Since a good part of my adult life has been dedicated to imparting my boundless wisdom to people.....("I taught them everything I know, and they're STILL stupid!"), I've recently pondered the question: How much education do we really need to be productive members of society?
It recently occurred to me that everything I need to know to run Timbreland North Audio (my current enterprise) I knew by the time I graduated 8th grade. Oh sure, there are some nuances of the art that benefited from some more advanced training, but for the most part, I could have started out at the ripe age of 13 and done quite well....maybe even better, from a financial aspect.
Now, I have to admit that, growing up in Silly Cone Valley, (back when it was still Vacuum Tube Valley), I went to the finest grammar schools on the planet, and taking a field trip to the Stanford Linear Accelerator in the 5th grade gave me an early kick start into science nerd-dom. But honestly, by the time I was 8, I knew I wanted to twiddle electrons for a living,and was already avidly learning how to be the next Thomas Edison. I don't think I was THAT weird in this regard.
The reason I even ask the question is that Alaska is going through a major budgetary convulsion right now, and I learned that the public education system is by FAR the largest state budget consumer. Most of this is, as one might suspect, plain bureaucratic overhead....I don't think our teachers are overpaid in the least....though our administrators certainly are.
Anyway....I wonder what the consensus is around here...do you think some of the years you spent in the classroom could have been better spent getting a business up and running...or some such?
Eric
It recently occurred to me that everything I need to know to run Timbreland North Audio (my current enterprise) I knew by the time I graduated 8th grade. Oh sure, there are some nuances of the art that benefited from some more advanced training, but for the most part, I could have started out at the ripe age of 13 and done quite well....maybe even better, from a financial aspect.
Now, I have to admit that, growing up in Silly Cone Valley, (back when it was still Vacuum Tube Valley), I went to the finest grammar schools on the planet, and taking a field trip to the Stanford Linear Accelerator in the 5th grade gave me an early kick start into science nerd-dom. But honestly, by the time I was 8, I knew I wanted to twiddle electrons for a living,and was already avidly learning how to be the next Thomas Edison. I don't think I was THAT weird in this regard.
The reason I even ask the question is that Alaska is going through a major budgetary convulsion right now, and I learned that the public education system is by FAR the largest state budget consumer. Most of this is, as one might suspect, plain bureaucratic overhead....I don't think our teachers are overpaid in the least....though our administrators certainly are.
Anyway....I wonder what the consensus is around here...do you think some of the years you spent in the classroom could have been better spent getting a business up and running...or some such?
Eric