Factory Education | Manufacturing Employment | Robotic Biz
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Introduction
Hello, thought of opening up this topic to understand how you all felt in your education, employment or even entrepreneurship journey as I'm doing a project to contribute something for this cause. I don’t know if anyone of you or your friends can relate to my past. I wasn’t a very 'good' student in my early childhood. I always felt judged and had low-self esteem. It triggers me to made up my mind not to be looked down, work hard and scored well in polytechnic, which I did. Yet, I feel that there's something much more I need to do in life. As I look around, majority of my peers either detest or confused with their studies and work.
Factory Education
The school’s ‘fair’ system is treating everyone ‘equally’. Since young, I’ve been trained to think that ‘equal’ is good but that’s in the context of racial harmony. This isn’t going to work as far as when the internet was invented. Informations are posted online yet thousands of our next generations are suffering from stress to memorise notes of subjects that they hate, to work for boring jobs that they don’t believe for the next 40 years before retirement - when, we don’t even know if the next generations to come will have retirement, or not.
I've an Ex-neighbor who called me one night, crying helplessly, asking me to help him appeal for a polytechnic.
Me: Why polytechnic?
X: It is good.
Me: Why is it good?
X: I don't know.
Me: What course do you want?
X: Anything will do.
Me: Is anything really good?
X: I don’t know.
Since young, we’re trained to greet teachers, respect parents, help the elderly on the street because we’re told that it is good. What if people start to initiate acts of kindness and inspire individuals who saw, and, do it not because they’re told to, have to, but they want to? I've had a chat with an army friend before ORD. He told me he has enrolled into a University, but he don’t know what they course is about. He'll read the description 2 weeks before the start of the school. With at least 3 years and $30,000 invested, he’s generous, these resources will mean a lot to me and my startup! I picture it as a place where people are trained to be too obedient, to browse through life, not knowing what’s happening, helping the rich get richer Many people then see rich people as bad people, in some sense (sorry if money is a sensitive topic). I've friends who're taking university cert for the sake of it. They said that if they're given a chance they wouldn't take their course.
Manufacturing Employment
Industrial age has served us well for the past 150 years, but it really doesn’t makes sense now.
We need not teachers but google to teach.
We need not secretary but iPhone to remind us.
We need not contractor but Wordpress to setup a (virtual) shop.
Jobs are in extinction yet schools are still educating children as if it is 1978. I’ve facilitated in a behavioural class for a corporation and met a lady manager. She wants to 'prove us wrong' about her personality by suppressing her true energetic self just to portray a 'right' type of relational HR manager. She sees the art genes within her son yet she'll guide (misled) him into Research or Oil&Gas industry. — (Not talking about religion now but) I go to church, I’m a christian. By right I’m the child of God, that’s why I should be experiencing the joy, peace and happiness of the Lord daily yada yada. I feel that professionalism promotes politics and personalness promotes purity. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found myself using ‘By right and Should be’ often in life. When I’m discussing topics with groups of people, I usually notice that we all know what are the right answers, yet it’s challenging for us to do things rightly.
We’re told that study hard is good.
We’re told that high paying job is good.
We’re told not to speak to strangers is good.
We’re told obeying rules is good.
We’re Tamed to believe that we Need a job.
We’re told to seek success instead of significance.
We’re told to be ‘contented’ instead of striving for a more fulfilling life.
We’re told that fulfilling life means a money rich life.
We’re told to cover sadness with money instead of meaning.
We're tamed to take entertainment as an escape instead of being charged up by what we love to do.
We’re told of everything under the sun to play safe, avoid mistakes, until we’re not sure what’s winning and losing anymore.
We’re only Not told that we’re human, we make mistakes and we all need acceptance and appreciations over different strengths and weaknesses.
I just feel that this is due to parents generation influence of the industrial age, things are to be disciplined. They needed lots of workers, they standardise a system to manufacture as many employers as possible, train them to be obedient from 4 years old, to greet teachers, respect parents, help an elderly because society says it’s right and they have to do it instead of people WANTING to do it out of their own good will. But information age is here, we should be trained to be resourceful minded instead of resourceful headed. Recently I watched 'the new education' on channelsnewsasia, and it's kind of heartening to see that there are initiatives in NTU and some primary schools.. I am also encouraged by Albert Einstein's quote..."if we judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life thinking its stupid"... I just feel that a 'fair' system that grades us 'equally’ cannot work anymore, period.
Robotic Entrepreneurship
My father is a cab driver. Along the way I formed a quote that goes like this. "A cab company which cramped the chauffeur's seat for better customer's experience is a crap company.” I’m numbed from seeing companies looking for papers, head and hand instead of employees heart. They talk about customers service yet they do not treat their people properly to provide the right customers service. Some city do not sleep because employees are always working. Some customers are always first and employees second. Employees are employer’s first customer, to me. Companies after companies do cliche initiatives like dress-down friday thinking that it’ll cheer people up or even form a unique company culture. Company stands for values such as 'respect, honesty, innovative' instead of ‘putting others first, tell the truth and think different’ like what Apple does. Apple tells people why they do what they do while other companies tell others what they do and how is it better. People don’t buy what we do, they buy why we do, they buy our beliefs. Company is a place where people with a similar belief, like a tribe, working for a greater cause. It’s no wonder so many people are lied into a scam on “monday blues, work-life balance, thank god its friday and mid life or identity crisis. If we truly love and believe in the work that we do, all these will not even be a ‘social norm’.
Summary
Ah! That’s frustrating everytime I talk about it, at the same time, pumped up. I’m halfway through the project. I really need your honest and constructive inputs to make this work together. In essence, I feel that it’s more to a ‘purpose driven life’ like how the famous book by Rick Warren has written. While, on top of that, it’s a ‘wholeness driven life’, combining our personality, passion, purpose and practices.
Personality: what enables us, what we can do.
Passion: what excites us, what we love to do.
Purpose: what empowers us, what we feel deeply for.
Practice: what expresses us, what we do daily - if we love monday-blues and TGIF, it’s time to quit whatever we’re doing :)
Few questions for discussions..
1. Just wanna ask around how do you guys feel about this?
2. Do you think there's really such a thing called getting paid for passion?
3. Do you think a 'purpose driven life' is possible?
4. Anyone of you felt this way, made a turn in your life? How's your experience?
5. If you can be paid for passion and a worthy cause, is there something that you may want to understand?MM
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TS, just to make you feel better, do you know that in country like China, if you want to become their civil servant, you will have to pass their own 'version' examination unlike Singapore where it is your degree education qualification and interview that 'matter' to become local civil servant : http://v.huatu.com/guojia
Although at the same time, the positive side of their education are, their secondary and primary school lesson are conducted in online interactive way of teaching while Singapore is still struck with the 'dinosaur' system of learning e.g hardcopy textbook which make primary school kids' bag heavy : http://www.xueersi.com
Also I believe that local enterprise could create more education product to make learning fun and even countries like China had already done that : http://www.egaobo.com and also local public organization can conducted more workshop for training useful skills : http://www.socialinnovationpark.org
In term of social progress, Singapore is always 'try' to keep up with times, if not be 'kiasu' of trying to be first in certain area or innovation, like recently Singapore is planning to be the first 'smart' nation in the world : http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/06/singapore-plans-to-be-worlds-first-smart-nation-2977042.html
As for employment issue wise, you might like to read 'The Science Of Getting Rich' which has very meanfully insight :
http://www.consciouslivingfoundation.org/ebooks/new6/Science of Getting Rich - Wallace D. Wattles.pdf