in defense of the mitochondria

or why some criticisms of our education system are lazy

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. You still remember this piece of science 'trivia' from high school science! Mainly because the mitochondria is invoked so often in internet memes, to exemplify the amount of useless things we are taught in school. “We should be taught finance and taxes and how to make money” - tech bros decry on Twitter (or X now I guess?). Kidults share memes with captions like “Still waiting for the time when I will use the Pythagorean theorem in real life”.

Now, I am not one to defend the education system. But I disagree with these memes.

For one, my grandfather was a botany professor! If he hadn’t learnt about the mitochondria, I wouldn’t be getting all those sweet cash gifts on every birthday.

There is a certain kind of person, who generally makes these arguments. They value making money over all else. The kinds of people who look at the world as a zero-sum game, made up of losers and winners (and they are most definitely winners, thank you very much!). When you talk about the importance of knowledge, your arguments are discussed as being idealistic and you are asked to ‘think practically, man!’.

Look, it is important that kids are introduced to the wide array of progress our species has made, and all the pain, grief, and suffering we caused along the way. An appreciation of our place in the universe, our relationship with the rest of the natural world, and how we relate to other members of our species is extremely crucial and necessary grounding.

My life would have been significantly poorer if I hadn’t been introduced to Zakir Hussain as a tabla player in GK class in 3rd grade. If I hadn’t been exposed to that Vikram Seth poem about Melon City, I wouldn’t have found my favorite writer.

How do these idiots think the bridges, roads, satellites, vaccines, or pressure cookers work? Without, Pythogoras, and other sciency, mathy people!!! (look - I study things like brand voice, customer experience, and social media marketing ... I don’t know how the real world works).

Sure, there are problems with the education system, of course the syllabi could be better. But you can’t reasonably expect private or public schools to teach every life skill. Infact, I don’t think many of those skills are teachable. Nor do I think that a 6 - through - 17 years old me would be receptive to most of those ‘real life skills!’.

The most important skill, I think, which a good school teaches is learning to learn. So that I can learn to learn, how I can declare the money I get every year from my grandfather as a gift and not have to pay tax on it. So that I can learn, if I want to, how pressure cookers work*

Now of cours, I was privileged enough to go to a school (and tuition) where I learned how to learn! Not everyone has that privilege. But the solution to that is better schools, better teachers, and more public monies spent on these things. Not, tech-solutionist garbage like ‘teach everyone to code’, or drop ‘French Revolution’ and instead teach ‘History of Crypto' !!

*If I am being honest, I won’t actually, ever sit down to understand how pressure cookers work. Heat and water, and pressure and something. Those things all sound scary, and I have sat in enough thermodynamics classes to know that that stuff is for freaks and aliens to understand.