I was fooled. Fooled into being average and thinking that is ok. I have been brainwashed by society. Just because society doesn’t have room for a million Steve Jobs that think differently. If you remember your mother telling you that you are special, but when you go to school you are grouped in generalized and creativity sterilized. Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable talks about the problem of being a individual in a public educational system that is made to have everyone exiting thinking and acting the same.
What does Seth mean by the title brainwashed? Are you brainwashed?
What I understand from Godin’s ideas of being brainwashed is that we have been programed to become cogs in the machine of society and not to be unique.
What is the function of public education?
What I believe public education’s purpose is, is to give every child the common knowledge to function in society. Now, if these students are good enough they go on to college majoring in something that they are interested in and become more of a individual from there. What has happen now is that everyone needs to have a college degree in order to have a typical job so college has turned into another form of public education in which they are standardized and no one is rewarded for being a individual.
What is art?
Is that act of coming to the Flatiron school your art? Or are you looking for us to draw you a map?
I believe art is any product one has put a ton of labor and passion in; something one would like to share with the world. Art can be anything, a well personalized work desk or even one’s code. I feel as though what I have created in this program my art, not the act of coming to the school.
Why are you here?
I am here at the Flatiron School because I want to learn how to program, but I could not afford nor wanted to go through a formal education. I want to be great and creative in the work world and I feel as though I cannot do that at any position besides coding in this day and age.
What is the resistance?
What does failure mean? How is failure at Flatiron different than what you are used to?
My resistance within this program is just learning enough to become a great coder. Failure for me is not being good enough for a particular field. Failure at Flatiron for me would be soul crushing it is something that would make me a dark sadder failure in life. This is why at this moment The Flatiron School is my life at this moment.