Things I wish I'd learned in school

In my recent post about ramen and life, I briefly touched on the purpose of higher education, and how for many of us, school doesn't necessarily set us up very well for life afterwards. Certainly, the point of institutionalized education shouldn't be purely for survival - otherwise, for most people the best thing to do would be to enroll in trade school at the ages of 13-14, learn a useful skill, and work off of that for the rest of your days. You're physically capable of working in most jobs at that age, but I can say with a degree of confidence that few people think this is the best way to go, at least in contemporary society. I think there's a big difference between "school/formal education" and "education", but I may occasionally use these words interchangeably. Bad habit, I know.

I got a lot out of school, and if I had a chance to do it over again, I wouldn't change very much. Overall, I had a fairly varied and diverse education, so perhaps that's why I have a more positive view on formal education than someone stuck in the test-centered Taiwanese school system, or a kid forgotten in the underfunded inner-city public school district. Still, I do believe that for the most part, what you get out of something depends on how much you put into it. I've had classes in well-funded institutions like Michigan where people really cared if you were learning something worthwhile, and I've gone to school in places where actually going to class regularly is a curiosity.

For most of my childhood, school was straightforward. I was a middle-class ABC and went to a good private school, taking violin classes two nights a week (of course), and playing in youth soccer and hockey leagues, depending on the weather. But when my family moved to Taiwan after the summer of 5th grade, everything changed. Most significantly, I think living in more than one country for an extended period of time definitely has an effect on your mindset and values. More than anything, that has helped shape my perspective of the world and life. After moving, I was homeschooled for 3 years (because my Chinese ability wasn't up to par to go to a standard school), and that made me question the necessity of formal schooling. Then I attended an experimental high school where to a certain extent, you could do whatever you wanted - in a way, similar to college. Many kids took the opportunity to play video games and cut classes every chance they got, and quite a few never ended up going to college, or delayed it for several years. For the most part though, they appear content with their life choices, something that may be somewhat unimaginable to many of my peers who graduated from the University of Michigan (obviously, a completely different educational environment), now in their mid-20s and in grad school for the next few years to come.

As a child, it's easy to believe that life is as you see it. This sounds fairly simple, but it is a crucial step in becoming a more thoughtful and nuanced thinker. When you grow up with only one language spoken and used around you, it's hard to understand the value and necessity of foreign languages. When you only hang out with people of similar ethnic background and culture, it's hard to see why diversity and multiculturalism can be a good, or even necessary thing. When you only hang out with kids from your church's youth group, you can't imagine how someone wouldn't believe in Jesus.

Of course, as you grow older and more experienced, you encounter things that challenge your worldview, if only because you can't be sheltered forever. You move out of your neighborhood, you meet all kinds of people at work, you start using the internet, you transition from childhood to adulthood and start to have more sympathy for the "respect your elders BS" that you once hated. Some people take this process in stride, becoming wiser as they go, and these are the people I look up to the most. Some can't handle it and reject any piece of information that contradicts their already-existing worldview. You see this a lot from those senior citizens who forward every piece of negative chainmail about Barack Obama to everyone they know, or just recite political talking points without independent thought of their own.

In my case, "shock therapy" proved fairly useful. When you live in one country your entire life, and then travel somewhere else only as a tourist, it's fairly natural to dismiss others as "weird" - finding yourself unable to really relate with their religious beliefs, their customs, the way they communicate. As someone totally accustomed to the American way of communication, Japan can be extremely frustrating, being that it feels like no one really expresses their feelings directly, but rather in (what may seem to you) a roundabout way. It's not actually roundabout, because people there know exactly what is being said, it just feels unsaid because it's not done in a way you can understand easily. Or you get frustrated when someone offers you tea in Taiwan and you decline, but they pour it for you anyway, because "you're supposed to decline out of politeness, and people understand that they're supposed to pour it anyway".

But when you move to a place, and for all you know, permanently... it's easier to get deeper into a culture, to understand how and why things work the way they do in a different place. Of course you have the kids of businessmen working abroad who go to American schools in gated communities and never really interact with the locals in any meaningful way, but for the most part, it changes you profoundly. It helps you to notice things about yourself that you had previously taken for granted. When I'm in America, I feel quite Taiwanese at times, but when I'm Taiwan, I suddenly realize how American I am. Overall, moving to Taiwan forced me to challenge many things I had taken for granted in life, and once I was able to do so, I came to the realization that *I could be wrong*, about almost anything.

"I could be wrong."

Four simple words, but a huge difference in terms of open-mindedness and willingness to change. This isn't necessarily moral relativism. There are some topics that I hold very strong views about, but I'm willing and able to see where others who disagree with me are coming from, partly because I was forced to when in Taiwan, and subsequently after moving back to the United States for undergrad. I'll use several examples to help illustrate my point.

Take the issue of gun control. In Taiwan, guns are illegal. As such, a common American NRA argument goes, only criminals will have guns. In a sense, this is true. Guns still exist in Taiwan, and occasionally you'll see news of police raids confiscating Uzis and Mac-10s, but overall there are very few shootings. The typical domestic dispute that goes too far ends with a watermelon knife (still ugly) and a victim in the ER, and not with dozens of bodies chalked on the sidewalk. The roots of absolute gun control in Taiwan may in part stem from its previous authoritarian government, which was a minority ethnic group (Han Chinese) holding disproportionate power over the majority (Taiwanese/Hakka/Aboriginal) population of the island. No doubt they would have felt rather uncomfortable with citizens being armed - the perfect "defense against tyranny" 2nd amendment argument. And yet, as Taiwan has become a stable, if idiosyncratic democracy, people are happy not go have to endure all the school and movie shootings that seem to happen on a weekly basis in the United States.

On the other hand, Taiwan is a small country. When friends there respond with incredulity towards yet another shooting in the States and wonder why guns are still legal, I remind them that in many rural areas, help from the police can be hours away. A well maintained rifle can be a necessary deterrent in some specific situations, and thus I'm reluctant to completely ban guns in the States, even while believing that Taiwan has done the right thing on this particular issue. Some American friends of mine who have never lived in a gunless society do not see it as feasible, much like they cannot fathom single-payer healthcare (socialized medicine) as being a good, viable possibility. But because I have lived in a country without guns, with universal health care, I say it can be done. But I understand where they're coming from. I can easily admit to being wrong because I can see cases in which a point of view that I had once held steadfastly wasn't, in reality, that ironclad at all.

This is a kind of lesson that you rarely learn in school, at least until college. Teachers fear being challenged, and cannot have their students considering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the textbook is wrong. Because unless a teacher truly loves and knows her academic subject... what else does she have besides her title once the aura of expertise is stripped away? Thus the illusion of infallibility must be preserved, often at the expense of the creativity and curiosity of young, impressionable minds. This mindset permeates all sorts of subjects, to the detriment of many graduates who find themselves ill-prepared for a life in the productive workforce.

What are some of the things I wish school had taught me? Or similarly, what subject was taught so poorly that it would have been better if I had never learned it at all?

1. History

If you have never read "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong", you should. As a political science major, I may be biased regarding the importance of history (I probably find it more interesting than most). I believe an honest, nuanced understanding of history is crucial towards the improvement of the individual, and the nation. While I have only had in-depth personal experience with American and Taiwanese history books, I find they both suffer from the same problems. Inaccurate depictions of historical figures and events, and deceptive teachings that do not help students understand why the world they live in is the way it is. By framing the Founding Fathers at mythical, perfect figures, they become superhuman, mythological, unattainable, and ultimately, boring. They are no longer something that students can and should strive to be - real, flawed people that nonetheless were able to overcome their shortcomings and help to change the world for the better. And that's unfortunate, because there's a lot of truth in the saying, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." We have seen powerful nations like the U.S.A. make the same avoidable military and strategical mistakes over and over again, because we have refused to learn the right lessons from Vietnam. Of course, your definition of "right" may vary. Some think that the lesson from Vietnam was that the politicians held the military back from victory, and that more troops, more blood, and more time would have resulted in a more favorable outcome. This appears to be the dominant interpretation, at least judging from current U.S. policy (and especially neoconservative ideals) . Others believe that Vietnam showed the futility of fighting an extended overseas insurgency in which you have little to lose, compared to the locals. Either way, without truly examining the good and bad, how can citizens be expected to make anything more than gut instinct decisions?

2. Personal Finance

It's astonishing how poorly many (college!) graduates manage their finances. In Taiwan, there's a phrase called "月光族", which roughly translated, means "Broke at the end of the month". Many people live paycheck to paycheck, not necessarily because they aren't making enough, but because they have absolutely no concept of finance. When and where to save or invest in, what items to prioritize when on a limited budget, what life decisions are feasible or worthwhile. And of course, the U.S. pretty much invented living off of credit card debt. Arguably, the Financial Crisis of 2008 was in large part caused by questionable financial values. It is one thing to buy a house assuming it will appreciate, thus providing you with additional useful income after you sell it. It is another to borrow money that you may never have, purely on the assumption that the housing market will never fall, financing an unsustainable lifestyle based on a vague sense of hope. It should be fairly self explanatory how a nation would be better-served by having citizens well educated in basic financial concepts, or at the very least impart something about the value of self-control and restraint.

There are several other subjects that I find personally useful, but I recognize that the value of these things can vary significantly depending on your line of work or what country you are living in. I personally think understanding basic statistics and probability is quite useful and I wish schools taught a bit more about this before college, but I can accept that this may be somewhat subjective.

What things do *you* wish you learned in school? Or otherwise, what things have you learned throughout your life (both in and out of school) that have been extremely valuable?

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