I was home schooled for a part of elementary and middle school. During my time at home, my brother and I sat in a room for twelve hours per day doing three things:

1. Playing video games. 
2. Watching DreamWorks “Road to El Dorado” VHS on repeat. 
3. Making Lego stop-motion animation videos. 

Those years taught me more about learning than any time of my life. 

Playing video games taught me strategy, problem-solving, and dedication. Being exposed to the same movie dozens of times over-and-over again molded my mental structure in such a way that when I was ready to learn something new, I consumed knowledge like a wild beast and learned more efficiently than everyone around me. Becoming obsessed with Legos and stop motion taught me creativity, patience, entrepreneurship (when I started a YouTube channel at 11), and humility. 

I spent many months and weeks obsessively making stop motion videos in a dark, quiet room, moving only to eat and use the bathroom. I drowned in my creative fulfillment and most people would have accused my mom of child abuse and neglect for allowing this to happen. I’m so happy she did.

I now know that learning will take place when it needs to take place. Human education is as natural as eating and sleeping. Forcing it upon innocent minds produces the polar opposite of the intended effect. Herding children through classrooms will never cultivate learning, and the belief that it is ideal to teach millions of humans the same thing is absurd. The most beautiful and pure form of education comes from the inherent curiosity in all of us. Self-directed learning will always be more meaningful, more useful, and more productive. 

The issue with overly-structured education begins in kindergarten and remains the foundation all the way through the top of institutionalized education. College is not effective and it’s a waste of time. 

The collective knowledge of a basic degree’s four years can be learned in less than six months with greater understanding, higher applicability, and more satisfaction with the learning process. How? Practical learning founded in the idea that curiosity will always be a better teacher than any professor. 

As of yet, one group is doing it right. Praxis is changing the game of education, and people are starting to notice. The program shows such a fundamental understanding of how the human mind learns, and leverages that understanding to grow future world-changers, leaders, and happy people. Praxis takes advantage of the fact that learning skills is more effective than learning textbooks and in turn has teenagers working debt free and earning salaries higher than those of their college-graduate peers. 

Curiosity cultivates learning. College and the public education standard simply do not provide what the world’s intellectuals need. It’s time for mediocrity to find its way out and for excellence to invite itself in.