The 10 Things You Can’t Learn In The
Classroom
Sometimes I wonder why we bother going to
school. To learn, of course. Well… yes, but
why is it that we have to go to a building
specifically designed for this purpose? Why
can we not just sit at home and read books?
Whatever it is that is taught in school can be
learned out of a book.
In fact, it almost always is taught out of a
book. Teachers and college professors alike
will assign books that they will teach out of
and then later assign to read from. So why
not cut out the middleman? Why waste time
going to school to learn when we can do it
from anywhere else on our own time?
One answer is obviously that most people
will choose not to bother with learning and
as a result, society will suffer as a whole.
Secondly, it is important for people to form
mini-societies when growing up in order to
learn the importance of social interaction
and influence.
Therefore, the chance of the world getting
rid of schooling institutions is zero. But don’t
think for one minute that what schools have
to offer is all the knowledge that one needs
in order to live a life of prosperity. In fact,
the most important lessons one will learn will
be learned outside of the classroom. Here
are 10 things you won’t learn in school:
1. People are only looking out for
themselves .
School can be rather competitive. Students
compete for grades, compete for their
teacher’s favor and compete in sports.
However, nothing will teach you the
importance of competition as when you
enter life after school. With technology
getting more and more advanced, the world
is getting smaller and smaller. This means
that the competition is getting bigger and
bigger.
While in school, you only had to worry about
your fellow classmates. When out in the real
world, you have to now not only worry about
everyone else in the country you live in, but
now often have to compete with the rest of
the world. If you think good grades were
good motivation, wait until you see how
money motivates people. Outside of school
you will learn that people will cheat, lie and
even kill for money.
2. The importance of being patient and
staying positive .
School is set up in a way where we are only
made to make short-term goals. Each year is
split up into semesters and our only goal is
to get good grades by the time that we get
our report card. We get assignments, we
complete them and then after three months
or so, we get assessed on our work and reap
the rewards.
Real life does not work this way — nothing
worth doing takes only 3 months to
conquer. Outside of the classroom, our goals
are much more long-term and can take
years to transpire. We quickly learn the
importance of being patient and keeping a
positive mindset in order to survive. If we
don’t, then we quickly lose our cool and
make dumb, rash decisions.
3. The importance of self-improvement
for the sake of self-improvement .
School teaches us that we must improve in
order to succeed. Life teaches us that we
must improve in order to live. While in
school, we learn because we must learn in
order to keep up with the curriculum. This in
itself is important when entering the
workforce; it teaches us that slacking can
often at times produce poor results.
However, after we graduate we often find
that work is not only what life is about. We
learn that we should not just improve the
skills that make us better at what we do, but
also improve the skills that make us better
people.
4. Doing things for the love of doing
them .
Doing things because we must do them just
doesn’t quite fly in our adulthood. We may
need to sometimes do things that we would
prefer not to do, but being adults makes us
feel as if we have a right to decide for
ourselves what it is that we ought to do.
Life teaches us to start doing things not
because others tell us to do them, but
rather because we want to do them. We
learn that the easiest way for us to become
successful is to find what we love and to
spend as much time and put as much
passion into it as possible.
5. Friends aren’t as important as we
thought .
Friends are great to have, but people grow
in different directions and life often removes
those that once were closest to us. Having a
handful or less of friends is crucial, but
understanding that you can always make
new ones is also important. Life teaches us
that with friends or without friends, we
remain who we are; our friends don’t make
us, we make us.
6. The importance of networking.
School can teach us how to make friends,
but life teaches us the importance of
powerful acquaintances and how to make
them. When in school, our possible network
is at a minimum — we just aren’t exposed to
enough people, not to mention people that
hold power in the real world. Once free to
roam about in the real world, we quickly
learn that getting ahead in life often
depends on whom you know and on how
good of terms you are on with them.
7. Some things are simply out of our
control .
The classroom is a small environment with
few variables. If something goes wrong, we
can often quickly fix it or avoid it entirely —
we have control. After leaving the classroom,
the variables multiply exponentially. We no
longer have the control we once had and
often at times find ourselves at a loss of even
figuring out from where the issue is arising.
Dealing with such circumstances for long
enough teaches us that if we find things to
be out of our control, there is no point of
getting hung up on them — so we let them
go and focus on what we can influence.
8. If we don’t adapt, we don’t survive.
The school system is static, unchanging. Life
is everything but. Things, situations and
circumstances are changing constantly and
more often than not, without any warning.
After falling a few times on our asses, we
learn that if we want to survive and prosper,
we must adapt — and do so quickly.
9. We aren’t Superman or Wonder
Woman .
Tackling task after task in school, playing
sports and getting involved in
extracurricular activities, for many of us
comes easy. Doing this for long enough gets
us feeling that we can take on the world.
But then we meet the world. All of a sudden
our superhuman powers disappear and we
become overwhelmed.
We come to realize that there is a lot more
“maintenance” required than we first
thought. Laundry doesn’t do itself. The
apartment doesn’t clean itself. Bills pile up
and we are the ones that have to pay them.
Free time quickly becomes a cherished
commodity.
10. Less is more — quality over
quantity .
Doing more in order to get ahead may have
worked in high school, but getting a real job
most often doesn’t allow for the same
strategy. Some people may appreciate
quantity over quality, but with the changing
times, this sort of thinking is becoming
extinct. We may find ourselves having to
redo the same project several times, cutting
out the excess fat, in order to produce
something worth selling.
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