Our Education System Was Outsmarted By Those It Considered Dumb

Who’s smarter now?

It was minutes to the start of the final exam that we thought would define our lives on that Monday morning.

As we stood at the assembly grounds, the final-year students were barely paying attention to the teachers.

Almost everyone had a couple of fliers with them. It was rumoured that bones would feature in our biological practical exams. How the info leaked was none of anyone’s business.

Everyone wanted to get the best score because, unlike the previous exams, which you’d re-strategize and prepare yourself for the next one, this was the final one.

There was no next exam after that.

My namesake, one-time deskmate, and good friend to date, Innocent Mayende, reminded me of this harsh reality.

The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) was the final barrier.

You either pass and accept the grade you got, or consider going back to the third year of high school if you’re to repeat. That’s two extra years.

Impossible.

The incentive was clear.

Charlie Munger often stresses the importance of incentives.

That Monday morning, at the assembly ground, incentives drove almost everyone to hedge. If you walked into the exam room without a good understanding of bones, you’d be cooked.

By the time the assembly was over — the assembly nobody cared much about because people’s supposed lives hung on the line — palpable confidence was in the air.

Let them bring the paper now. In a span of minutes, my classmates were certified bone specialists, but only with primary and birth certifications to their names.

Settling in the physics lab, I received the first paper. It was flipped over such that the blank side faced us. Nobody was to peek inside before the bell rang, signaling us to start.

Cheeky ones didn’t care. They can’t cancel your exams because somehow the wind forcefully blew your hand and coincidentally forced it to turn the paper to see what kind of questions featured in this year’s papers.

Up until one person saw the contents of the exam.

Shock is evident on one’s face when lives are on the line.

That was the face of some of the students when they couldn’t wait for the bell. Their tingly senses made them flip the pages. The same tingly sensations ran down their spines and vibrated every bony cell on their body.

In fear.

The paper had nothing on bones.

Most of the people in the room were left spineless.

That year, Biology was one of the worst-performing subjects.

Remember though, once beaten, twice shy. Most had lost the first battle, but not the war.

Education rewards the compliant

In the medical field, it is well-known that a full bladder can be an emergency.

Ask anyone who wet their beds. It’s the kind of emergency where your dreams can create a perfect little world with the proper setting for you to empty your urine-filled sack while you’re asleep.

However, teachers insisted that you have to ask for permission first before visiting the washrooms.

I can imagine a cold afternoon. Physiology states that such environments create conditions for peeing more than the usual days.

Teachers, on the other hand, have already decreed their rules. No going to the loos until they said so. Comply or get punished.

To save yourself the embarrassment of soiled shorts, you had to comply.

When asking questions, there was a common phrase:

No chorus answers.

You had to raise your hand.

And what of the awarding ceremonies?

All awards would go to — the smartest, the most disciplined, the whole-rounded student, or the top student academically.

All these students had one thing in common — they were compliant. The aberrant few could portray the image of compliance but had unruly sides to them.

The incentive system favoured the compliant.

Playing the incentive game awards the creative ones. In school, whoever is creative enough to find a solution nobody previously considered but appeared compliant would still get the award. The key word is ‘playing’, because students can outsmart the teachers.

Awards would then go to the top student, the one with the neat handwriting, the most disciplined, and the most improved.

Teachers too could become creative and develop a monitoring system — prefects and monitors. They would do the work for teachers in their absence to ensure the class was silent and orderly.

In class 1, I would also assign a friend of mine to write noise makers while I slept. This friend was one of the worst noisemakers. But I was incentivized not to include her on my list, because she would dutifully make the list even though she engaged those would would later get punished for noisemaking. But she’d get off scot-free.

Noise cannot be stifled. So in a fit of fury, a teacher would occasionally storm into class. My friend would nudge me awake right on time. After a litany of threats, the teacher would ask for a list of noisemakers. I would hand what my friend had written. The names would be read out and the victims would suffer their cruel fate.

I would appear compliant because I did what the teacher expected of me. My friend also did what I expected of her. We would be awarded for creating a superficial image of compliance when we did the opposite. We were playing the incentive game.

We outsmarted the teacher.

On the flip side of it, the uncompliant were getting schooled.

Or were they?

The non-compliant take education to school

From the beginning, the non-compliant were learning about the world.

Every session in school was iterative. An iterative game invites players to play.

How can I make noise, because it is fun, but not get punished for it?

I could befriend the class prefect.

This is what my friend likely did. When I gave the threat that I might not give her the chance to write the list of noisemakers, you’d see how invested one can get in preserving channels that can reward non-compliant behaviour.

For all the times when the non-compliant got punished, it was a lesson on what not to do. New strategies could then be formed.

In 2010, the World Cup was in South Africa.

We were in high school, and teachers never allowed us to watch the matches during class time. Football watched by all dignitaries in the world was denied to a bunch of students somewhere in the middle of sugarcane plantations because the teachers wanted us to ‘study’.

The non-compliant were then incentivized to find a way of rewarding themselves without getting caught. Some of the students would sneak to the back of the staffroom using their chairs. Then step on them to crane their necks and see the match from the back windows.

Silence was the ticket to 90 minutes of pure football pleasure.

However, if someone escapes class to watch a game, their control is likely to be out of hand. And football can get emotional very fast. So when one student shouted in disappointment, the teachers heard.

Like roaches when you switch on the light, everybody behind the staffroom scattered for their lives. They left the chairs piled up behind the block. They left the evidence at the crime scene.

A series of investigations later, and a good number of us were suspended. For watching a once-in-four-year event watched by many presidents and dignitaries all over the world. The lucky ones learnt a lesson — they can get away with non-compliance.

They can play this game.

Street scholars outsmart the educationally smart

The successful ones outside school learn to disrupt systems governed by rules.

Others learn to use worldly wisdom to beat such systems.

Compliance leaves the A-student seeking employment. With a bunch of papers, they hope to work for companies that hire A-students.

But who will start these companies if the A-student only seeks to get employed by the best firms?

A moment of silence for the A-student

— Bien

Bien thinks that these companies are started by the C-students.

The C-students are usually friends with the B-students, and hire them as they bootstrap their ventures. Once they take flight, the B-students become the managers. Since they were there from the very beginning, they have a wealth of experience, which the A-student doesn’t.

So the B-student becomes the manager of the A-student. A beaming A-student gets the job, to fulfill the dreams of the C and the B-students.

How did the C-student start a company?

Mama I don’t wanna be the A-student

Working for the B-student

Kwa company ya C -student

In the land of the D-students

In part, it was their earlier exposure to failure when they were in school. Schools created the best game to hone their skills for getting away with non-compliance. They were playing life’s game on the hard mode, but not dying. Practically, they were in a live game simulation, where they were learning and adapting.

They were being modeled into street scholars, while the compliant ones were modeled into institutional scholars.

By the time they somehow finish their education, they have developed the kind of grit that convinces them to face life’s hardships. They know it is possible to get rewarded without being compliant.

Disrupt is the word often used to describe upcoming companies.

But you can never disrupt a teacher.

Disrupt the silence of class and you get punished. Disrupt the traffic and you can get fined by the traffic police. Disrupt the voting system and you risk being taken to jail.

But these students of life have learnt how to be students throughout their lives. They see the same settings as when they were young. They just have to learn how to disrupt the rule-governed system.

Thus, the ones who wouldn’t disrupt the teacher learn to get into spaces without teachers. Those who disrupt the silence of the class learn how to persuade crowds. Those who disrupt the traffic learn when best to outwit the traffic police. Those who seek national leadership learn how to beat a rule-governed electoral process to clinch the seats they want.

Disruption leads to superlinear returns. Compliance leads to meagre, largely subliner returns.

Who would you rather be?

What I’m trying to say is…

If the education system rewards compliance, most people are setting their lives for sublinear returns.

Study, get your documents, and hope for a matching salary rise, but what you get is sub-optimal.

Learn about systems, develop specific knowledge, disrupt compliance systems, and get superlinear returns.

Where does that leave education?

Education — An accepted factory to manufacture and roll out compliant entities into companies that disrupt various spaces.

So who’s playing who?

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