In the 20th century, the world is often surprised by shocking success stories of school dropouts. The most prominent names include Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, and the legendary Bill Gates. Though there are plenty cases of successful graduates, there is somewhat some validity behind the opinion that too much formal education can create an un-entrepreneurial mindset.
My first opinion is something that i call a bridge mindset. You already probably know about the story of Napoleon Bonaparte and his army. The french army led by Napoleon travels far and wide to reach the enemy at its headquarters. By the time they are near the enemy’s HQ, they have suffered severe casualties, gone through terrible weather, face the lack of food supplies and a deep sense of homesickness. The story goes on to say that to reach the HQ, the army must pass a bridge. After the last man passed the bridge, Napoleon burned it. The whole fleet was shocked. To explain, Napoleon extorted “We shall fight and we shall win! or else we will die an honorable death in foreign soil!” (well, that was my rendition of it). Guess what happened? the now-small army with lots of casualties, injuries and food shortages won the battle in the enemy’s own HQ.
Now what does that have to do with entrepreneurship and formal education? formal education is the so called bridge in Napoleon’s story. It’s a bridge in the form of a sense of security. a sense that a person can just fall back on his or her degree and get a secure, safe job. Instead of encouraging that person to “win”, it conveys a message to “not lose”. get the difference? I’ll put it this way, If you were stranded in an island (imagine cast away) without no means of getting back, what will you do? you would of course explore the island, look for food and fresh water. You will fight through every obstacle in front of you and evolve to be a strong person. By exploring, you would probably somehow stumble upon an ancient tribe and be their king/queen. On the contrary, if you were stranded with a working boat, you’d probably go back at the first sign of danger.
To be continued….
“a sense that a person can just fall back on his or her degree and get a secure, safe job. Instead of encouraging that person to “win”, it conveys a message to “not lose”. get the difference?”
yeap!
lo menjelaskan dengan kata2 yang tepat sekali.
bagus juga postingan lo..
menurut gua ada beberapa hal yang ingin gua sampaikan:
1.
Itu merupakan prinsip universal menuju keberhasilan, don’t ever look back, stay forward
2.
semua ada probabilitas dalam mendapatkan kesuksesan, kerja bisa gagal, bisnis bisa gagal, semua tergantung kita. ga ada sesuatu yang secure dan safe, hanya pendapat orang aja yang bisa menjudge seperti itu, semua ada resiko
3.
jalan sukses bagi tiap orang berbeda tergantung panggilan jiwa dan tujuan yang ingin dicapai masing-masing orang, seperti yang napoleon bilang
“We shall fight and we shall win! or else we will die an honorable death in foreign soil!”
4.
inti dari pendidikan bukan untuk membuat tiap orang tertuju kesuatu frame cara berpikir tertentu, tetapi untuk mengembangkan cara berpikir tiap orang dalam menghadapi segala situasi dalam arti pengembangan kedewasaan
Ok segitu dulu
Thanks
Get success or die tryin’
yasmin….
thanks
ray….
you should write a blog.
“jalan sukses bagi tiap orang berbeda tergantung panggilan jiwa dan tujuan yang ingin dicapai masing-masing orang,” is totally right. Because this is a blog on entrepreneurship, I’d like to focus in that
“inti dari pendidikan bukan untuk membuat tiap orang tertuju kesuatu frame cara berpikir tertentu, tetapi untuk mengembangkan cara berpikir tiap orang dalam menghadapi segala situasi dalam arti pengembangan kedewasaan”
i agree that the main purpose (inti) of education is what you said it SHOULD be. the fact is that not everyone realizes that and the educators themselves sometimes don’t too. To me, it has somewhat gone astray from the core that you mentioned. for more resources, I’ll post a comment on a TED video about that, soon.
[...] 29, 2007 In the first part, I talked about the mindset having too much formal education gives you. It is that you’ll [...]