Why do we need professors in kindergarten?

I am not joking. We do need professors to teach in kindergarten. Why? Because I believe the best stuff should be fed to children early in their lives. So, they would become better at what they are good at from early life. I am not saying current teachers do a bad job in training kids. By all means, it maybe not in kindergarten, maybe in pre-school. but I am sure you get my point when I give the extreme option. I can show you few reasons behind this claim. After all I am not trying to lie here or consider this as a joke for that matter. I do joke and more than 90% of the stuff presented here in this blog can be considered what I believe to be true. And that is a far better number than any other shit you are going to read or hear today. But let's get back to our kindergarten class once again. This time to understand what went wrong.

Kindergarten https://unsplash.com/@freetimejam

Story of a professor.

I heard this marvelous story about a professor who was asked to do a lecture on some topic of concern. He was given two weeks and organizer asked whether he could do it in time. And he said, "it depends". Obviously, the organizer asked, "depends on what?"

Professor said, how much time I get?

Organizer said, twenty minutes.

Professor said. Well then, I can do it. You know if it is a one hour lecture I could do it even now. But if its twenty minutes two weeks is just enough for me to prepare. And if it is just five minutes you give me on stage I would need one month at least.

This little story gives me two important messages. You cannot measure the value of a task just by amount of time you perform on stage. It often seems unfair when we see someone singing a song for three minutes and get lifetime of free rides singing. Yet we forget the amount of effort the artist had used to be that person who sings perfect, for three minutes. Consider articles in this blog. It takes someone only three minutes average to read one. But the amount of effort I have put in this is enormous. Not only the four hours I spend writing and editing. Effort of Combined human consciousness starting from the ancestors who built the language is massive.

Other important fact is, sometimes it is hard to simplify things, and its paradoxical. If you think teaching a kindergarten kid is a mediocre job, no wonder we fill our society with mediocre people. Instead, we need a professor to prepare his lifetime of wisdom into its simplest form. Selecting only essential items and taught to kids. So, they can build upon later, faster and stronger, like a strong base for a higher skyscraper.

Why limit knowledge to University When it matters most to everyone: https://unsplash.com/@wangxin96

Professor in kindergarten

I can remember once I watched an interview with Richard Feynman. And he said there are no special people on the world. Only passionate ones who likes to put effort into building or learning something. How wonderful idea is that. According to him the best way to learn something is to simplify it until you are able to teach it to a five-year-old kid? And he had shown this practically by summarizing entire physics into four basic forces. And as you can see teaching kids is not a mediocre task at all. Only professors would know how daunting task that is. Adults have a vast base of information accumulated over the years hence new material will make sense. But kids do not have these extra connections. Yet it is not an impossible task to teach a kid even complex material like motor mechanic or chemistry.

When I say professors need to get involved in kindergarten does not literally mean they should start teaching. They can get involved in making the teaching material. Maybe they already do, which I am not aware of. And it doesn't have to be someone labelled professor either. Someone extremely knowledgeable about some subject (a domain expert) can be considered a professor in the field. Maybe they have more to contribute to kids learning.

This process of learning complex ideas happens all the time in kindergarten. Often naturally. Like language, through imaginary play etc. I wonder what will happen if we really try and introduce more core concepts of other languages than English. How about color theory? Concepts of programming? Little bit of fundamental philosophy about values of life? I only wish I learned them earlier what I have learned last year, writing this blog. And I think it is never late. After all, if we want our kids to be experts in their field's future, we must teach them how to become professors.