As I read these excerpts on education, it seems education is a double-edged sword. On one side, education appears to free the mind as Socrates (through Plato) and Plato suggest. On the other side, education almost appears to be a means of societal control. Even the definition of education seems to imply this inherent control. We defined the purpose of education on our first day of class as the means by which society perpetuates itself and produces the type of person society wants to see or be. This seems to leave little room for independent thought or creativity. I am not suggesting that citizens should be able to go around doing whatever they want but do consider our current education system. Oftentimes, teachers present the same material in the same manner to the students. In some instances, desks are lined up in rows like soldiers in a military. Not much creativity is encouraged in this type of atmosphere. Students are usually encouraged to be creative in art, music, and, at times in class, when they do creative writing. The curriculum leaves little room for exploration.
Gutmann states, “A democratic state, therefore, must take steps to avoid those inequalities that deprive children of educational attainment adequate to participate in the political process.” It seems here that education has nothing to do with liberation but that it exists so that students can become soldiers of society only educated so they can be almost like slaves to the system as opposed to educating children simply because they have a right as human beings to be taught things. Students seem to be only good or valuable in light of what they can offer to society.
This mentality then trickles down to the allocation of resources. Resources should be allocated in accordance with the democratic threshold principle. It isn’t right to say, “Oh, we are going to give this child such and such because he is smarter and we won’t give anything to this other child because he is a waste of resources.” Children should be given equal resources and then additional resources could be further allocated in accordance with their abilities. Even when children exhibit a lesser desire for learning, they should be encouraged. It should not be assumed that they will never achieve something greater. The motivations for distributing these resources stills remains questionable. Children should not be educated simply for what they can contribute to society. They should be educated because they are human beings and deserve the right to be educated. Children should be treated as having intrinsic value and not just as a means to an end i.e. society’s work-horse.
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2 comments:
I like the title! Never thought about Education being a double-edged sword before.
Being a substitute, who has been in the high school classroom for nearly five years, I can say that the seating arrangement does vary from teacher to teacher. Not in the traditional lineup that we might remember. Some teachers are using different styles of seating arrangements (half and half, some at an angle, etc).
My only problem with education is having to stick within the limited curriculum of a subject like Social Studies (my M.A.T. concentration) and it does leave little wiggle room for creativity.
Here, we should come up with a few things for students to use when applying the knowledge. For instance, creative projects such as the Global Cafe Menu (applying Geographic knowledge) or pasting collages together. Different things will work for different content areas.
I do not believe that educating students is "brainwashing" them to think like what society expects of them. It is important to make sure that we teach them the difference between right and wrong, while at the same time we should bring out the goodness or value in them. Personal experience, from my earlier days in teaching, taught me this!
This is a really good post (and comment from Brian). It illustrates one of the fundamental tensions in education -- individual needs/desires vs. social needs. Another way to look at is is liberation vs. indoctrination. There are those who see schools as primarily serving social purposes and, thus, corrupting or brainwashing the child (see Rousseau or Ivan Illich). There are others who see schools as being necessary for the continued functioning of society and/or making the individual into someone who is "at home" in the social group. A lot of this goes back to one's view on human nature -- are we basically good, with society corrupting that nature, or are we basically bad, with society being necessary to curb our nasty tendencies?
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