day a certain subject making
it 10 hours a week (of 5 days) or 40 hours a month. For any 1-year education
system it is almost 10 months making it 400 hours. If continued for 16 years,
it makes 6400 hours. Now taking another student who studies a certain specific
subject in accordance with his aptitude and age for 8 hours a day will need 800
days to finish same material which is simply not too more than 2 years. Somewhere
back in history some one was clever enough to play with the education system making
it wasteful for students.
Lastly, let us see what Noam Chomsky who is considered as father of
modern linguistic and most important intellectual of our century says about
education system. ‘According to Chomsky
there is an instrumental approach to education. It is characterized as
mindless, meaningless drills and exercise given "in preparation for
multiple choice exams". Chomsky suggests that society simply reduces
education to the requirement of the market. Students are trained to be
compliant workers (Ref: The Educational Theory of Noam Chomsky, 2011 New Foundations).
Very last information about this great master of our time, Chomsky's primary
education was undertaken at Oak Lane Country DaySchool, an independent institution that focused on allowing its
pupils to pursue their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere!