Education: One of the Barriers to Excellence

     You might be wondering why education should be included among the limitations to getting a solid foundation. Well, just hold your peace as we take a step further in digging out the essential truth. People often quote an old and popular saying that said “Knowledge is power.” Yes, knowledge is power; there is no doubt about it. At the same time, it has also imprisoned many thoughts and ideas and prevented them from being developed.

      Knowledge can be power only when it is progressive and correct. Incomplete and incorrect knowledge has prevented quite a few products, inventions, and innovations from seeing the light of day. Knowledge has the power to enslave most latent minds and potentials today. Many simply operate by what Robert H. Schuller described as “locked-in-thinking.” Education is only designed to make us literate; it is our responsibility to dig out the “undiscovered education”—the yet-to-be-discovered rules and regulations for the making of any product. Knowledge serves two functions—power and prison. How one chooses to use knowledge is a product of individual choice.

      Many people have sacrificed the creation of potential inventions, innovations, and discoveries because of their “education.” These people revolve only around what they have been taught; they don’t break out to reach for additional knowledge. Knowledge can become extinct with time. It has been the norm of the literate society to depend upon the same principles over and over again. There are only a few who dare to move further outside the norm, to uncover the covered, to recover the lost, and to discover the undiscovered.

      Some individual never bother to think outside the box to invent new principles to replace or enhance what they have been taught. Robert H. Schuller maintains, and I agree, that the people who suffer most from this locked-in thinking are more highly educated than the people who think more freely. Those whose thinking is locked in keep doing the same thing day in, day out. As a result, they have confined their minds by focusing only on what they have been taught: this is how I was taught to do this, so shall it be, and it was the same yesterday as it is today, and it will remain the same tomorrow.

       Often, you will see these shallow thinkers becoming irritated and angry when others try to suggest new solutions or ideas. The funniest part is that the people who suggest new principles and theories may have less education than the person who is developing the original idea. It becomes very imperative to ask ourselves people who invented education, which school did they attend? What is the level of their academic qualification? How could they come about idea of establishing learning institution for humanity? And honestly search for the answers.

       I heard a very interesting story years back. There was a company in the United States that was on the verge of going into bankruptcy. Their product was fast losing its place in the competitive marketplace. They couldn’t figure out what was the root of their predicament. Management held meeting upon meeting in an attempt to salvage the situation. The board of directors and the executives had discussed the problem for hours but could come up with no solution. They couldn’t come up with a way to avert their company’s economic recession. Little did they know that the seed of the solution they had so long been searching for was held by a security guard who worked for the company, and was definitely not from the executive circle of the company. What an irony!

       This young man had alerted his superiors many times that he had the solution, but they had consistently neglected him and relegated him to his lowly office. When they had exhausted all their options, which most probably were based on what they had been taught, they still had not arrived at a tangible solution. Their “education” failed them and was no help in establishing a solution to the situation they faced.

        One day during one of their board meetings, the CEO of the company, in desperation, made a call to the security guard. This company happened to make toothpaste. When the guard entered the meeting, the CEO told him they had heard that he had a solution to the company’s problem. Then he asked the guard to reveal his idea. The young man agreed to unfold the solution, but only under certain conditions—if his solution worked, he would earn a certain percentage of the profit. Secondly, he would be appointed as one of the executives of the company. His request was granted. Amazingly, the solution was easy and cheap, but the so-called “learned” people of the company had been unable to see it because of their locked-in thinking.

        The guard revealed to them that the opening of the toothpaste tube was very tiny. It took users a long time to squeeze out the product, and because they used only a small amount each time, it took them a long time to use up a tube. He then proffered a solution and suggested that they widen the mouth of toothpaste tube. It would then be quicker and more convenient for the customers to use, and that would encourage them to use more of it and have to buy more sooner, thereby increasing the demand for the product. The company instituted this simple suggestion, and after a few months, found that it had worked perfectly.

         By sharing this simple, yet profitable, solution, the guard assumed a position among the executives of the company. The solution rescued the company from their pending doom. Too much education, or the wrong education, has resulted in the termination of many foundations that could have attained great destinies, but they refused to seek extra information to help them reach their particular destination.

        There are many destinations in different locations with different routes of approach. You can’t apply one particular route to all destinations simply because that is your only known route. Such a person would soon being declared missing! Without a doubt, such a person will miss out on every reaching his or her hoped-for destination. It is your duty and responsibility to search for the sure route that will lead to your own particular destination.

       There is another story I’d like to share. In this story, a woman cleaner solved a problem the experts in the field could not solve. The office building had become so overcrowded that the elevator could no longer accommodate the number of the users. Architectural engineers and construction experts were gathered to design a new elevator that could accommodate more traffic. All the engineers could not translate the problem into a solution. What was the reason? Education had become their bondage; none of them could think outside what they had been taught.

        At the time, the documented principle that governed the positioning of elevators dictated that all elevators should be built inside building structures, and not on its outside, but in this building there seemed to be no place for expansion. The “experts” searched for a solution for quite a long time but could not possibly arrive at one.

       The cleaner, however, had come up with a contrary view that happened to be the eventual solution of the problem. She asked them plainly why they couldn’t design an elevator on the outside of the building instead of the inside. The experts’ “education” had failed them. They could see no solution based on the knowledge they had learned. After a long period of searching, frustration, and failure to uncover a solution, they finally resorted to the woman’s suggestion. What a tragedy that education designed to be pace setting has enslaved many talented minds.

       History was made, invention surfaced, and a revolution in architectural industry was birthed by an ordinary cleaner’s idea—not the idea of the educated experts. The first outside elevator was built as the solution inspired by an unknown, uneducated cleaner, who was able to reason outside the norm.

       Educated people often parade their thinking faculties within the circumference of norms and discovered principles. These norms have today limited unmeasured greatness. Greatness cannot be counted, but it can be measured. I have come to discover that most of the amazing things that have come into existence were never the products of the so-called “highly educated.” Education is good, but it is only a guiding map. It is awesome but must be progressive if greatness is the ultimate goal.