Hi and welcome to Effortless English.

This is A.J. Hoag talking to you from San Francisco, California.

Today's podcast is called Change Your Goal. Let's get started. It's so easy to get impatient. We are

conditioned by school and society to demand instant results. Our attention spans get shorter and shorter.

School in particular teaches us a lie. The lie is that in one semester or four years we can take all the

required courses, pass all the required tests, and then receive our degree as proof of our mastery of a subject or subjects.

But this is a farce.

It's a farce in most subjects, not just language education.

In fact, formal school is a very poor place to master any subject or skill.

I got my undergraduate degree in journalism. I graduated with honors. I took

all the required journalism courses and was near the top of my class. I thought I knew the subject well. But upon

graduation I realized that I knew almost nothing about writing or journalism. I was

told by many reporters and editors that journalism school

was almost useless and that the only thing that mattered was developing one's skills

independently through experience.

Several years later, still clueless,

I went back to school to get a master's degree in social work.

I took classes, passed tests, and endlessly analyzed obtuse theories of social work.

At the end of my program, I had an internship. I was placed in an agency that helped abused and neglected teenagers.

After just one week there, I realized that I had no idea what to do.

My master's degree program had not given me any practical knowledge nor

usable theories. Everything I learned as a social worker I learned on the job.

...