REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

[Charlie]

Good video. Pretty funny too.

[85 78 73 81 85 69]

There's quite a bit out there from him and others to read about what he talks about in that video. He seems to be quite a regular on the conference circuit for things like TED too.



I find this one quite interesting when he talks about education in Finland.


There's loads of his stuff out there if you do a quick search.

[Kieran76]

You know what's natural. Following your heart is natural. Obeying your body is natural. All the rules and regulations in school, being graded, being praised, being punished, being conditioned to think in terms of right and wrong and good and bad, slowly being stripped of your individuality and creativity and moulded into a citizen who complies and accepts the status quo, that **** ain't natural.

What?

Don't want sound rude but you are just throwing around a few cliched phrases without offering any sort of alternative.
Are you now some sort of robotic figure incapable of your own thought and free will? You talk about being able to choose what books you wanted to read, instead of being told what to read. Isn't that called reading for pleasure? It's what I did as a kid, went to the library. my learning didn't stop when I left the school gates at 3.30pm.

As for 'obeying your body'. Do you mean stuff like sitting down because you are tired? As someone who runs and trains I do not obey my body I push it further to get me stronger and fitter.

I totally understand that there are faults in the education system, but you do come across a bit 'sixth form' in your attitude.

[endo]

Not to mention the fact that some people's natural instincts lead them to rape or kill people, for example. Should we just let them get on with it and follow their instincts?

[Duncan James Waugh]

Good schools, of which there are many do not turn you into a drone or conformist. Quite the opposite in fact, to get good grades at GCSE and A-Level, the reverse is usually required. For example:

-Subjects like History and several other humanities aren't about learning to agree with some preconcieved opinion or political view that the marker has. They are about your ability to critically analyse and present evidence from both sides of an argument. There is no right or wrong answer, they are marking your brain's ability to reason and critique. This isn't confining the brain or restricting it, it's opening it up, giving people wider views, giving them the tools to formulate and improve the reasoning and to understand the world and look beneath the surface layer to a far greater degree.
-Subjects like Graphic Design encourage the creative angle, you can adopt any style or form you want. Your project work can target any type of product or aesthetic you choose. The more creative you are the better the mark.
-Subjects like Science are not about memorising formulae, that might get someone through GCSE but they will start to struggle at A-Level and utterly fail at University level. This is the biggest fallacy that gets bandied around. You will be expected to be creative in problem solving, think out the box all the time, not memorise formulae but understand why those formulae exist and regularly create new formulae for problems you've never seen before based on understanding the entire system.
-Good schools encourage entrepreneurship, be it through programs like Young Enterprise where you run a small business for a year or coursework, particularly at A-Level where the student is given complete free reign to do what they want.

Good schools widen the mind, a solid education broadens the understanding of the world around us, makes someone more open minded and anaytical of things around them.

[nakamura]

Was Charlie born with his head up his arse?

['Press Start']

Obeying your body is natural.

No it isn't, your body can work against you.

[Charlie]

What?

Don't want sound rude but you are just throwing around a few cliched phrases without offering any sort of alternative.
Are you now some sort of robotic figure incapable of your own thought and free will? You talk about being able to choose what books you wanted to read, instead of being told what to read. Isn't that called reading for pleasure? It's what I did as a kid, went to the library. my learning didn't stop when I left the school gates at 3.30pm.

As for 'obeying your body'. Do you mean stuff like sitting down because you are tired? As someone who runs and trains I do not obey my body I push it further to get me stronger and fitter.

I totally understand that there are faults in the education system, but you do come across a bit 'sixth form' in your attitude.

My alternative is no school. My alternative is parents teach their children the basics, point them in the right direction and leave them to it. Kids ain't allowed to be kids anymore. They wanna run free and have fun, we send them to day prisons to teach them how to become tax payers.

Am I a robot now? Not quite. It ain't quite that black and white, but 13 years through the education system definitely left an unwanted mark on my way of thinking.

The obeying your body bit; you know, eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, **** when you need a ****. School doesn't cater to those most simple of wisdoms, you gotta be there at a fixed time, eat at a fixed time, request permission to take a ****.

Don't understand the sixth form comment.

Good schools widen the mind, a solid education broadens the understanding of the world around us, makes someone more open minded and anaytical of things around them.

The most curious people I've met are children who haven't started school yet or have ony been in school a year or two, and whenever I've met those same kids a few years later after thy've been in school a few years, their minds are less curious, they're individualism has waned, and, well, they're less interesting. That's my experience.

Was Charlie born with his head up his arse?

[endo]

My alternative is no school. My alternative is parents teach their children the basics, point them in the right direction and leave them to it. Kids ain't allowed to be kids anymore. They wanna run free and have fun, we send them to day prisons to teach them how to become tax payers.

What about chidren whose parents are drug addicts or alcoholics or who abuse them or don't care about them? What about children with no parents, what happens to them? I don't want to generalise, but lots of people in the prison system, including young offenders, are people who have had very little or no engagement with formal education. Many kids left to their own devices by their parents are in that situation, not because their parents want them to be free to follow their heart and develop in their own way, but because they don't care about them enough to look after them properly.

[nakamura]

It all reminds me of Ned Flanders' parents.

'We just don't belieeeve in discipline maaaaaaaaaan'.

[Prototype]

Please don't mention drugs to Charlie. He went all crazy on me saying how all drugs are good for you. If you need to take drugs to feel happy then that is quite sad really. He called me stupid for saying drugs are bad for people and I recall a sheep.

[QUOTE]The most curious people I've met are children who haven't started school yet or have ony been in school a year or two, and whenever I've met those same kids a few years later after thy've been in school a few years, their minds are less curious, they're individualism has waned, and, well, they're less interesting. That's my experience.[/QUOTE]

Lol what?

Here is a fact about Charlie that you guys most likely don't know. His parents forked out for his education, clearly they wasted a lot of money.

[QUOTE]They wanna run free and have fun, we send them to day prisons to teach them how to become tax payers.[/QUOTE]

Well no **** sherlock. Where as School teaches them the discipline in life. I don't understand all this asking to go to the toilet malarky. Of course you going to ask, it is the teachers responsibility to look after you. You can't just walk out the class room.

You haven't worked have you? Because you know that you gotta eat at a fixed time, be there at a fixed time and leave at a fixed time in most jobs. Just checking you know that.

[Charlie]

Have I pissed over your sensibilities recently, trodden on your values, stomped your reputation into the dirt? What triggered such a warm and charming post I wonder?

You wanna know what I think about drugs? Read the Amy Winehouse thread on these boards. It's all there.

Regarding our conversation a few weeks back, what I said, after you made the blanket statement that all drugs were bad, is that in my experience not all drugs are bad and that some can leave long lasting positive effects, and evidence in scientific studies like this one carried out by the reputable John Hopkins University confirm this.

Yes, the last 4 years of my education were spent in a public school. What of it? Money wasted? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't possibly know how life would have transpired had I not gone to public school. I only know the life I've led and it's been very enjoyable so far. It's silly to think we know that one path is for the better or for the worse when we can never know where the other path might have led, we can only imagine and speculate, and that's a waste of time.

Schools teach discipline in life? Discipline isn't exclusively the preserve of teachers. Parents can teach discipline. I raised the toilet malarky because of the number of times in various schools when I asked to go to the toilet and was told 'no, there's a break in 20 minutes, go then', or 'no you were on a break 15 minutes ago, you shoulda gone then'. It was nonsense.

[mekanor]

I raised the toilet malarky because of the number of times in various schools when I asked to go to the toilet and was told 'no, there's a break in 20 minutes, go then', or 'no you were on a break 15 minutes ago, you shoulda gone then'. It was nonsense.

You really should have gone in the last break though.

[Kieran76]

I am thinking Charlie had a toilet related mishap at school and still holds a grudge to this day.

[Prototype]

I like you Charlie. But you not going to win me over with this drugs is good for you because in my opinion they are not.

I was another lucky one who went to private school, so I didn't go to a public secondary school. Parents can teach discipline too. But they can't when in school. Fact is you want kids to do whatever they like, stay at home or parents homeschool them. Which is ridiculous as most likely parents will have a job too.