@Waylife
You and Tzar both need to understand that not performing well in school is your failure, not education's failure.
What leads you to conclude that I have done poorly in school?
Although it may comfort you to believe this given your non-existent academic record of achievement, it is not in any way true.
The irony is, I have very likely been/am far more successful academically than you
Books are a great method of learning, yes, but without someone there to correct your mistakes, simplify and/or break things down for you, your progress is going to be slow and riddled with misunderstanding.
I have discussed this matter elsewhere at greater length. Here are two previous posts of mine in a related topic:
(1)
The "Education" system is being vitiated by the worst elements of both the Left & Right (perhaps not the "worst" elements of the Right actually, but Religious Dogmatism is a serious issue and intellectually stifling to an extreme) in these ways (amongst others). If a person is savvy enough, then their real Education/learning should come independently (outside the context of the formal system) or else there is a strong fear of internalizing the messages and constraints put forth by the Colleges/High School/ect. ect. One problem with this is, however, that it requires a person to be quite savvy indeed, and be able to find the "needles in a haystack" so-to-speak.
Now, speaking personally (from my perspective, at least), I am generally able to do such with reasonable success in the Humanities (as they are mostly not intensely complicated), however for rigorous topics such as Neuroscience, Physics, ect. ect. I find it to be very much more difficult (without guidance/direction). That is, sure, I can take Free courses online through MITOpenCourseware, MOOC's, read Textbooks, ect. and have some reasonable success with solving problems in certain areas with intensive study, however there is a world of difference between solving an equation (computationally) & understanding what it actually means (which is much deeper and requires a much higher level of insight/understanding). For a person such as myself, with limited skill set/talent in such areas, the University system actually proves very useful in this regard. However, to a truly talented & savvy individual in such areas, the University system would just be holding them back tremendously in a similar way to if I or you had to go through the highly unpleasant experience of taking a Gender Studies course for a Grade and doing the corresponding assignments, or some bullsh't interpretation of History course, ect. ect. In fact, Einstein often complained about this exact point (which is found in his popular books; essay/speech compilations
(2)
The largest issue (as I see it) is that people who respect intellectualism/independent creativity are in the extreme minority (I'm speaking strictly of adults now--those old enough to have been fully physically matured and have "life experience". One would expect them to have some wisdom to impart once they have been in the world for 3+ decades, although this is often not necessarily the case). Therefore, most people inevitably are not going to be fostered in such a way as to bring about the best in their intellectual/creative capacities while in the bulk of their most formative years (growing up), will lack exposure to areas outside of immediate contact (e.g. how is one going to "realize" they have a passion for and want to pursue Paleontology when all they have ever seen is their father/men watching Football and their mother/women at at minimum being very sympathetic to the father's/men's behavior/worldview?--I know that I am speaking rather generally here, but I think you (the reader) understand my point). The scenario I described above, concerning the father, is firmly inside of what I often refer to as the Mammal Snow Globe World that most adults inhabit (and have tacitly agreed with each other not to "shake up"). In order to not shake up the Snow Globe, the adults are forced to subject their children to a Perpetual Firehose of Bullsh't or else (if the children found out any deep truths about ourselves and/or the Universe which have been discovered thus far) they would be bound to break free of the confinement.
As of right now, the education system is so bad and the adults are so oblivious/stupid/ignorant/arrogant that they can't even let the kids come in to school and watch credible lectures, documentaries, OpenCourseware or point them in the right direction with people to look up, book recommendations, the fundamental questions that any given topic is exploring , ect. The kids would be naturally drawn to this information if they were exposed to it, they simply are not exposed to it because there is an obscurantism at work that is pervasive in our society (and world wide). Instead, in the current system, children growing up through their teenage years into young adulthood are subjected to a Perpetual Firehose of Bullsh't through the "education" system and the "mature" adults in our societies.
People have been strongly primed to believe that magical type thinking is "wonderful", "beautiful", "interesting", "hopeful", "fun" ect. due to things like Sana Claus, Easter Bunny, Superhero tv/comics, Harry Potter type Sci-Fi, ect. ect. Although these things in-and-of-themselves are not harmful (and can be enriching in many ways), when combined with not being exposed to the real world, how it actually is and the methods by which we have determined our limited range of knowledge thus far, then the magic show becomes extremely pernicious. Also, the majority of adults are so attached to their infantile superstitious beliefs that they think learning science is "dry", "scary", "cold", "devoid of any deep meaning/feeling" and don't want their kids to learn it either for these reasons. This combination confines children to the mind-space of the Mammal Snow Globe rather than what me know of the Real World thus far.
Furthermore, the leaders of the business world and governments (the powerful classes) have a vested interested in keeping the populace misinformed, uneducated, unintelligent, conditioned toward obedience, ect.
Now, after people hit a certain age there is going to be a level of courage required of people in order to break free of the Mammal Snow Globe World for which they have always resided. We are in a very difficult predicament because we cannot allow adults to program their children with this primitive mindset and we also cannot force them to teach their children a certain way either without becoming completely tyrannical. Even people who have the potential to be intelligent (or highly-intelligent) and make real contributions to society/progress are being reduced to half-mentally disabled, chimp-human hybrids (i.e. never fully progress/develop our of being merely a Mammal and toward a Homo Sapien, so to speak--"Mammalhood") that are destroying society/the upcoming generations (and it is sad/alarming because I have seen a lot of this at Uni. particularly in the technical subjects). The overwhelming bulk of the adult population are oblivious to just how breathtakingly unrespectable people they are for indoctrinating their kids into their bullsh't instead of having the courage to face reality (as we currently understand it) as well as how they comport themselves in life more broadly.
I stated that "they" are confined to "Mammalhood", because Homo Sapiens living in the 21st century fails to truly capture it. Brain Development in Humans/Homo Sapiens is an important factor here, because one does not truly acquire the unique characteristics that make us "Human" until you are in your low to mid twenties or so when frontal lobe development is completed. Now, there are many factors that can potentially "derail" this development such as excessive alcohol abuse, chronic stress, social isolation, other types of drug abuse, ect. I think that due to the way our society is structured, a huge bulk of peoples brains are not becoming properly/fully developed and confine them to a stage of quasi-Homo Sapiens (e.i. more like an adolescent or quasi-adolescent brain) for the entirety of their life. Now, it would be highly probable that said people are unable to recognize the failure of their brains to fully mature since their mind-space would have complete continuity from their adolescents-young adulthood-adulthood, and simply think that "this is how things are" while failing to realize that a "shift" should have been felt at some point in their twenties to thirty that is significantly different than that of the teenage mind/brain.
Now, the k-12 public school teachers typically defines the lower-end educated class as merely a Bachelor's degree in Education or the like is required to earn the job rather than the more advanced levels of formal Education required of College/University Professors for example. Due to this, the k-12 teachers tend to be aware/educated/intelligent enough to teach the material they are instructed to in the curriculum, however lack the depth of critical thought to challenge the system itself and thus are unaware that they are in fact subjecting the children to a Perpetual Firehose of Bullsh't.
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After one has completed the k-12 system, serious problems in our education system persists (although importantly it improves). In our current Education system (i.e. USA's and elsewhere), one could acquire a PhD in Biology (or any other STEM discipline) from Princeton (or some other elite school) and still be a confined to Mammal Snow Globe World, thus lacking the requisite critical thinking skills that would allow them to escape the mind-space for which they were raised.
A lot of the sane Professors are cowed into silence due to the hierarchy of the University system. That is, if a Biology professor wants to talk with candor about Evolution (not in the "textbook" way, but in the real way that "hits home" with the students who are mostly very young still), then en masse, he is going to shake up the students Snow Globe in such a way that will be very perturbing/frightening/shocking/intimidating/ect. for them with 5 separate classrooms each full of 25-200+ students (depending on the course) every semester. Now, they are immediately going to run into a huge amount of trouble, because some good percentage of these kids are bound to tell their parents about it, they and/or their parents are going to complain/issue a report to the "higher-ups" in the administration (who have no understanding nor interest with what the Professors know or the nature of the subjects, while also fancying themselves as "intelligent" because they are "successful" in the business world so they are very stubborn), the Professor very likely could/almost definitely lose their job (that they went to school for over a decade plus post-doc position just to be sufficiently credentialed to get the job). Therefore, this creates a "safe" environment for the ignorant/stupid "people to get "educated" and "earn" their degree without really understanding an iota of the subject. Furthermore, the students who are sane/outside the Snow Globe and really want to know about the true nature of the topics in detail are "missing out" because the teachers intentionally never say enough to "bridge-a-gap" for their own sake. Thus, one would have to do a lot of extracurricular studies in addition to the formal studies just in order to keep pace with the reality of what is being taught. However, since they are undergrads, the whole point in the schooling in the first place is to receive proper mentorship from a qualified instructor, hence they do not necessarily know where to look in order get to the truth of the matter and keep pace. In short, it is hopelessly f'cked up unless society changes first.
It is strange that you even specify public libraries as sources of education in the first place, since the majority of books in public libraries are fiction.
E-learning has democratized learning and made the highest quality education (in a number of areas) available to everyone. With projects such as MITOpencourseware, Yale/Harvard/UC/ect. opencourseware, MOOC's, ect. even a person anywhere in the world caught up in extreme poverty (as long as they have access to the internet in some way) has access to an elite level education. Also, public domain book projects such as OpenLibrary.org (along with public Library Systems), and other outlets have made it so you have access to essentially all of the worlds knowledge for free.
Also, Public Library systems are far more simply Fiction genre books. I recommend you actually join your Public Library branches & take a look around.
When you have failed in education, I imagine that it can be tempting to blame education rather than personal, internal problems which you might have with learning. Nobody wants to feel like they are stupid. I believe this attitude unfortunately comes from politics and political advertising. Certain political parties and ideologies benefit greatly from stroking the egos of the uneducated.
You have asserted this, but on what supporting evidence?
