When children are very young they ask “Why? Why?”. They want to know everything. Learning things about the world is a driving excitement. “Can we read it again!?” Wow they tend to love reading.
By 18 that’s mostly gone. Reading, by then, is a dull chore and learning is for exams. Those going to University know they have just a few more years. Many have managed to maintain enjoyment, through personal encouragement and particularly strong curiosity. Others find it again later. Some majority never does.
What happens, between 4 & 18, to human beings that robs them the incorrigible curiosity of learning and finding out, and reading things? In those fortunate nations, they all attend school. Play becomes work and the work is not designed for enjoyment.
Schools and students are measured by exam results. What if we had a different measure instead. The input to a schooling system is wide-eyed, excited children. Disillusioned cynics can’t be an acceptable output.
More than ever, we need an agile workforce where people can pickup new skills as they and the world develops. So there’s your economic incentive, but I prefer not to work inside such stale parameters.
Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a file
A child who learns a lot between 4 & 18 is nothing in comparison to a human that continues to learn for their entire lifetime. If we want to output effective, happy, fulfilled, high-functioning people, instead of teaching them rote, why not teach them to love learning. In the beginning, most of them already do.
Imagine a system where exams were wiped, and instead a school was judged by the number of books a person reads the year after they leave.
Learning for joy, a system that optimises for life-long learning has 60 years advantage on schooling that enforces rote learning until 18. Learning, curiosity & discovery are undiluted pleasures.