The Real Reasons are Hidden Underneath
Or, why schooling is more about signalling, alibi, and proxy than learning
👋 Hey, Abhishek here! Welcome to The Sunday Wisdom. Each week I tackle fundamental questions about decision making, clear thinking, and anything else that’s stressing you out in the business of life. If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing.
Q: Why do kids really go to school?
Today, let’s talk about education. More precisely, why students go to school, why employers value educated workers, and how “learning” doesn’t account for the full value of education.
Often what we understand “by default” isn’t the real reason behind a lot of everyday activities. Hidden motivations are lurking beneath the superficial reasoning. This is what I want to illustrate in this post.
Let’s start with a thought experiment. Say, you could get free education from any elite university in the world, provided you are willing to skip the official transcript and degree, would you take the deal?
If you have a hard time saying yes, then we can agree that you don’t go to school only to learn, but also to get a degree. In other words, the value of education isn’t just about learning, it’s also about credentialing.
Credentials are important to parents when kids are young. A good student is a trophy for a parent. Credentials become important to students themselves when they are old enough for college. More than learning, it’s a failsafe. It guarantees a job. If they don’t get a job, at least they can say they tried everything.
Peter Thiel has a famous quote that sums up this ethos. “Looking back at my ambition to become a lawyer, it looks less like a plan for the future and more like an alibi for the present. It was a way to explain to anyone who would ask—to my parents, to my peers and most of all to myself—that there was no need to worry. I was perfectly on track.”
In conclusion, students go to college and want a degree so that they can get a job. Interestingly, employers prefer students with degrees not for their learning, but for entirely different reasons. You see, having a degree (in any subject) signals a hidden quality in students—future work productivity. This is one quality which employers cannot observe by giving job applicants a simple test.
If you look around, the best employees have a whole bundle of attributes apart from intelligence—such as ownership, attention to detail, work ethic, willingness to conform to expectations, etc. These qualities are just as useful in blue-collar jobs (warehouses and factories) as they are in white-collar jobs (studios and startups).
Unlike IQ—which can be measured with a simple 30-minute test—most of these other qualities can only be demonstrated by consistent performance over long periods of time. Therefore, school performance is a good proxy for this.
This works because students who do well in schools tend to have greater work potential. It’s not a perfect correlation (and there are many exceptions) but school performance predicts future work performance (and future earnings) by and large.
This also explains why no one is bothered if school curriculum is completely unrelated to the actual job they do (or when students forget what they learnt). The knowledge of the subject isn’t as important as the signalling that they have the ability to stick around long enough to study enough to clear exams and get a degree.
Apart from parents, students, and employers, the state has a separate agenda altogether, which has its roots in propaganda. Schooling is a good way to raise citizens who are proud of their heritage, and hence loyal. We can see this function in history curriculum, which tends to be always biased.
For example, the two great wars are taught differently in countries depending on whether they won or lost. In Indian history lessons, the Brits were painted as evil rulers. It wasn’t until I read White Mughals that I learnt about the other side of them.
Not only that, it’s observed historically that countries make large investments in state primary education systems when they face military rivals or threats from their neighbours.
Just as powerful governments have sought to control mass media outlets like newspapers and TV stations, they have similarly sought state control over schools. In fact, the governments that most need to indoctrinate their citizens invest more in schools. For example, totalitarian regimes tend to control and fund more schools—but not more hospitals. See the point?
Apart from the state, societies have a slightly different motive to send kids to schools—to make them less violent, to cultivate good manners, and to foster cooperation. In other words, to create civilised people.
To achieve this, teachers reward discipline that is often unrelated to learning, and in ways that deter student creativity. They reward children for being docile and punish them for “acting out,” that is, for acting as their own masters. Children are expected to sit still for hours, control their impulses, focus on boring, repetitive tasks, move from place to place when a bell rings, and even ask permission before going to the loo. Think about that for a second.
Children are also trained to accept being measured, graded, and ranked publicly. This enterprise, which typically lasts well over a decade, serves as a systematic exercise in human domestication and makes us loyal employees.
In conclusion, it’s a mixed bag. Even though I’ve had fairly great school and college life (where I made the best of friendships), it’s a good exercise to look closer and think deeper nonetheless (about everything)—especially the hidden motives of all stakeholders. As with everything, what we superficially understand isn’t often the full story. The real reasons are hidden and needs deeper consideration to reveal themselves.
The goal of this exercise (of thinking deeply about how things work) isn’t to critique a system only as an intellectual activity. Every system has its flaws, and no system is completely wonderful or downright ugly. The goal is to study how systems work and question why things work a certain way—so that we can understand them one level deeper than others. This introspection makes us good thinkers.
The sign of a good thinker, after all, is one who knows both the sides of the story (despite one’s biases) and makes sure to weigh them against each other before making a decision.
Interesting Finds
His last purchases occurred 18 years ago. He claims he hasn’t spent any money since. For those of us who struggle to make ends meet or who are disorganised or negligent with personal finances, or who can’t seem to ever create a cushion for unexpected expenses, the idea of doing away with money might seem spectacularly appealing.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan decodes the world through sound. A self-proclaimed “private ear,” the Dubai-based artist leads audio investigations that uncover often unsavoury truths, such as goods trafficking or the realities of a Syrian prison.
When money’s tight, parents talk less to kids. If you are worried about putting food on the table tonight, or scraping together money for that medical bill, or figuring out where to enrol your child in school now that you have been evicted from your neighbourhood, you may be less likely to narrate the colour of the sky to your child as you ride together on the bus.
Sake is delicious yet deadly. On first taste it’s subtle and sophisticated. In simple terms, it’s a rice wine made from polished grain, and it’s brewed in practically every corner of the country. What’s more, Japanese history has marinated, positively stewed in sake. Yet, to many foreigners, it’s shrouded in misconception. For starters: it’s not even called sake.
This is the story of a mother who took on the UK government and won. It is 40 years since Anwar Ditta won her campaign against the UK Home Office and became one of the first to use DNA evidence to win the right to family reunification. Between 1975 and 1982, she found herself at the centre of an anti-racist movement because of her fearless fight against Britain’s Home Office which had separated her from her three children in Pakistan.
Quote to Note
If leaders don’t articulate their priorities clearly, then the people around them don’t know what their own priorities should be. Time and energy and capital get wasted.
— Bob Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime
Before You Go…
Thanks so much for reading! Send me ideas, questions, reading recs. You can write to abhishek@coffeeandjunk.com, reply to this email, or use the comments.
Until next Sunday,
Abhishek 👋