We call it education. But if you finish 12 years of it and still don't know how to think, what was it really?

I spent 16 years in school. I learned how to pass tests, how to follow rubrics, how to raise my hand at the right time. I learned what the teacher wanted to hear. I learned how to please.

But I didn't learn how to think. Not really.

Not how to question a claim. Not how to hold two opposing ideas in tension without imploding. Not how to trace a thought back to its root assumptions. Not how to develop an interior life.

Education was a conveyor belt. Not a forge.

The Three Fictions of Modern Schooling

Fiction 1: Knowledge = Intelligence

We confused memorization with wisdom. We thought if we could recite the facts, we understood the subject.

Google has all the facts now. But discernment? That's yours to build.

Intelligence isn't what you know. It's how you think about what you know. It's the ability to question, to synthesize, to see patterns, to change your mind when the evidence changes.

School taught us to accumulate information. It didn't teach us what to do with it.

Fiction 2: Thinking = Obedience

"Raise your hand." "Follow the rubric." "Don't question the test."

Independent thought was seen as rebellion, not rigor. Curiosity was tolerated only if it stayed within the curriculum. Questions were welcome only if they had predetermined answers.

We learned that thinking meant following instructions. That intelligence meant compliance. That success meant giving the teacher what they wanted.

Real thinking is messier. It involves doubt, revision, dead ends, and uncomfortable questions. It doesn't fit on a rubric.

Fiction 3: Learning Ends at Graduation

The implicit message: once school ends, the need to learn ends too. You've been educated. You're done.

In truth, real thinking begins when school ends. When there's no longer a structure to hide behind. When there's no teacher to tell you what matters. When you have to decide for yourself what's worth knowing and why.

The people who stop learning after graduation were never taught to learn in the first place. They were taught to perform.

What We Should Have Been Taught

How to Think

We should have learned how to question a claim. How to identify assumptions. How to follow an argument to its logical conclusion. How to spot fallacies. How to change our minds.

We should have learned how to hold two opposing ideas in tension without needing to resolve them immediately. How to sit with uncertainty. How to think probabilistically instead of binarily.

We should have learned that not all thoughts are true. That emotions aren't facts. That our first reaction is often wrong.

How Other Great Minds Thought

We read about Socrates. We didn't learn the Socratic method. We didn't practice asking questions to expose the fault lines in our own beliefs.

We read about Jung. We didn't learn to listen to the unconscious, to dreams, to symbols. We didn't learn that the mind has depths we don't control.

We read about Martin Luther King Jr. We didn't learn how he merged thought and action, how he turned moral imagination into social change, how he wrestled with doubt while maintaining conviction.

We learned what they said. We didn't learn how they thought.

How to Handle Our Own Minds

We should have learned metacognition: thinking about thinking. Watching our own thought patterns. Noticing when we're rationalizing instead of reasoning.

We should have learned mental hygiene. How to journal. How to seek solitude. How to read deeply. How to have real conversations instead of debates.

We should have learned that the mind is a tool that requires maintenance. That it can be trained, sharpened, or allowed to atrophy.

What Thinking Actually Looks Like

Thinking is slow. It resists the scroll. It requires sustained attention on a single problem or question.

Thinking is uncomfortable. It forces you to question yourself before you question others. It reveals your own inconsistencies, your own biases, your own ignorance.

Thinking is active. It involves writing, testing, revising, doubting, deciding. It's not passive consumption. It's active construction.

Most people avoid thinking because it's hard. It's easier to adopt the consensus view and move on. It's easier to let others do the thinking for you.

But the consensus view is often wrong. Or at least incomplete.

The New Education: A Self-Directed Curriculum

Read the Originals

Don't just read quotes from great thinkers. Read their thoughts in their own words.

Read Jung's essays, not summaries of Jung. Read Plato's dialogues, not textbook explanations of Plato. Read Baldwin's letters, MLK's sermons, Montaigne's essays.

Read slowly. Read with a pen. Read to understand, not to finish.

Write to Make Thought Tangible

Thinking without writing is like lifting without progressive overload. You're going through the motions, but you're not building strength.

Writing forces clarity. It reveals gaps in your logic. It makes vague thoughts concrete.

Treat writing as resistance training for the mind. Write to think, not just to communicate.

Seek Conversation, Not Validation

Stop trying to be right. Try to be refined.

Talk with people who challenge you, not just those who mirror you. Seek out perspectives that make you uncomfortable. Listen to understand, not to respond.

Real conversation is collaborative thinking. It's two minds working together to get closer to truth. It's not a debate where someone wins.

Reclaim Your Mind

The system may have failed to teach you how to think. But now it's your job.

The great thinkers didn't wait for permission. They didn't wait for a curriculum. They turned their minds into instruments.

Socrates questioned everything until Athens killed him for it. Jung spent years exploring his own unconscious. MLK read theology and philosophy in prison and emerged with a vision that changed a nation.

They taught themselves how to think. You can too.

Start now. Read deeply. Write clearly. Think freely.

That's education.