Someone said--- Formal education will make you a living, Self education will make you a fortune.

As a homeschooling mother, I am learning a lot about the actual purpose of testing. Because I only have two students, my own children, I have no need to test them. Because, ultimately, a test is a tool for an educator. Through testing you figure out what your students know and what they need to study more. Because I am with my children every day, I don't need to test them because I can see firsthand what they are still grappling with and what they are ready to move on from. By making a test the goal of a student rather than a tool for the educator, the education system gets it backwards. When a "failed" test is a detriment or hindrance to education rather than simply a marking out of a path of what still needs to be done, something is wrong. The pressure that is put on students to check all the boxes and ace all the tests doesn't make them learn better or become more wise. It merely makes those students who may not be naturally good at memorization and test taking hate school and hate learning and feel worthless because of it.

So I'm an Indian teenager, I did science for the last two years of my life( 11th and 12th). I was a very good student and scored well enough in my entrance exams to do pretty much every stem subject that's the craze these days. And I shocked everybody who knew me by giving that up to do English Lit and Philosophy. This whole video summarises by reasons. I love science, I always will, frankly though I detest the way its taught. Education of any sort should give you an irrepressible sense of wonder. An education in science, in today's world is always financially motivated. It's so focused on the monetary benefits that most people forget the whole entire concept of an education. I love English because of how diverse it is. To have conversations with people of old and understand the social and political undertones through people, It fascinates me. That being said, I of course don't plan on living under a bridge. But the things I learn through literature and philosophy far outweigh my concerns of having a more moderate income as compared to stem. Also humanities kids remember, science will give you nuclear weapons and crispr cas9, humanities gives you the ethics and the moral code against their malignant use.

Can't wait until you're a really famous writer so i can tell people I've been following you since 2017 on youtube

For me, the game changer was connecting thoughts in a hierarchical manner. By this single metric, I've changed my whole studying behavior and got my way out of the traditional education system. In my country, education is given by completely separate subjects. We can't see how chemistry relates to biology and geography, for instance. That's why I like the trivium and quadrivium approach so much. On trivium, first you learn how to call things and distinguish one thing from another (grammar). Then you learn how to reason about those things you named (logic). Lastly, you learn how to make other person understand the conclusion you got from your reasoning process (rhetoric). On quadrivium, you learn about numbers and how they relate to each other (arithmetic), then you learn about numbers in space (geometry), numbers in time (music) and numbers in space and time (astronomy/physics). If someone can distinguish things and extract conclusions by observing how things relate to each other, that person is learning. If I analyse my country's education process, it's like they stop on "how to name things". They just say "this is called speed, and this formula is what you use to get the number that represents it", but then you stop there. And there are so much new things to name that they don't give you enough space and time for doing the rest of the job yourself.

This guys honestly need to have his own TEDx talk

This channel excites me but I can't understand exactly what excites me other than the fact I also love murakami.

Interesting. Rogue Academic is not a term I've heard before but it lines up with my philosophy quite well. It's actually part of the reason for my own channel. As a less industrialised, regimented and profit driven venue for education

I feel like this would actually make me get better grades cause I'd actually try to understand instead of just taking notes

This video really conceptualized what my mind’s been riffing on for over two years now. People don’t really understand when I tell them that I appreciate education for the sake of it, not as a means to an end (=a job). Understanding the world around you the best you can - from multiple angles, disciplines, delving into what special people in history have concluded about it, understanding where their theories have come from and hopefully, continually keeping forming your own understanding. To me, that’s a beautiful thing. The world is so rich and so many of us keep ignoring it and ignoring what it’s offering us. Perhaps I got a little carried away there, but yeah, those are some of my thoughts on this matter. That being said, I am and have always been a mostly straight As student - and I feel conflicted about it because on one hand it has taught me to work hard, on the other I keep asking myself why do I do it? Why do I place so much value on a letter? As I said, mostly I love learning but that genuine curious spirit doesn’t always translate into the grading system. For that, you have to know about the way your teacher is and so many other unrelated things that have nothing to do genuine curiosity. And yet I still take all those strategic steps to achieve the best grade I can. Why though? I suspect it’s because of my self-image and need of validation. Which I guess is another topic.

I wish I could have a guru that taught me to accomplish something more than just grade like the way you do. New generation really need educators who has, at least some of your perspectives. Thank you for being one of our best mentor, Robin.

I actually developed a stress related illness because of how much I couldn't handle bad grades.

I work for a university in admissions, I help transfer students enroll into college. I had the privilege of earning my Bachelors at my top school that is a historic private institution. I am also currently enrolled in grad school to earn my Masters degree. With this context in mind, I’d always felt conflicted in my feelings for higher Ed. I always loved the idea of being a student but I hated the reality of it. Education was just turning in assignments, regurgitating information, checking boxes, and ultimately going to school for future financial gain & meeting societal expectations. I love learning and believe education is so valuable, but it has become exactly what you described. It is astounding to know that some people would consider my Bachelor of Arts degree useless because it can’t help me get a high paying job. That shouldn’t be the point of going to college and I could never quite put my finger on why I felt so uneasy until I watched this video. I love your perspective and agree as well! Because now, I also see why people think college is a scam; it’s such a high price for something that isn’t truly, ultimately, for you so much as it is for the society and system you’re apart of. If we only go to college to earn a degree that will allow us to make more money so we can live in & contribute to society, then did we even learn? Such a high cost yet gives so little in the area of personal growth and wisdom. If getting a job was the sole purpose to life, I would agree that I don’t need college or even go to the length of devaluing it. I am quite excited to try out living life as a grad student who is a rogue academic. Especially in COVID times, I am all online and I miss in person interactions, the traditional setting of being in a classroom and listening to my professor teach. I am currently just teaching myself which wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t love learning under a professor, who is a master of the subject, and build on the foundation they’ve set. I’m excited for this new shift and I want to say thank you for loving academia the way you do

Learning shouldn’t be a chore or a duty; it’s a privilege to be able to educate yourself. I’ve always loved it, but recently my mindset has completely changed, and I realize that I used to be focused on things that would help me make money and get into a good position in our society. I think that a part of the reason why some people view education the way they do is because of the lowered attention spans that have kinda taken over due to social media. We’re always jumping from one thing to another, trying to “check boxes” as you say, and trying to ‘complete’ things. The idea of learning has shifted from wondering and discovering to knowing and achieving grand undertakings and reaching limits. It’s quite humbling to know that I ‘know’ next to nothing about a subject and that maybe there’s no limit to how much one can learn about said subject; I learn because it feels like I’m pouring cement into a bottomless pit. That might sound discouraging to some, but to me it’s quite satisfying to know that I will never be satisfied and the pit will never get filled. What happens if the pit gets filled up with cement? If I know all that there is to know? Will the cement cure and make me the most formidable master of knowledge? Or will I just have a cinderblock instead of a brain? Either way, I can’t imagine ever being okay with being “finished”. Great video!

i so badly want to be a rogue academic but i don’t have the self discipline to or motivation to actively learn things on my own anymore

"Education is something that I take very personally, and I don't want a very dry number to determine that for me". I have never felt more understood.

“All men who have turned out worth anything have had a chief hand in their own education” Sir Walter Scott

9:50 I really feel this, I'm in my third year, I was really excited about entering university, then in my first year, I did great, but in my second year, something happened that I couldn't study anymore, I barely passed my courses, I procrastinated a lot in everything and had to drop some courses, I was trying so hard to understand what was the reason, why I procrastinated so much, why it was so hard to study, I thought it was only my bad studying habits, I've been trying this whole year change my habits but I still wasn't able to stop procrastinating. But I recently discovered your channel, and I realized the main reason was that I wasn't studying to learn, I was studying only to pass my courses, that I didn't care about learning anymore, then I remember that in my first year, I used to study all these calculus and physics and being really excited about it. So when I was focusing on trying to only pass my courses, it was giving anxiety to actually studying, I realized I have fear of failure. But I'm really glad I found your channel, all those other channels with a lot of subscribers, giving you advice about how to stop procrastinating and stuff, always gave me the feeling that they're trying to sell me something, but with your channel, I feel that you're talking about something you really believe in. I really want to change my perspective, and stop studying for grades, which made all my motivation for learning just disappear, I want to study to learn and discover, how I used to do two years ago

I am final year medical student and deep inside I really wanted to drop out. But, I didn't because I worked really hard to become medical student. There was always a void inside me and gradually medicine became so uninteresting, rather I liked fashion, painting and singing. I was confused and stressed out. Today, I have answer and an approach to get back to learning medicine. Thank you so much! Sir, I am following you.

This video made me realise how much your channel has affected me. Your videos have completely changed my viewpoint on education, and I can’t thank you enough for it. I just turned 15, and now I try to spend more of my time allowing myself to read and explore subjects I’m interested in. I’m trying to let myself wonder about different things and then learn about them. I even started learning German like you’re learning French. As if now, I think I’m going to read Das Kapital (and then a capitalism book afterwards just to compare them).

Such an interesting concept and I think it's so true. I did English Literature at uni and spent a lot of time worrying about how it would make me unemployable (it hasn't) and not a lot of time actually delving deep into my course material and all the knowledge on offer to me. It was only after I graduated that I realised I hadn't chosen to study English because I thought it would get me a job, I had chosen it because I genuinely loved the subject (not true for the majority of university students in all kinds of disciplines) and wanted to study it for its own sake. University degrees have become commodified to a huge extent and so we are taught that it is just a qualification that you need in order to pass through the gates into the next step of your life. But you're right that this is a reductive way of looking at education and honestly it weighs heavily on the minds of people doing financially 'useless' degrees like the humanities. I actually feel more interested in learning for its own sake now than when I was at university, which I feel embarrassed about sometimes, that I wasted all that time at uni not getting on with the business of learning. But I was so paralysed by this idea of it not being 'useful' that I never engaged with the course properly. I'm now returning to all the classics that I skipped lectures on when I was at university! I agree that a utilitarian approach to education, especially in the humanities, is dangerous and dampens the quality of education and the opportunity for self-improvement. Sorry for the long message but this video really resonated with me. If you ever start a university one day I'll be one of your first students!

I love John Taylor Gatto’s books on this. He was a teacher for 30 years and quit due to frustrations about the school system. He really goes in depth about the foundations of our modern school system and how the current system destroys children and their curiosity. Albert Einstein even said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

off topic but am I the only one who has the biggest crush on this guy?? I can't _possibly_ be

I'm in my sophomore year at college and I've been going through a hard time with my grades recently. The progress I made with my personal education before online classes started went completely down the drain once I got loaded with assignments and tests. I lost sight of why I loved the subject in first place because I was dragged into the pit that is standardized education. I'm so glad I found your video. Thank you, it really helped me sort out my priorities.

Hey dude, love your videos. I'm going through a crisis of confidence atm vis a vis career choices, and it's so nice to see someone successfully transition from science to literature (the change I think about all day, every day!). Keep up the good work!

There’s this quote that goes, “The true purpose of education is to build minds, not careers.”

Yooooo. You're putting all the things I've been feeling since a kid into words. I always disliked how it was "cool" to say things like "haha, i didn't study” or "haha, i didn't do anything this semester." But.... that's lame? Lol. I felt like I had to hide my passion for learning, but I'm in my "3rd" year at university(CIS major, JPN minor) now and I love it here. Exams are kind of fun, like a game to see what I know inside and out and what I don't. And since I started thinking like that, my exam grades haven't been lower than a 90. It's really true that the less I worry about the number, the more mental space I have to just learn about the subject and keep asking why. Professor Google exists, so it's really possible to learn anything. I also love to meet professors who are passionate about their field and are open to curious students. I just finished my finals and I already have things I'm ready to study this break just because I want to. It's so exCITING.

Good afternoon, Robin. As always, I am impressed by your passion about your subject and by the intensity of your comments. As a university professor, I know how hard it is to motivate many students to open up for acting as what you called rogue academics. Apparently, not everybody has the personal strength to cross the boundary, and many just cannot afford to loose a year or more by putting exploration over completion. In the end, your approach resembles an elitist concept of education that was possible, but of course not always realised, in times when much fewer people went to university. The introduction of the Bologna system aimed at making a division between the many who need to complete (bachelors) and the few who want to explore more (masters), but tragically failed, as almost every bachelor consecutively adds a master programm. Personally, I cherish everybody who learns outide the classroom.

I was taken out of school after 3rd grade and was educationally neglected. I was at home but I wasn't homeschooled. I take fewer college classes to completely absorbe the material. I don't go to school to check boxes and it is very obvious that I am the rare bird just because I am not there to check those boxes. I am always trying to catch-up on not having a formal education. The way I view classes is that they are only making me aware of the bare basics of a topic. History of Russia? Here are the main events. Now that I know them I will not be confused if I try to learn more about the history of Russia. But by no means do I think I know it all just because I took a class on it. I don't do research out of the classroom immediately. I go back to it later. So when I go back to the topic, the things I learned in class gets kicked back in when I probably wouldn't remember it otherwise.

I've always been so frustrated with the fact that education is something you 'get' instead of something that transforms you. One of the ways I try to stress the latter in the way I approach my schooling is to imagine what the people who worked to get all this knowledge would want done with it--would the writers of transformative works of literature appreciate my viewing them as obligations to check off? Would the people who died without ever knowing that there were planets beyond Saturn take kindly to the fact that I don't give them more than a passing thought? It's much more crucial that I treat this stuff with the respect it deserves if I feel I owe something to generations past.

“This video is longer than the shorter videos” ...sounds like an academician alright

This was one of the most beautiful things I have heard in years... I am living in fear of education since I was a kid, and it was always such a huge part of my life, it was pushed onto me like a threath... I hope I can apply this new perspective, it's so freeing and it brought me so much joy to even hear about *the spirit of discovery* which I completely forgot about... I pray to reconcile the kid in me who loved being in awe.

As a 65 year old, experiencing both learning and as a teacher, I have lived the shifts in learning culture. People now are being taught definitive outcomes rather than learning the processes of understanding and knowledge seeking. This breeds a dangerous conformity and a maladaptive attitude to accepting the limits of understandings and a fear of being wrong and subject to challenge, both internally by self judgement and outwardly from others. This is a closing of the book and not it’s opening.

Having many interests is hard. I have to say, my high schools & universty were of high level. It's academic research & its soul-killing politics and mobbing that disgusted me of the whole thing. 😡

Grades have a biggg impact on me to the point that it has become part of my personality. Ya know the smart kid blabla (but im not really the top of my class or anything and the fact that im so bummed about that is kinda fucked but eh). But i mention this because i have a hard time viewing tests as a way to know what i need to learn more of. I mean i do like the idea of finding out about things i didnt know and learning about it but i dont like doing that at the risk of sabotaging my grades. And dont get me wrong even tho i have a completion kind of mindset towards school i still have that desire to learn. Its just that my grades are a big deal to me and while i am still passionate about learning and im really having trouble getting out of that mindset. :')

Great thoughts! What saddens me is how uni really saps your time and energy for independent learning. If I were to do it over again, I'd probably aim for "good grades" vs "excellent grades" and not put in as much time as I did. Then use the extra energy for self-learning.

I have this saying where anytime people tell me that I'm actually really clever, my instant response is that "yeah, I just don't test well", but you've opened my mind into the possibility of being "Rogue", truth is I love learning, I'm considered a bit of a "jack of all trades", but putting a number on it just stresses me out. I do a degree that's more preferable in the job market (chemical engineering) and I quickly found that I was one of the very few people who picked it because they enjoy it, I know most people picked it because it was hard and they didn't want to do medicine, and honestly it sucks, every interaction is grade-based, if it's not relevant to the module you don't bother. I like you're thing of being a rogue academic- it has a nice ring to it and it's allowed me to understand and view things in a different way

Your view on tests made me think about something that I learned about when I was doing an internship as a teacher. I don’t know if this is the same in other countries, but in the Netherlands many teachers are working on using different types of testing/assessment in their courses. You have the so called summative assessment which is the well known test that gives you a grade to reflect how much you know and then you (or at least most people) move on. On the other hand there is formative assessment which shows what you’ve learned and where the gaps are in your knowledge. Normally this type of test is not graded but focused on giving the student feedback and helping him/her forward in the learning process. I think this is a really good development since it allows students to actively be a part of their learning process. And I hope that it can also inspire some students to think about education in a different way.

Thank you. I just finished my first term in college, and this video is going to shift my learning experience going forward. I appreciate it.

hey, im a new subscriber n honestly am so glad i found ur channel, as literature has always been one of my interests, it's refreshing to hear an authentic intellectual in such a candid way😄 could u please make a video on how to read scientific articles/ heavy reading, write summaries, reviews? academic stuff some of us struggle to break down.... bc thatd be so helpful, love ur content, keep up the good work🙌

I’ve been extremely lost in life for a multitude of reasons- battling between two ideas that include two different forms of sacrifice, one in terms of genuine comfort and other in terms of finance, etc. thank you... I really am stuck between a crossroads, and I appreciate finding you

Awesome! I first began to question the education system when undiagnosed dyslexia tripped me up and I began to seem to be not so 'gifted' anymore. I learned over the next several years that my grades were completely capricious and arbitrary. In eighth grade, I learned that the real benefit of school for me was to put me into contact with smart kids. One of them asked if the 'bullet' at the end of '1984' was real or just metaphorical. So we all read 1984. Not as part of any assignment but to try to answer the question. After that, I often found myself studying and researching (at the time, early '70s) modern political history and science fiction (which was undergoing a renaissance at the time). So I went into high school following two parallel curriculums, the school's and my own. My own was much more stimulating. We read Marx 'for fun' (no, it wasn't fun, but very enlightening). When I got into college I really didn't know what I wanted to do. Few of the offered programs held much interest for me. I completed my Basic Education Requirements by taking introductory courses in physics, early anthropology, psychology, philosophy, current trends in art, the history of science, political science, analyzing Shakespeare… A wide variety of interests, mostly to answer questions of my own. I still didn't find anything I wanted to study in detail. Astronomy was (and still is) very interesting. I took a class, Advanced Topics in Astronomy, designed to be an introductory course, without all the math and physics, in the more advanced topics in astronomy usually studied by grad students after they had taken all the foundational math and physics. It was taught by the head of the department and it was wonderful. History of astronomical discovery, how we learned what the stars were, that the Sun is a star, that those nebulae are actually other galaxies, that everything is moving away from us at great speed that implies a Big Bang, Einstein's trouble with that, Hubble's trouble with that though it was his discoveries that led to it. The life cycle of a star and how we know. How supernovae work and how they create Everything we know including the structure of the Universe. The amazing career of Subramanian Chandrasekhar who studied chemistry until he made a discovery that was so wild he was thrown out (and later proven right), then studied physics until he discovered something so wild he was thrown out (and again later proven right) and studied astronomy and stellar evolution and discovered the possibility of black holes and was thrown out of astronomy (and of course later proven right). Simply amazing and the prof clearly expressed his passion for the subject and eagerly showed how each of these principles work mathematically, though we didn't need to know the math, he just wanted to show it worked. And he implored up to NOT get into astronomy because while it's very interesting and they have really lerned a lot (he himself didn't really believe in black holes yet, in 1978) but it's the only subject where you can never even hope to touch or even get close to your subject. In every other subject you can get close enough to make very careful measurements but in astronomy you can only LOOK. At the very highest resolutions the stars still only resolve to single little points of light. So we can measure the light and infer an amazing number of things about the stars, these are big and those are little, but we can never GO there to tell for sure. It's great that the Sun is close enough to study well, but we're still only guesing that the other stars are similar but different in certain ways. It's still only a bunch of theories based on the subtlties of the varrying wavelengths of light. I eventually became interested in computers, ditched university and went to the local trade school for hands-on experience. Checking boxes wasn't working for me anymore. The checkboxes weren't anywhere I wanted to be. In those days I could easily get a job because I was 'familiar with computers' (a CS degree wasn't a 'thing' yet). Working in a computer room gave me lots of time to study (whatever I wanted) on my own. Life long learner, there's the ticket. Some of the stupidest people I know have PhDs.

Thank you so much! I agree that we have lost sight of the beauty of learning and discovery!!!

Last week someone asked my professor what we needed to know for our upcoming philosophy of science exam. He answered that it was not up to him to decide that. He said we should study what we personally would like to know. I thought that was interesting to hear, as my other teachers are always so focused on exams and grades. It was good to see that not every teacher thinks that way!

You just dropped the red pill of the educational system. The matrix we live in extends to all facets of life, education is no exception. Keep it up man This is the first vid of yours I’ve seen and I subscribed because of it

After learning some topics with some people online, I discovered that the testing method most schools used is quite biased because people learn differently and in different lengths... One person might take a year and the other might take 4 months, but that doesn't mean the one who takes a year isn't worthy

"Rouge Academic", i like the way that sounds^^ i've never came across something like that, but i like it.

Wow this video was eye opening to me. I always believed there was a difference in the way some people approached learning and education. This video has fueled my desire to taking a different approach to learning material I am genuinely interested in.

Any tips on lazy days and how often they’re okay? I find myself having days where I have 0 motivation to read

In my high school years, I remember my piano teaching telling me that grades are not everything. I took it to heart, because I really did not pay attention to my grades that much. I did believe that goal is to learn, not to get good grades. However, in my senior year of high school, I realized that you do need good grades to get into good colleges. Since that point, I have been developing the mindset of completion. In my Engr 101 class, a motivating guest speaker viewed his Bachelor's in Engineering as going through a list of checkboxes. His mindset is very goal-oriented. It is encouraged by the engr 101 textbook we have and from many 'productivity' KZfaqrs and writers, too. I think it is an enlightening point that you bring up about "the rogue academic." In fact, it is so true when I think of my dad, who was the top math student at his university, because he had that mindset. Since the beginning, he was very interested in math and would read up on it on his own. The tests came too easy to him. I am going to rethink my plans for education, because by golly I have been pursuing a completionist mindset nowadays!

I couldn't agree more, words of wisdom. Although many may not agree in the academic field, we rogue academics resonate with this.

oh my god, you put the way i've been feeling about school for so long into words... thank you for sharing this, it's so easy to feel crazy for having these thoughts. it's so good to see other people have them too.

I only realized these things a few months out of college. I'm so amazed at the depth of your perspective so early on - I try not to dwell on how much more meaningful my college years would've been if I had this insight five years ago, and it's somehow very satisfying to see someone else figure it out in time! Seems like the path of introspection and honest confrontation is different for all, and we step through with different timings.Thanks for verbalizing all these thoughts! It's times like these where I remember the wonderful potential of KZfaq as a community building medium. You're going to achieve great things, excited to see how we all grow over the next few years as creatives - happily subscribed!

Thank you for articulating this idea, which is at the core of my own disillusionment with the education system; "the promised idea of education and the reality of education are two very different things". There have been movements that address and dance around this such as "unschooling", but your description hits the nail on the head, and I'm happy I stumbled across it.

Your understanding of the grading scale really encouraged me. Thank you Robin. Grades tell us how much further we need to go!

I absolutely adore all the content you put out. Like seriously.

You have articulated the feelings I have had my whole life on education. Hearing someone else articulate it so well has reminded me of that curiosity inside myself. Thank you for this.

I think I take about the same time as I do watching the video reading the comments. You give such a comforting vibe that everyone’s responses to your videos are always interesting to read because they feel so open. Great video, much to think about...

This channel is pure gold for the mind. Thanks Waldun for sharing..

I resonate so much with what you say about treating studying as an end and not a mean to something else. I do want to deeply understand things, but university (specially in STEM subjects) doesn’t really let you time to do that. This is my first year of uni (computer-related engineering) and I feel profoundly let down. I want to understand the stuff we work with but everything goes too fast, it seems like they just want us to know how to solve the exercises not really understanding what we are doing. I’ve tried to deeply understand the things that we study but there’s no physical time to do that. This makes me think if I should just drop out and try to find a lifestyle that lets me study on my own, because the idea of spending 4-5 years in this hole is something I can’t stand.

We love you! Keep up the great work. You inspire me to carry on forward to achieving my greatest human potential!

Thank you, for this confirmation! Today is a great day, in this moment I am very happy. 💓😷🎉🗳🍾🤠🧊☃️🤙🏿🍄🍵🥰🎊🤣🎒😅🎊

Thank you for the great video. My personal experience was that I had a really strong drive and interest in the subject (math, physics) while in high school, and that completely went away during university. I hated most courses but stuck through the honours program. I just graduated a few months ago, and ironically I'm finding myself drawn to learning & discovery again.

This is so profound and great eye opener.

This is my new favourite KZfaq channel. Just so well made, and so useful.

Great video. Three things that I picked up from it. 1. I think this sounds like the beginnings of a theory of education, where the drive to understand is the basis for our individual and communal learning. 2. Secondly, as a father, this video is excellent. I just need to find a way to communicate a passion for learning and understanding to my children. 3. I think the drive to understand/ curiosity for how the world works led me to ultimately give up a career of fear based education as a pastor ( I studied in seminary to be a pastor but i just had to many nagging questions) for one that was less glamorous as a truck driver but allows me time to learn as I work through audiobooks and podcasts.

I normally don't comment on videos, but I recently came across your channel and I think you're an extremely insightful and mature person (especially for your age; if I'm not mistaken you're only two-three years older than me). I thoroughly enjoy your videos and hearing your perspective on things, and happen to agree with many of them. Wishing you all the best, keep making great videos and being the interesting person you are!

wow. my chrisms gift this year was finding your channel. thanks.

Thank you so much for this video. You have inspired me to finally speak about the things I have been wanting to express myself about curiosity and education. Keep up the rouge work!

The first half of this video speaks so much to me, because I am currently miserable as a med student, especially because it's online now (miss rona)... I cannot find any fufillment at all.. especially because I feel like the profs aren't passionate about teaching.. I am happy to learn from this video and make a change :)

I’ve been getting into education and reading again and these videos are really helpful for me to get back into that mindset

I watch a handfull of self help videos and learning videos. I came accros your videos several times and watched them. I began to have less interest in self help on youtube because It felt like people are doing this very artificially and for marketing... Yours... I feel like it's so genuine . I have great pleasure to listen to you talk about litterature and your thoughts while cooking, makeup, getting ready etc... Thanks for being on youtube :)

this was very insightful. i've always felt misunderstood by peers that only saw the extrinsic value of obtaining good grades, but never really seeking the truth of what lies beneath education. now that i'm just waiting to go to university, i feel more demotivated than ever to revise old topics. for what? an examination that will most definitely just be an inaccurate measure of one's understanding and intelligence? what is the point of mindlessly retaining the same information over and over again? legislation of the education system will never fail to baffle me.

I love your energy, it's calming in some kind of way🦉

Hear, hear! Robin. My man! That hit deep. ♥️ keep going dude.! “ Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination. ”

I’m speechless about your amazing talk 👏🏻👏🏻💕

Thank you for sharing this 🌼 I hope I can get more curious about the things I love

This KZfaq channel is such a gold mine ❤️‍🔥

Found this when i was exhausted from fighting myself whether to go off on tangents i felt passionate about or to strictly completing my syllabus on the SAME SUBJECT. I feel better bout trying to explore my study material now. Thank you robin

Thank you... I really loved the concept

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I have found that your ideas reflect my own thoughts and analysis on certain topics and im really glad you are spreading this thought process across. People tend to sway towards what the norm is and that kills critical thinking and self power of an individual, perspectives and ideas like yours are what will help everyone to think on their own to save themselves from being pulled by absurd normalities. Thank you so much

Thank you 🙏 for your wisdom

I loved this a lot and am looking forward to more 'lectures for life' from Professor Waldun c:

Hello! I was just listening to this while doing an assignment for my course and I’ve got to say, thank you for such a wonderful video. I’m being reminded of something I’m forgetting through the stress of trying to get work done with a neurodivergent brain, and now I can carry a more positive outlook on learning. The reason why I wanted to take a course on animation and design in the first place was because I wanted to learn how to do something; tell stories and move people with an idea close to my heart. You’ve made me reflect on my inner desire to just… cultivate myself through gaining knowledge. I am happily not only drawing, but learning how to sing, play piano, learn Japanese, composing music in my spare time, dance, etc. But that’s not all I want to know about (but I will be making this comment too long - space seems cool though). Keep on making neat content! I look forward to your future stuff :D

I absolutely love this. I feel so strongly about this but I feel so trapped in the system. I'm so worried about learning the curriculum that I become so exhausted I have no energy to put more time into actual learning. This is better articulated than what I said, but I wrote my common app essay on this topic!

Education is a process. Not a destination. Thank you for reminding me of that. Over the years in the school-system i lost more and more of my joy and exitement for learning. the last few months i realized this and was not sure why i lost that spark. some subjects in school are very interesting and i actually was learning about it outside of school, some subjects are in concept very interesting but i just didnt develop the drive to learn more and some things are just a chore. thank you for reminding me of what leaning means to me, and that i need to reevaluate if i want to let my self-perception be influenced by a metric that is just generalized and does not actually reflect on my reason for learning. i think i needed this reality-check because reight now, im in my exam years so this reminded me that, besides that my mental health should be my priority no.1, that school is not the end of life and that the concept of learning is something that is separate from school. school is preparation for your job and also serves as a balance so one has knowledge of more than the one topic one is interested, but the more it think about it, the more i realize that school is not as important as it is made out in society. i am very grateful for this video and that you succinclty reminded me of why i love learning. have a great day :) ~from some anon who shares your views on education

This helped me a lot. Man I love ur channel. It's my fave channel now

Thanks for the video! It's nice to know you are not alone and not mad with these ideas. Your speech is so clear and sharp, such a pleasure to listen. And to watch too, you are very good looking. I wish you were a reader of audiobooks because not everyone has such a deep voice.

What an eye-opening discourse on the history of education. The industrialization of the Fin de Siècle era seems to have seeped into every corner of society, including education. Bravo to you for seeing that education often mirrors the principles and movements of the time, and for speaking out to try and shape it positively for future students.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but the completion focused education system is actually causing children to become habitual under acheivers. I noticed it while I was going though the system myself and it really pierced my soul. Many people only do the bare minimum to pass the tests and assignments, often copying each other's work verbatim if they can get away with it. It has become a cultural attitude among many students, and it is causing people to learn less and less. In essence, I think we have become "dumber" as a population because of it, than say 100 years ago.

I'm so privileged that this is my default state (i have adhd) I'm passionate about so many things, and therefore are continuously reading this or that to the point that despite not hardly spending enough time studying for exams, I still pass. Going on to my 4th year of pharmacy school while doing very little studying compared to my classmates.

My ideal view of education is based on the School of Athens painting by Raphael. In it, you see all these scholars in groups, huddled around one another and taking notes on what one is teaching. You see the curiosity and wonder on their faces. It's chaotic, and I think that's what we need more of. Nowadays, education is so formal and tightly structured to the point where it's no fun trying to learn the subject anymore-- all that matters is the grade, which is sad. In this modern education, I think, there is too much order, and no education, whereas in the painting, you see chaos, but wonder, true curiosity, and real education. That's just my take. Thank you so much for this video, I agree with you 100%!

YOOOOO I CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE TO BE LIKE THIS LAST YEAR AND IVE GENIOUNLY BEEN ENJOYING LEARNING MORE

i love your videos :) im from the philippines (one of the countries with a fucked up education system) and you’re really making me question my internalized notions regarding school. as someone who has tied their her self-worth to numbers, your insights have helped me a lot! i really appreciate your work, thank you :)

As I watch through this video, I’m coming to realize the answers to a couple questions that have been running through my head throughout this year. Summer is near, and heavens I love summer. Summertime has always been the period in which I flourished, both emotionally and mentally. My productivity levels shoot through the roof; my passion for learning strengthens its grasp on my being. I’ve always been a good student. Assignments always turned in on time, neat and well-composed. Mistakes hardly ever make their appearance through my school career. But although I excelled grade-wise, I push my tasks off and always wished I was doing something else. The same actions performed, difference being the time frame at which they occurred. I could not figure out why. I could not figure out why my opinion of the same tasks varied when they perhaps should not have. While I could not figure it out, I’ve come to see that dear Robin here, has. At school, I learn and perform because I have to. In summer, I learn and perform because I wish to. It’s amusing how the desire to pursue knowledge has such a profound effect on our views towards education. Lovely video, xx

Brilliant! Keep speaking your truth!

Seriously amazing video!! Loved every bit

I also have a strong interest in learning and education. I've always enjoyed learning regardless of what it might lead to. When I was a kid I often felt frustrated within education, but I didn't understand why at the time. I recently decided to go back to university as an older student and I hated it. As I'd already been learning for myself for so long (through books and online courses) I'd forgotten what it was like to be graded. Students were discouraged from taking risks to ensure good grades, sticking to what they are already good at rather than having the freedom to fully explore the subject area. I've also found that many people have a very negative opinion about learning or they will treat it like a competition. Before my first experience at university I had been looking forward to meeting people with similar interests and was hoping that some of them might want to work together. Unfortunately people got so upset over each others grades friendships broke down over them. Both experiences definitely had a negative impact on the passion and energy I had for the subject I was studying. Rather oddly I've found that if you enjoy learning you're actually less likely to fit in at university.

This is one of my favorite videos so far!

i have a lot to say on the concepts touched on in this video (i'm planning on writing up an essay/manifesto on learning from within the system actually) but i completely agree with the reconceptualization of education at the individual basis. one specific thing that i think is crucial to this transformation, though, is first being traditionally successful within the current academic framework. getting assignments done and in early, prepping for tests well in advance, etc. are crucial to lifting the student out of the incredibly stressful grade slavery that pushes people out of programs that they're genuinely interested in. you need to get to the level where you're doing well enough to not fail your classes in order to feel liberated enough to spend free time truly immersing yourself in related content that you're passionate about. a LOT of students are missing that framework though, and get caught in a constant loop of stressing out about assignments until the deadline and then requiring a few days away from the subject because the pain of working up to the deadline leaves one mentally exhausted (and then of course so much of the knowledge acquired in those binge sessions is lost after not thinking about it for 48 hours, only causing an even more stressful cram next time). on a different (but still educational) note, i'd like to hear your thoughts on use of spaced repetition tactics for remembering more particular pieces of information after learning them properly. i'm absolutely of the camp "please don't try to learn things initially from flashcards you are only hurting yourself", but i've had quite a few people recommend spaced repetition platforms (anki for instance) for keeping things that you've learned in earnest from slipping out of your thoughts from disuse. for instance, concepts from a math class might not be applied in physics or chemistry classes until a few semesters later, at which point it's been months since you've last done a related problem. the other obvious example would be foreign language vocabulary in a field that you're not necessarily studying in depth currently but may be useful in the future (say, that one chapter on computers in your intro to french course). i'm personally going to be conducting an experiment of sorts using anki to supplement my studies, though, as with most good things, results won't really kick into full scale for at least a few months.