On Education and Reaching Our Potential

When I was younger, I remember a motivational speaker telling an audience I was a part of that the majority of humans use 10% of their brains. Since then, I have heard numbers as low as 5% and even 3%!

What’s going on?

The more I study, the more convinced I become of an organized effort to keep the masses of people using little of their brains—uncritical and thoughtless, aimlessly living and easily controlled. I mean, if you think about it, doesn’t formal education (K–12) shape how we think? If we have regressed and now read on a 5th grade level as a society, can the finger really be pointed at the students? A school here and there might be failing, but when there is a sweeping and drastic change on a large scale, questions should be raised. 

I think too many of us have accepted the mistaken notion that formal education is the only education. Education is not memorizing information and repeating it for a test. A more accurate name for that is parroting. Education is very different from that. The etymology (the study of the history/ origin of a word) of education means to “bring out.” In short, this could be interpreted to mean that a person has everything he or she needs inside of them. The process of education in its best form is to create circumstances and situations that will show the student what’s inside of them.

This is important to me. Even though I have two degrees, I am not satisfied with my education. I am not looking to go to another school to get another degree, but I am interested in discovering what is inside of me.

For What It’s Worth: Don’t be content with the education you got in high school or college or even graduate school. Be intentional about seeking the information that is omitted from formal training. The way I see it is if the Ancient Egyptians had the knowledge and ability to build pyramids (among other things) that can’t be explained by today’s scientist, then we have that potential inside of us! I am on an intentional journey to tap into that potential.

Will you come with me?