Education

"I was born intelligent, but education ruined me"..... I don't know who had told this but i can't agree more. More and more i studied, less confident i became.
What is the aim of education? We believe, that there is something which our ancestors have found which must be retained and there are many things which are undiscovered which can make our life easier and we(human beings) can experience more happiness. We don't want to "reinvent the wheel". So we try to transfer the knowledge/experience we have gathered in thosands or millions of years of evolution. And then we say, this is what we have found..and now it's up to you to find something better, which will help human being and others. The whole aim is to prepare the coming generation for their journey. As long as it happens, i don't have any issue. The problem arises when we don't say to them that NOW "You are free" and you MUST choose your own path. It is said that when "Buddha" was dying, "Anand" asked him that now what will happen to them? Buddha smiled and told "ATTA-DIPO BHAV" means "Be your own light". (This was also the motto of my school).
And i believe that this is where most of the education system fails. They teach us all the knowledge but slowly kill the ability to become a free person, to become our own light. One of the reason might be that it takes such a long time to learn, that we forget that most important ability we need to develop is "able to take decisions". While teaching we almost forget that this is what we are preparing our students for. We want to make them "self-reliable" but what we end up with is totally "dependable". Student's "decision taking ability" is lost. And we always look to someone, wait for someone, to guide us.
Most of the child are so quick in taking decisions. They exactly "know" that this is what he "needs", this is what he "likes" .... then they get educated and loose their ability to decide and they start doing what others are doing, which is more acceptable in the society. And that's why we find so many varities in children's clothes than ours :) .
But, how can we make a person/child able to take his own decisions? What should be changed in the upbringing of the child so that he can be a free person who decides for himself. Yes, he will always need the input, the data on which his decisions will be based but the decision should be his with proper reason and faith. I don't know "How to do it" but would like to find it out.