Book Knowledge vs. Real Knowledge
Imagine being set up on a blind date by a friend. They describe the person they had in mind for you as badly dressed, a mediocre student and an insomniac who frequently begins their day at midnight. Would you really be tempted to give them a chance?
Other than wondering what you may have done to offend this friend, you may be surprised to know that the person I am describing is Napoleon Bonaparte. The Duke of Wellington said that his presence on the battlefield was worth that of 40,000 men and of the 60 battles he fought, he only lost 7.
Yet despite his obvious talents and outstanding military record, he finished 42nd out of 58 in his military class. The reason? He objected to education as a form of indoctrination. To him, the practical business of being a soldier was more appealing than the whims of a teacher in the classroom.
The experience of Napoleon is far from unique. As a Corsican his accent and deportment were looked down on by French peers. Though others around him knew the right boxes to tick and soundbites to generate, success in school had no correlation to outcomes in life - especially when a guillotine was involved.
Likewise, the UK last year had the highest ever percentage of top grades in exams, but it’s estimated a quarter of the general population lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. There is a disconnect between what students can spew out in the space of a few hours and whether the metrics they’re tested on translate into meaningful life skills.
As someone who has 3 degrees and is working for an e-learning company - I am obviously not against education. It just seems to me that across disciplines and professions there’s a strange assumption that what looks good on paper will work in practice. One of the most powerful refutations of this assumption comes from the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Srinivasa hated his Madras school so much his parents had to employ a police constable to make sure he attended it. Yet, when he was 15 years old, he came across a copy of an Applied Mathematics textbook and his world changed.
Despite the textbook offering little in the way of explanation and being 20 years out of date, Srinivasa went on to independently verify much of its contents and pursue new areas of mathematical discovery. Even though he had an obvious talent, throughout his life he lived in poverty at various points as he clashed with the academic expectations of the time.
To conclude, exam grades can only tell you so much. If ideas are confined only to the perfect conditions of the classroom, we will never know what the best solution is. As Napoleon and Srinivasa Ramanujan show people who teachers overlook often have the most surprising skill sets.
