Only Two Things Are Infinite

the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Albert Einstein)


On one of the few occasions I was able to grace my volleyball team with my company for drinks after a game the discussion between a few of them, two of which were teachers, turned to how about how the reality of life is that you cannot really be anything that you want to be in life. Now as per my usual self in social situations I did not add anything to conversation but the idea of that has been in my head and now wants to be let out.

Everybody always complains about how they hate stupid people or how the world would be a better place if we got rid of all them. Whether it has to do with their actual lack of intelligence or through a person's ridiculous actions, all of that complain is for naught. The truth of the matter is that society needs dumb people. When I use the term "dumb people" I mean those people who did not excel throughout their academic careers and that is not to say that they do not possess any intelligence or are not knowledgeable people in certain areas. There are just some individuals who were not able to achieve their maximum potential in school and those are the people I refer to by that term. Therein lies the problem with the educational system. It is just not designed to turn every student into intellectual superstars. From my experience in school it is more akin to a production line then anything else. Students get pushed ahead in classes and grades even when they do not fully understand the concepts and that lack of comprehension continues to pile up until they eventually either fail or in extreme causes flunk out completely. Something like that can start off in the lower grades without much notice and then when a person gets into the upper grades it can hit like a bag of bricks. Even more so when you take into account how in the upper grades you have the bulk of your final mark dependent on a midterm and/or an exam, especially in post-secondary education. This just leads to students to cram as much as they can right before the test and cramming is not an optimal way to study. The level of retention after that is minimal at best. The unfortunate truth about it all is that it is not a bad thing to have people not be able to reach their scholarly potential.

For a moment imagine a world full of doctors, and lawyers, and scientists, and other high level of intellect professions. Now is that world full of garbage? Doubtful, but it probably would be. The whole division within people who excel in school and those who do not is that you get a wider spread of future citizens to fill in holes in the fabric of society. Whether those holes are for the more prestigious professions or the ones deemed to be at the bottom of the barrel they need to be filled and because of that is why schools do not provide an optimal learning service and why we need dumb people.