If we look for the common factor between the distinguished people who have left an impact on humanity, we will find that there is a basic factor that unites them all, which is that they did not go to school or did not complete their university education.
Some of them were the reason for the light that we currently benefit from, such as Thomas Edison, and some of them are among the richest people in the world with a fortune estimated at billions, such as Bill Gates.
On the other hand, we can see the tragedy side of the story for people who suffer from the pressure of studying and exams, because for many, the standard of study is what determines the standard of success or failure in this life.
- The role of schools and universities is essential:
No one can deny the importance of the role of school and university in our lives, but they are not the only factor in determining whether a person is successful in his life or not.
A highly educated person spends about a third of his life studying, starting from the primary stages until the end of graduate studies, and the shock is that most of these people see that their lives are not what they wanted, and here lies the real problem, and it is not in science, but in university, or even not in study, but in the method that is followed in schools.
There is no doubt that all successful people did not reach their goals without studying, learning, and reading, but away from schools and universities, and here is the point.
Returning to the starting point, it brings together all the people who succeeded outside the traditional educational system, united by several common factors:
His academic level is low compared to those of his age, so he lagged behind his peers in school and he is creative in a certain field, so he focused on that field and was able to achieve remarkable success in it.
- The problem is the method, not the science:
While we are the people who constitute the majority and who have attended schools, we follow educational rules in the form of indoctrination, a routine method through which we learn in the same way that has been used for decades, therefore, successful people left their studies and went to the field they loved, focusing all their energies on that field, while university students wasted a lot of energies on secondary subjects that did not benefit them in any way in their subsequent specializations, and here is the secret of success for the great people we hear about today who left school and focused on the specialty they loved, whether sports, economics, or anything else.
The percentage of creativity among children decreases as they grow older, while the percentage of creativity reaches 90%, it decreases to 20% after entering school and to 2% at the end of the high school, the main reason for this is the indoctrinated teaching method that kills creativity, Even the British experiment in changing the school curriculum at the end of the last century by adding subjects related to technology failed because not all students wanted to study this field.
- Schools without failure:
Success lies in doing what we love, and this is what experiences prove. For example, people who did not complete their education, such as the founder of IKEA, were able to successfully establish his dream business outside of school and create jobs for more than 80,000 people, a large portion of whom hold advanced academic degrees. This is also the case with the founder of the Japanese company Honda and many others, all of these people left school and did not leave education, but on the contrary, they worked hard to focus on learning what they loved and excelled at, to the point that there is a current great trend to depart from the framework of traditional education and focus on creative education, as is the case at the University of Strathclyde and Pittsburgh university.
Schools and universities must play an important and essential role in stimulating creativity, stimulating the ambition that every child has to be creative in something he loves, far from the usual framework that turns students into similar copies, copies of all that matters to them is getting a job and a salary.