I failed my final exam in 12th grade.
That essay was more than just a grade. It was a wake-up call.
Here's what it said:
Fear is the fuel that can drive humans to do anything. It leads people to make completely irrational decisions, go against their values, and flock towards the general consensus.
Even when that consensus is illogical.
I particularly remember a moment at the beginning of the semester when about 95% of the class agreed that people should not focus on money or materialistic things.
Funny enough, we had just listened to a presentation on Marxist theory and everyone agreed that it sounded really nice but it didn't really work in practice.
That's when I realized that some behaviors and beliefs have been so embedded in our minds deep in the subconscious because of social conditioning that we're told things like money isn't important and it's become a taboo topic.
People frown upon those who strive for money and wealth as if it were a crime to have it. But everywhere I go, people seem to care a lot about money in the real world.
So the truth is, it's not that people actually believethat wealth isn't important.
But it was the wrong thing to say.
Social conditioning and reinforcement can be a good way to prevent misbehavior and enforce compliance.
Like let's say you're on the roads and you want to explore the speed at which you can go— that's probably not a good idea.
Negative reinforcement does a really good job at controlling populations and making sure that they don't explore new possibilities or creativity,
This is a really big problem in schools.
When it comes to educating the future generation of engineers, doctors, lawyers, artists, and even educators, negative reinforcement actually fosters not love for learning but apathy.
It continues that cycle where students are doing the
bare minimum to get by.
The reason students come to school today is not for their love of learning, but because of their fear of the punishment that would come if they didn't.
I know that for myself the only reason I'm writing this exam is out of the fear of not getting the credits to get my diploma and having downstream repercussions. And while I know now that I will be alright, it puts into question the entire system of contemporary education.
We're teaching the future workforce to do the bare minimum to avoid getting punished, rather than exploring frontiers never seen before by human civilization.
Now that is something we should be afraid of.