Part 2. Show Must Go On?

Today’s kids are struggling to find a reason to learn. The chasm between knowledge and its real-world application kills the very motivation to acquire it. Our society and governments aren’t broadcasting a vision of large-scale, meaningful projects. Look at mass media: what do you see? Influencers, travelers, singers, actors, stand-up comedians—in a word, showmen. They are all selling show. And by selling show, they achieve financial success, inevitably becoming role models for the next generation.

So, what’s left for schools—or educational Telegram channels, websites, Facebook groups, and other platforms that try (as the modern buzzword goes) to “sell” education?

Let’s be honest, we can cross standard public schools off the list. Enjoying a near-monopoly, they have become a children’s storage facility. Parents drop their kids off in the morning (to keep them off the streets) and pick them up in the afternoon.

Private schools, on the other hand, try to sell “kind and attentive teachers,” “small class sizes” and an “individualized approach.”

As for the rest—the Telegram channels, websites, and online communities—they are fighting a brutal war for the attention of a potential student, who is, in reality, just a viewer. How do they do it, if their stated goal is education? It’s simple: they turn education into a show.

  • Watch what happens when we mix THIS with THAT!—Boom, bang, colored smoke!

  • This problem was UNSOLVABLE! Only 0.001% of people can crack it!

  • Did you know the Pacific Ocean is actually called the “Raging” Ocean!??

  • Shock content!

The goal is to hook the viewer at any cost. To do what? To teach them? To teach them what?

Let’s be real, the only things that truly “sell” in education today are just two: standardized test prep and the promise of a high-paying job.

  • Become a data analyst, a data scientist, an AI wizard, an ML engineer, a tech bro—and start earning “big bucks” tomorrow—$100K, $200K, $300K for doing nothing!

Here is the core problem: education cannot be sold. And it cannot be bought.

Education is a two-way street: a teacher teaches, and a student learns. A teacher cannot spoon-feed you a ready-made product to consume before—voilà!—you know everything. It doesn’t work that way!

Now, those attention-grabbing tactics aren’t all bad. They can be powerful when used as a supporting illustration, an interesting hook within a larger, substantive narrative. The danger is when the show is all that remains. The hope that a “wow” effect alone will ignite a lasting desire to learn is utterly unfounded. The same goes for those “edutainment” centers—the interactive science playlands full of special effects and fun gadgets. They’re just another form of entertainment. The student has a blast and then immediately switches back to TikTok, YouTube, and their other digital distractions.

True learning requires effort from the student. It requires questioning the world and a genuine desire to find the answer. It involves the search for a solution and the productive struggle that comes with it. It’s about patiently building a framework of concepts, brick by brick, and creating connections between them. It’s about solving problems on your own—without cheat sheets, answer keys, or having an AI (like ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) do the heavy lifting.

Learning is about daring, about overcoming, about building something new within yourself—about building a new you.

It was never about the show.