8 Ways School is Making Children Stupid and Depressed
By Sofo Archon
School is supposed to help children grow into mature, conscious, responsible, intelligent adults, who have mastered the art of living, and who can contribute their gifts to the world. School as we know it, however, couldn’t be further from that. In fact, school, as it exists in most places across the planet, helps only to stunt children’s intelligence and to fill them with stress and worries, which results in the chaotic world that we experience all around us.
Below are eight ways school is making children stupid and depressed.
1. It teaches children to conform
At school, children are taught to obey orders and blindly follow what they are being told. Children are told what to do, no matter if they like it or not. They are told to sit for hours upon hours at a desk without complaining, doing nothing other than memorizing information that most probably they will never need in their lives. They are told when to talk, when to move, even when to pee. By and by, children stop trusting their inner voice and conform to what authority wants from them, which tremendously suppresses them and, not surprisingly, makes them depressed and unfulfilled.
Related reading: The Non-Conformity Guide: How to Stop Following the Herd, Create Your Own Path, and Reclaim Your Life
2. It teaches children what to think, not how to think
School does not teach children how to develop their capacity to think logically so that they can reach to their own conclusions when presented with information. On the contrary, children are forced to believe in the things they are being taught, regardless of whether they are true or not, or whether they sprout out of their own understanding or not. Hence their critical thinking is prevented from improving, and as a result children are turned into stupid automatons.
Related reading: How to Become a Free Thinker: A Practical Guide
3. It teaches children to be uncreative
Children’s imagination is wild, but school does wonders to suppress it. Children can be incredibly creative, but the Arts are almost nonexistent in most schools around the world, since a career path in the Arts is usually not considered as profitable. Instead of allowing children to explore their selves by spontaneously expressing their innermost thoughts and feelings through painting, music, theater, and so on, they most of the time are confined in four walls, learning boring things that don’t matter to them all and do nothing to help them cultivate their mind, heart, and spirit.
Related reading: It’s Time to Unleash Creativity in Our Schools
4. It teaches children to fear failure
Mistakes help us grow into wiser beings, but school is teaching children to fear failure, as if it is some kind of an evil they need to avoid. Children at school are told to study solely in order to pass exams, and those who fail at exams are looked down upon, sometimes even mocked at, as if they are failures themselves. Therefore, children learn to do their best in order to avoid making mistakes, which only prevents them from trying to achieve any new goals they’d desire later on in life, lest they will encounter possible failure.
Recommended reading: Raising Awake Children in a Broken School System
5. It teaches children to think play is bad
Children find tremendous joy in playing, having fun, laughing, doing things for no reason or goal other than play itself. Play makes their heart pulsate with happiness and turns their life into a celebration. Slowly slowly, however, as children grow up, they are taught that play is not good, since it’s not something productive, and that they should consider it simply as a waste of time.
In addition, they are taught to be serious, uptight, worried about future ends, which is only making them depressed, not allowing them to let go and relax into the present moment to savor all the beauties life has to offer.
Related reading: How Unstructured Play and Time in Nature Benefit a Child’s Development
6. It teaches children to avoid listening to their heart
Unlike adults, children are in touch with their heart. However, after years of social conditioning, when they finally turn into adults themselves, they have created thick barriers between themselves and their heart, thus being unable to paying attention to its voice anymore. This conditioning takes place mainly at school, where almost every day children are forced to do things that they hate doing, that they find boring and futile, and which they are taught society will reward them for. As a consequence, they develop the habit of not trusting and following their inner voice and lose touch with what their heart is beating for.
Related reading: The Science Behind Our Heart’s Intelligence and Tips on How to Start Listening
7. It teaches children to associate money with success
Another way school is making children dumb and depressed is by having them confuse monetary gain with successful living. At school, children learn that the primary goal in life is to earn a good salary, and are being told to sacrifice almost one third of their lives forcing themselves to learn and do particular things just so that they can get a degree that will allow them to work later on as corporate slaves.
Thus, children stop pursuing their passions that would give true purpose and meaning to their lives, and instead do dull things that only burden their psyche and which merely help them to survive but not to truly live.
Related reading: What is Success? A Spiritual Perspective
8. It teaches children to sacrifice today for the sake of tomorrow
The present moment is all that we have. The future, just like the past, doesn’t exist, and if we give it too much attention we will not be able enjoy the here and now. Most people, however, don’t enjoy the present moment. Instead, they are always trying to achieve a future end, thinking that once they achieve it, they will be fulfilled and happy.
Raising Awake Children in a Broken School System
This mentality has been mainly imbued in them via schooling. At school, children are made to believe that sacrificing today by studying hard and following orders will reward them tomorrow. Being constantly focused on the future, however, they are wasting their entire lives and end up filled with regrets, which makes them experience immense psychological anguish.
Related reading: Tomorrow Never Comes... The Moment is Now!
About the author:
Hey there. My name is Sofo Archon and I feel lucky to be pulsating with life and grateful for all that existence has offered me open-handedly, enjoying this incarnation’s journey, with its ups and downs. I love painting, writing, reading, eating
vegan food, traveling, and meeting awesome people from around the globe.
The Unbounded Spirit is my one-man labor of love, through which I am sharing part of my being with millions of readers from every corner of our planet. Created in 2012 out of my thirst to reach out to the world, it has helped form a solid community of over 350,000 like-minded individuals (feel free to join them on our Facebook page or via my newsletter).
For more, please visit theUnboundedSpirit.com and SofoArchon.com.
This article originally appeared on theUnboundedSpirit.com.
Also by Sofo Archon:
8 Ways School is Making Children Stupid and Depressed
How to Become a Free Thinker: A Practical Guide
Sex and the Transcendence of Self
The Non-Conformity Guide: How to Stop Following the Herd, Create Your Own Path, and Reclaim Your Life Planned Obsolescence: Why the Products You Buy are Designed to Break
8 Pursuits That Are Stealing Your Happiness