Good News for a Change

I just got the result back concerning my first course at university.

76% - Grade B - Good Pass

It took me a year and a half... but I'm, me!, I am the first one in my family to get a university qualification. I have an Undergraduate Certificate in Social Science, and letters after my name Cert Soc Sci (Open).

Just needed to share!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Compulsory 'Education'

I've stopped believing in compulsory education.

I think I stopped believing in it a long time ago, but it's such a no-no, like saying that you don't believe in equality or democracy, that the thoughts didn't materialise in my mind.

But... I was listening to a psychiatrist on Radio Australia who described compulsory education as eleven years of involuntary detention, and that's exactly how I felt about my schooling. It, the school, was full of unprincipled, violent people in charge breaking the spirits of children who didn't want to be there.

Though here I am as an adult doing a mature degree and loving it.

How about letting children leave early with certain conditions. One, they can pass and get a certificate in basic literacy and numeracy, and in addition, either their parent's consent OR they can find a job.

But, they still have the right to eleven years of state education. So whatever years they have left, they can take as vouchers and use whenever they want.

Let them out into the world, the real world, party, party, party, fun, fun, fun... for a couple of weeks, then two years of burger-flipping on minimum wage. Then they can come back if they want and get more qualifications. And they will, motivated and focused. Yes, it will cost more as they'll need living costs paid until the vouchers are used up. BUT, it would be cheaper in real terms, because previously the state was paying for an education they were hell bent on refusing and wouldn't have finished, no benefit to them, no benefit to the state.

It benefits everyone.

1 - The ones that take the offer to leave, do so, have a taste of freedom and responsibility, then come back motivated and get qualifications they wouldn't have obtained otherwise.
2 - The ones who don't take the offer but stay for eleven continous years have an environment removed of those who resented being there, less disruption.
3 - Same benefit as for two for the teachers.
4 - The state would, over time, have more qualified people.

Yes. BAN compulsory education.

There is Nothing to Defend and No Story to Weave

People spend a lot of time defending themselves. I don't mean physically, with swords or kung fu blocks or something. I mean, in an unexamined consciousness, there is an assumed sense of self, a kind of 'essense of you' inside the mind. This is who you are and this is what's happened to you; so you have a self and a story. If someone critisises this then it needs to be defended. Someone suggests that you don't work as hard as you might say. The initial reaction is defensive. Perhaps you consider this statement in the light of the self's story, i.e. what's happened in your life so far, and decide that this isn't true, and so argue.

It's not just the story of your self that needs to be defended or it's qualities. Your self also has values and opinions. When you hear a contrary one, you feel you have to state your self's position, to defend it or evangelise it.

But if you close your eyes and look for the 'self', there's just ever-changing consciousness.

Maybe that's disconcerting, so you try harder to locate self. Perhaps sit down daily for an extended period looking for the permenent 'you' inside your mind. The most you can find is an awareness in the passing moment that has access to memories of what has been previously percieved by the senses begining a few years after consciousness became aware in the body. This gives rise to a sense of a self with a story existing in the mind when you choose to think about it.

But a memory isn't a self.

When you stop thinking about it, the mind goes onto something else.

So many interactions between people or thoughts in the mind are trying to weave a story about a self that doesn't exist. Like two silly people spending their whole lives arguing over a ball of wool and during the fight it gets all unravelled and now there's no ball, just a long piece of string and they are confused as to where the ball went. It's gone, they're just left with the world and the rest of their lives.