mm m mmmmm

After the last entry education seems like a pretty dense theme to tackle here on my blog. I feel strongly about many aspects of it, from it's structure to the way it relates to the bigger picture of society as a real time capitalist hell, and so, as it happens with all themes that engage me, i find it pretty difficult to articulate myself on the topic. 

Maybe a little background on my trip through education as of now can help understand my perspective on it, because the realities i've been exposed to are instrumental in the shaping of my opinion on the matter.

My first contact with education was at 3 years old, when I joined a private school, with tuition fees at around 150.000 pesos. It was a strict place, which enforced authority but also promoted arts and public speaking. After that, due to my tuition fees falling on my mom I had to leave that school in favor of one she could afford. I remember being shocked, both by some teachers and the way they spoke and treated alumni, and by my classmates who didn't know how to read and write yet. At this point i started a trend of not paying attention, because, as the video pointed out, it all became boring subjects among too many children for me to care. With just these two first examples you can already tell how badly education works. I hadnt even moved between opposite ends of the educational spectrum and with 6 years of age i still could identify all the surface differences that arised when you changed how much money you were putting into the equation. After 5 years of that, i got into a liceo emblemático, which was even bigger, and where i payed even less attention to what i was doing, but where two important things happened: i got the chance for the first time to make friends from other parts of santiago other than my own comuna, and i got the chance to participate in as many extracurricular activities as i wanted. Only then, after about 5 years, I started to get involved in classes, paying attention and participating, because for the first time I found some meaning in schooling, if only so I could score enough points to get into my desired career.

I actually wanted to delve deeper into the differences between systems (private, half state-funded, and municipal) but I already used up too much time writing only about the surface issues (and my post is already too long!) The bottom line is, I suppose, that when there’s a directly proportional relationship between money and quality of education you can’t deny something’s really wrong about your system, socially speaking. But the thing is: school as a concept is already an institution made to homogenize people, be it by crafts, knowledge, morals or whatever else. Norming people’s relationship to knowledge is already wrong in my opinion, since it’s impossible for any kind of institution to know what every single individual needs to reach their full potential.

I feel really bad about going on such a big curve with this entry… if we ever get another free post I swear I’ll continue my original idea for this one :’)