School Writing vs. Real Writing

Continuing on yesterday’s theme.

The entire education apparatus, from kindergarten through college, teaches skills relevant to how to succeed in academia, and nothing relevant to how to succeed in the free-market.

Take writing as one example.

In school, you write to criteria determined by others on topics of interest to them then submit it to a single “expert” to review it in secret and tell you if they think it’s worthy. Just like the academic peer review and publication process. But nothing like any kind of valuable writing in the real world, where you get no assignments, you are exposed to the full market, you need to motivate relevant action among your target audience regardless of “expert” opinion, and you have real profit/loss at stake.

No wondered degreed people have a hard time creating value in the real world. They learned the opposite most of their lives.

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Isaac Morehouse is the founder and CEO of Praxis, an awesome startup apprenticeship program. He is dedicated to the relentless pursuit of freedom. He’s written some books, done some podcasting, and is always experimenting with self-directed living and learning. When he’s not with his wife and kids or building his company, he can be found smoking cigars, playing guitars, singing, reading, writing, getting angry watching sports teams from his home state of Michigan, or enjoying the beach.