Opinion

Thinking Outside of Boxes

By JOHN GATHRIGHT

I don't know about you, but the words "school" and "education" create a fountain of frustration for me. They are so vague.

What is a school? Why are classrooms square? Does it take a box to create a learning atmosphere?

When I was a kid the "in" thing was to call our school "the box." When holidays ended, we didn't go back to school but "back to the box!" These days, "Think outside the box," is a catch phrase. In retrospect, that is precisely where most of my real thinking and learning took place.

In Bill Gates' book "Business @ the Speed of Thought," he lays out 11 rules that students do not learn in high school or college. Here a few of them. He argues that our feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world.

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.

Rule No. 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

Rule No. 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

As the founder of Treeclimbing Japan, I have the opportunity to work with many Japanese youth at our Treeclimbing School. (No walls, just some great trees!) To be honest, I often find Japanese youth schooled but not matured. Many haven't learned personal responsibility and educated risk taking.

During the time in the forest kids are responsible for their own safety, and learning is done in direct relationship to experience and desire to learn. We tie our own knots but help each other holding safety lines. Gravity dictates the rules. It is always right!

The forest teaches us perspective. The higher we climb the more real our vision of life and nature becomes. This summer I will be doing a climbing expedition in California so that Japanese youths can test their limits 100 meters up a giant sequoia.

Japanese youth have the power to excel, reaching great heights in anything they do. It is my hope that schools will have fewer walls and that classrooms become less limiting. I hope that more parents and students take greater responsibility and create more "out of school" education.

Life is often called "the school of hard knocks." Life is not found in a box (classroom). People learn from personal failure and success, which gives us experience, wisdom and knowledge.

Life is not school, and school alone will not give you a great future life.

Shukan ST: April 14, 2000

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