System Design

Why You Should Reinvent the Wheel

By Adesh Nalpet Adimurthy Jun 26, 2022 1 min read

As I get slightly older and slightly wiser, to me, it’s more and more apparent that we humans live a life full of contradiction, are rarely self-satisfied, and thrive on learning and discovering new things. It’s as if a duty to contribute with all the might to a better future, not for oneself, but for the future, that’s way beyond imagination and self-existence.

On these lines, it almost always gets to my core when someone overuses “Don’t reinvent the wheel”, implying that a solution to the problem already exists. In most cases, to underplay the problem or assert an opinion before understanding the crux of the problem.

Starting with the obvious, the wheel would still look like a big chunk of stone that rolls if we didn’t reinvent the wheel. While some may say that it’s an upgrade rather than reinvention, going by the definition “change (something) so much that it appears to be entirely new,” reinvention is more than fair in this context.

Evolution of Wheel!

The primitive wheel did the job thousands of years ago but completely unprepared for today’s world. If not for the natural innovators around the world who insisted and invested in reinventing the wheel from time to time.

Once again, it’s not just about reinventing anything and everything, using the phrase so much that it has become so common that we often don’t challenge the existing solutions is something to ponder on. But this isn’t always true; products that are deeply engraved in our daily lives are eagerly awaited. For instance, the communication medium, specifically mobile devices, has drastically changed (reinvented) in a short span of 2 decades.

While I agree that all of these are subjective and among the common examples that have conflicting reactions. What if the repercussions are profound and have a severe impact on the future of the world. At first thought, the education system has been about the same for the past 100 years or earlier; despite the efforts of amazing educators to adapt to the modern world, the changes aren’t drastic.

English, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, no doubt these are essential, but it seems unfair to ask students to pause their passions while they put all of their time and work into these “core” subjects. Imagine a world where students go to school and teachers help them explore their passion and are more concerned about equipping students with the skills and opportunities rather than teaching the same generic content over and over again. No doubt the education system is stuck in a timeline, and it’s about time to reinvent the wheel of education suited to the road of 2022 and beyond.

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