Functionally Illiterate: How to Be Dumb, Fast
You don’t solve more with more. You solve it with less.
—Caspian Keyes, Pantheon
Table of contents
Introduction
I recently came across an interview of Stephen Cuunjieng regarding education and economics. Here are my thoughts about it.
Plumbers
If the plumbing system is not working, do you blame the electricians?
Let’s start with a trope that I have heard countless times: functional illiteracy is mostly a problem with the public education system. I beg to disagree. Unfortunately, it is present in both the public and private sectors. The distribution is slightly towards the former, but both share significant parts of the pie.
Why are you all so afraid to point out the real issues here? Why are you all so hesitant to accept what’s the real cause of the issue? Why do you like to shift blame to other parts of the society just to exonerate the group that is at the heart of the issue? Why do you like to avoid the truth. I’ve been vocal about this topic for a very long time and by observations have been consistent?
First is the (absence of) money. People say that it’s the lack of proper budget that disables the education systems. However, it has been observed that even if you have a great incentives program, even if you increase the salaries, the problem is still there. When more learning resources are made available, like modern computers and big OLED screens, the problem is still there? At worst are low-income places with high educational statistics? So, how come?
Next is (incompetent) students. It’s often made the case that it’s their fault for not learning; that they’re slow and incompetent; that they can’t catch up; and that they are not equipped to learn new things. Then why is it the case that you have really bright students who are supposed to excel with their favorite subjects, still fail in those subjects themselves? These same students make great progress outside the classrooms. They even pursue personal projects, at home. At worst, are students that have learning disabilities but still excel later in life? So, how come?
Next is the (incompetent) government. It’s already the classic trope that everyone should blame the government when anything fails. The problem is that we all are part of the government. We are all responsible for this. Why is it that even with an abundance of government projects—funding, classrooms, schools, books—the results are still the same? At worst, they don’t give any support to the schools? How come?
Next is (incompetent) school administrators and directors. They’re often blamed for not creating the right school programs that would promote higher levels of educational and teaching competence. They would always cater to the demands and needs of their subordinates. They would send their staff to attend seminars and lectures to learn things that would elevate their profession. At worst, are school administrator would would just sit in their offices doing practically nothing. So, how come?
The real issue is (incompetent) teachers. They are the bottlenecks. Was, is, and will always be. So, you build a house that has the following: structural system, electrical system, phone system, and the plumbing system. When you have a leaking pipe, do you blame the structural system that was in charge of setting up the main pillars of the house? Do you blame the electrical system, that was in charge of wiring down the house? Do you blame the phone system, that was responsible in installing communication lines? Or do you blame the plumbing system that was in charge of installing the water pipes?
Yes, some areas can contribute to the cause of the problem. The phone system can be blamed because nobody can use the phone when the leak started to appear. The electrical system can be blamed because a short-circuit in a room triggered a small fire, that triggered the sprinkler. The structural system can be blamed because a wall had corrosion issues that led to the corrosion of some water pipes. Even with all the areas combined, it will still not contribute to more than 20% of the cause of the problem, that there is a faulty pipe system.
The teachers are the ones directly interacting with students to teach them things that they do not know, that they should know, and things that they should improve on. The teachers are the ones in charge of the lessons plans. They are the ones who have first hand knowledge of the topics. It’s not the school administration. It’s not the school directors. Those two groups can only do so much, because at the end of the day it’s still the technical competence of the teachers that will have the most amount of influence to the students.
The problem is seeing teaching only as a profession. It is not seen as an end it itself. It is seen just as a means to an end. It just regarded by most as just a way to make to ends meet; to pay the bills. Ironically, the teaching that most teachers do, does not happen outside classrooms.
When you have teachers that do not know anything about the subjects that they are teaching, you have a system that is broken from the inside. Before they even get their licenses to teach, they were already failing. Long before they leave the walls of the universities, they’re already well on their way of not doing anything. When you have teachers who don’t have a deep relationship with knowledge and teaching, you have a rotten core.
If you’ll always have to wait for the government to do something, then you miss the point. If you’ll always play the blame game, and point your fingers at the public officials and wait for their support, then by effect, you’ve disabled the generations that you could have supported and uplifted. The best works in science, engineering, literature, and artwork didn’t wait for the government to do something, first.
Institutions
Universities (and colleges) have thrived for a long time because of two key resources: teachers and libraries. They were exclusively the sources where knowledge. However, that’s not the case now with high-speed internet access. The line of accessibility is being blurred for each day that passes. However, there are plenty of fields wherein studying in a university and being exposed to the culture is paramount to your success as a professional. For many fields, the university is the only place where you can meet like-minded individuals that will help you flourish. Some of these fields are Medicine, Law, and Engineering.
The story, however, is different with Software Engineering (SWE). Take note, however, that the field is different with Computer Science, although the former owes its existence to the latter. A lot of the key breakthoughs in the field of SWE came from the early laboratories of Computer Science. But things are different now because the ones who are implementing the software are also the same kinds of people who are doing the academic research. If you want to get a job in SWE, expect to learn more things than you have learned in school.
The entire field of SWE moves at a rapid pace. Your knowledge this month, may become obsolete next month. That is the reason why educators are the bottlenecks. Professors will always be lagging behind industry standards if they’re not part of the industry, which is usually the case. They’re not actively engaged in projects, contributing to (open source) software development, and participating in invention and discovery. What they’re teaching in schools have no viability outside the institution.
If your goal is to become a professional button pusher someday, then, by all means enroll in a university program where it has any of the following labels: «Computer Science», «Information Technology», «Software Engineering», or «Cyber Security». But if you want to run your own software company, or be a high-ranking executive, someday, learn on your own, teach yourself, be an autodidact. The former path is for you if you are a nincompoop.
Machines
At the risk of sounding repetitive and I will say it again: the use of Generative AI (Gen AI) for learning is erosion of common sense. The moment an educator uses it, they waive critical thinking and resigned to idiocy.
Here’s how it works: The professor uses Gen AI for his lessons and exams. The students use Gen AI to answer the exams. The professor uses Gen AI to check the submitted exams. Lather, rinse, repeat. It invariably results to unemployable nincompoops. Gen AI systems fail because these systems don’t know what is right or wrong. This is a classic demonstration of Gödel Incompleteness Theorem. The passionate promotion for Gen AI is inversely proportional to the knowledge of how they work.
If you just want to watch machines talk to machines, then give back responses, and the machines confirm the feedback, and you stay in that loop, then you’re have no value as an educator. Why should students still need to pay you, if the machines are already giving them what they believe they need? All that you’d be doing is being a middleman, which the student can bypass since they can talk directly to these systems.
Most of the applicants that I interview for technical positions fail. Within the first five minutes of the interview, they’ve already demonstrated complete lack of knowledge of the things they have written in their CVs. Almost 50% of the applicants use CV generators. The other 50% put fillers—lots and lots of false information.
Most of what is being taught in school is a tiny subset of what is functional and usable outside. This, then, creates the illusion of competence and talent. And of course, educators couldn’t care less about it. As long as you’re not implementing it, you don’t understand it. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
To make things worse, there are clowns everywhere that have popped up like mushrooms. What they do is talk endlessly about artificial intelligence governance, policies, regulations, alignment, assessment, readiness. Seriously? I can’t understand why they have the audacity to talk in front of crowds carrying with them serious faces of pseudo-competence. Artificial intelligence is the compound of the scientific research, the engineering, the tools, the community, and the economy. You can’t treat it like physical commodity found in the supermarket. Of course, the truth is that they lobby policies so that they secure seats of power to control the industry, more than the facade of seminars and conventions.
Closing remarks
There are no shortcuts to learning. You still have to pour in the hundreds, if not thousands of hours, in order to get better. If you want to be able to lift that heavy barbell, you have to train to lift it. You have take a special program that will allow you to progressively lift weights, until you reach your goal. Having somebody lift the weights for you will never make you stronger. No amount of training by others, for you, will increase your muscular strength.
When you have a culture that embraces beauty pageants; noontime shows; singing and dancing competitions; more than science, mathematics, language, and philosophy; you have a system that is bound to fail. When you have a culture that worships anti-intellectualism instead of supporting those who promote genuine learning, you have a system that is weak. When you have a culture that is so eager to see the next barangay basketball tournament instead of organizing donation drives for books and learning resources, you have a system that is illiterate.
Also, see Actors and Warriors: Theatrics and Bloodshed.