Design the best educational system?

by phil on Sunday Mar 30, 2003 10:59 AM
education

Design the best educational system? Idealistic me says, "give them one book." Which book? The Bible? Eh, too archaic. The Gay Science? Too Western. Sophie's World? Okay, we're getting better because it sparks further thought.

I think you can wrap up 98% of the education a child needs into one book. It's a book on great quotations that I found at a used book store. This tome is dense. It's about 1000 pages and is sorted by topic. Such as freedom, religion, love, war, and art. You flip through, looking for a particular concept, and bam, there's the best matured answers to all questions of gravity. You read a quote, pause, paradigm shift, and bam, you've short-cutted like 20 years of time wasted going to school or getting rug burns to figure this stuff out. Sure sure, there's things in life you want to figure out on your own. So skip the love section. There's a lot of stupidity and arrogance that would be worth bypassing in life.

Great Examples:

"Knowledge and human power are synonymous" - Francis Bacon.

"In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever" - Oscar Wilde.

"I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." - Winston Churchill

A simple quote says it all, a compendium of man's greatest quotes speaks volumes.