Still Waiting on an Education

Just finishing up the first month of business school and planning to go on to medical school I am at an interesting intersection of education. As exciting as it all is I can't help but feel that in my 17 years of schooling that there have been some things that have just never been delivered. Perhaps working in higher ed has heightened my focus and perception of these things, but lately I can't stop thinking about them.

photo credit: http://technicalwritiertalks2.wordpress.com/

Probably the theme that has been irritating me most lately is the persistence of by-the-book teaching even in post high school, post graduate education. How far can being able to follow instructions and directions really take me and in what sense can that really be called an education? It seems that every time I try to do something out of the ordinary or not according to script my professors just insist that if I wish to do well in the class I ought to just follow the syllabus. It seems to make more sense to me that courses at this level ought to follow around the theme of "Here is how we do it now, imagine a better way". Is that not the kind of thinking that of the most social value in reality?

In the same line of thinking as my previous complaint, because let's be real for a second, this is just a rant, is the idea that failure is to be avoided at all costs. Taking a risk on a project that could result in getting a lower grade is universally advised against. Furthermore the immense amount of shame attached to failing or not achieving the expected grade or outcome is so enormous that it imprisons any student into walking the narrowest line possible. This paranoia acts as blinders, shutting out all the other wonderful and possible ways of getting from point A to point B and only showing the ones that have already been laid out. When in reality it is precisely the supposed mission of formal education to prepare students for the future, for discovering these new paths.

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An education should not amount to two decades worth of reading instruction manuals. There is nothing in a book that can equip a student to deal with the challenges of the future; the only thing that can do that is the student's own mind. Education has long been seen as the equalizer between social classes but how can it continue to hold this title when it seems perfectly designed to produce graduates whose primary skill is following the direction of others?

End rant. Comments welcome.