Competition Destroys Education | Hamid Tizhoosh | TEDxUW

Education is supposed to prepare us for life. However, our schools, colleges, and universities are solely designed to teach us some skills. Concentrating on teaching knowledge, the education system is completely consumed by “The Ranking Disorder”; everything is ranked to find the best, and to be the best. This has made the postsecondary institutions to aggressive trade schools with no deep understanding of learning and intelligence. The cutthroat nature of competition culture and its relentless attempt to quantify, compare and rank students, professors and universities breeds psychological disorders like stress, anxiety, loneliness, and depression that occasionally erupt into physical violence: student suicide. The ranking disorder appears to be a “grotesque derailment” in the evolution of human beings, a phenomenon that permeates all aspects of our lives. The right way of education has to be free from ranking and competitiveness; it should emphasize the discovery and nurturing intelligence by learning to be sensitive, inquisitive, and compassionate. Hamid Tizhoosh is a professor at the University of Waterloo since 2001. He teaches algorithms and computer programming, artificial intelligence, and medical imaging. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx