Lessons that Lessen

This jewel from Alice in Wonderland:

And how many hours a day did you do lessons?’ said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

‘Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine the next, and so on.’

‘What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.

‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.

There are many ways the Lessons lessen in our educational system. The system essentially dilutes more with its structure than it promotes. Instructional design, school structures, curricular boundaries – all contribute to that dilution. Not making a ‘school makes you dumber‘ or ‘don’t let your schooling interfere with your education‘ or ‘how schools kill creativity‘ kind of an argument, but rather making the point that our systems tend to lessen our lessons due to their impact on our innate ability to learn.

What are some of these lessons (if I may so dare)?

The first lesson is to allow yourselves to be and remain curious – express your wonder at your first discoveries, making the first contact, learn from your first failures, connect the dots – basically, have those Aha! moments.

The second lesson is to remain open to discovery, events and opinions – give logic and reason a chance to get embedded in your style of thinking.

The third lesson is to express yourself – through the spoken word, through song, through music and expressions – they form the repertoire that you will use for your entire life.

The fourth lesson is to understand your limits and when you need help or support – give a chance for people to guide you, for others to show you the way, to never be afraid of asking and to never disguise your ignorance.

The fifth lesson is to actively engage in finding your passion – whatever that may be – and to be loyal to it as long as you feel the need, never to let it consume you altogether so much so that everything else fades to oblivion.

There are doubtless many more such lessons that lessen over time. Grit, perseverance, humility and many more. If you have learned these lessons well, you will perhaps be happily educated and build happiness and prosperity around yourself.

There a happy spirals and sad spirals in our learning journey. The happy ones are those which expand and grow our lessons, while the sad spirals lessen them. In our educational system, there is not much autonomy to decide which spiral to aspire towards, because of the tyranny by design and practice. A lucky few may break out of the sad spirals and some may find their environments contributing to more and more happy spirals. The large majority will be simply miserable in trying to meet goals they do not understand.

Perhaps this story of humanity has to underlie the story of education?