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Current education in most western societies is to me mostly just a measure of memory, ability to regurgitate what you've learned on demand and a preperation to be a functional human being by being literate and able to do mathematics.
I really was damn terrible at school, so much so I quit a little before I was 17 and went into the workforce to do other things because it really wasnt all that interesting and if I didnt find it interesting I certainly didnt do well at it. In that sense I think I've always just been a bit pragmatic when it comes to priorities 
For people in developing countries it's absolutely essential that they have some level of literacy and numeracy I think to be competitive in the current world economic sector, but it really only goes so far before they have to have the time to comprehend things away from the coalface of immediate survival. Thats when you start to look at the bigger picture of making money aside from the routine hand-to-mouth existance and understand a little better how things work, what you can do in your current situation with what you have and go from there.
As for education and political awareness, I think a great deal of the worlds woes in developing countries and oppressive societies would be alleviated not just with education, but also communications and a wider understanding of the people you share your community with. Those two together broaden the wider perspective of personal experience and tend to at least moderate and temper some preconceptions about their neighbours.
I'm very much sure that we'd be a much more tolerant species overall if the general perspective was switched from understanding 'those people over there' as being different to ourselves, to being that of 'those people over there' have the same problems, wants and needs as the rest of us. Mostly, they just want to survive another day, keep themselves and their families fed, roof over their heads and not have someone continually kicking their arse to take what they have.
Thats generally enough to keep the average person happy enough and a little bit extra once in awhile to keep things sweet and interesting.
It's also about as philosophical and 'dreamy' as I care to get. 
What seperates the wealthy from working class and poor?
Opportunity
Desire
Resolve
None of these feature on the school curriculum, though education may help access things like opportunity, but mostly opportunity is a factor of luck, life and circumstance. It is also more or less a very rare and little seen commodity which doesnt make itself immediately obvious and comes in many shapes or forms, friends, people you know, dumb luck and chance. People trip over it every day in some form or another without even knowing it and frequently squander it when they do, even more rarely do they kick over a brown paper bag full of a squillion bucks.
Education also here provide the knowledge of what to do with an opportunity and that is basically the knowledge of how to choke that little bastard of oppertunity for all its worth... and then some!
Desire is a part of making yourself wealthy as well, everyone believes they would be better off wealthy simply because they think it would be a lovely dream to accumulate pretty, shiny things and attract a partner in life. Its a lovely dream but for the most part it stays a dream and keeps us sane in whats usually a grind at best to a hand to mouth existance at worst. To want to be wealthy is enough for most, then theres another level all together which provides the drive to really achieve it. You have to want it more than anything else, above anything else and as simple as it sounds, not everyone is wired that way. It is frequently dulled by overly charitable societies which provide a free lunch and room along the way which is overlooked by people faced with such charitable oppertunity, it doesnt make them hungry enough.
Also people who are born into money rarely know what to do with it successfully beyond about the 3rd or 4th generation in most cases as their largess existance has dulled the desire and it falls into complacency.
Resolve is the hardest to quantify really. Most people can only take so many hardships and kicks to the guts before they collapse and fall back into the grind or hand to mouth existance. Some will be knocked back to nothing and stay there, others simply rumble along to keep the basics running and the lights on, until they fall over and die.
Once again, this isnt a measure of your physical ability in most cases, how well you did at PE in school or resiliance to pain when you boys where football stars or something. Oh no, this doesnt even factor in to how you managed to be dux of the school.
This is called guts and raw grit, how hard, long and tenaciously you can fight, get knocked down and come back even harder next time. Often this is crudely called 'balls' but I can assure you right now, two fleshy nuts have nothing to do with it. Sure they might make you very aggressive sometimes but aggression has nothing of value without focus, determination and just plain stubborness.
Because ultimately, the last one standing wins and you must be absolutely and totally ruthless in how you get there, nice people rarely get anywhere, theyre usually too concerned about hurting someone along the way and sometimes as harsh as it is, sometimes someones going to get hurt... and if you dont do it, then theyre sure as hell going to do it to you.
You can have fun poking at my spelling and grammar now for all its worth for yourself to do so, I am a terrible academic, but not nearly as terrible as I am a person...
Last edited by Lilith on Jan-15-2007 at 23:43
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