What is education for?

[Stanfordian]

Hinted at, but not followed up, on another thread.

What is education for?

Sir, Sir!... Miss, Miss!... Me, Me!

To allow parents not to have children under their feet all day.
To allow children to make friends with other children
To allow parents time to go to work.
What would teachers do without children?
To save parents teaching children how to behave.
To see how many children can fit into classroom.

Private education
To teach toffs that they are different they are from the great unwashed.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The schooling requirement in the modern age is principally one of assimilation. Possibly the most interesting aspect is the framework for defining acceptable levels of rebellion so that rebellion is simply an extension of social conformity. "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control". On the surface, this is the epitome of the unacceptable. In reality such sentiments are actively encouraged for they represent conflict which for some reason is a social requirement of adults. What is actually unacceptable is non-attendance.

For a fuller understanding of this quaint phenomenon, just two points need to be borne in mind. One, in order to make a new law one effectively has to break an old law so the law makers are also habitual law breakers. Two, in order to enforce the law, you have to pretend that everything preceding it even if it occurred yesterday was always totally irrelevant.

That presupposes that what goes on in schools is somehow concerned with "education".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What is education for?

Sir, Sir!... Miss, Miss! Me, Me!

To allow parents not to have children under their feet all day.
To allow children to make friends with other children
To allow parents time to go to work.
What would teachers do without children?
To save parents teaching children how to behave.
To see how many children can fit into classroom.

Private education
To teach toffs that they are different they are from the great unwashed.

That - along with keeping most kids off the streets - might well be what schools are for; but that presupposes that what goes on in schools is somehow concerned with "education".

[vinteuil]

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... I think it is a good use of the energies of those with what we term an "unhealthy interest" in the young that they devote themselves to education. Provided, of course, that their "interests" are sublimated. Who else is likely to wish to be so devoted to such unrewarding charges?



.

[DracoM]

Actually, 'private schools' by law have to teach exam schedules set down by statutory examining boards as well. As such, and they may do a deal else and other, but in respect of exams, they actually help to keep private and public education more closely in synch.

And, of course, yes, 'education' is far, far more than exams.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And, of course, yes, 'education' is far, far more than exams.

Indeed. It's also far, far more than "schools" ... and far, far more than just "young people".

[vinteuil]

.

... 'education'

As Mr Gradgrind might say -

" ... 'ed. As in, bonce. 'Uk-ay' - our luvverly homeland. 'shun' - avoid, scarper... "

So - anyone with anything in their bonce will be getting out, right?


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[Serial_Apologist]

Hinted at, but not followed up, on another thread.

The lifelong impartation of knowledge and, on the symbiotic principle, inculcation of the optimal use of the resulting generalisation of the intelllgence endowed thereby for individual and collective fulfilment in contributing to a fair, sustainable world congruent with its natural sustaining life support systems.

[Ferretfancy]

LADY BRACKNELL

" Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate,education produces no result whatever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."

[ardcarp]

LADY BRACKNELL

" Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate,education produces no result whatever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."

Wonderful!

[Bryn]

Resurrecting this old thread to link to this recent THE article by Ian Pace: https://www.timeshighereducation.com...ical-knowledge

[JasonPalmer]

My five year old says its for learning things and playing with other children.

[Padraig]

This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U is worth 11 minutes and 40 seconds of anyone's time.

I have just come across this thread today, so I regret having missed this particular contribution. I regret even more that it was not available when I was a struggling teacher in a group trying to pin down ideas expressed so well here. It was well worth it Richard.

Bryn, I was dying to read that article by Ian Pace, but I don't like registering for online things. Anyway, I'm out of teaching for 35 years now, and so is my teacher group, and 'education' has moved on . . . or has it?

Thanks both.

[Bryn]

I have just come across this thread today, so I regret having missed this particular contribution. I regret even more that it was not available when I was a struggling teacher in a group trying to pin down ideas expressed so well here. It was well worth it Richard.

Bryn, I was dying to read that article by Ian Pace, but I don't like registering for online things. Anyway, I'm out of teaching for 35 years now, and so is my teacher group, and 'education' has moved on . . . or has it?

Thanks both.

If you are on Facebook, try Ian's pages. That's where I got the link from. He quotes a good part of the article there. Better still, try https://www.facebook.com/jim.artmus.1

[smittims]

I've come to separate 'education' itself, an opening-up of the mind to the possibilities of life, from 'education policy ' (including curriculum). It seems to me that education in its purest sense is spoilt and even hindered by governments, who are always thinking of national prestige, so the percentage of teenagers at University or with A-levels or equivalent becomes a source of competition with other countries. Whether or not such a system serves the needs of individual people seems to get swept aside.

I've long thought that we have ended up with too many universities, and 'a degree' is just a job-qualification, not even implying any real value of its own. I think a lot of young people neither want nor need academic-style learning.

I once had an interesting conversation late one night while waiting for a rail connection, with a chap calleed Turnbull. He was a teacher, and he maintained that school should be voluntary , to avoid the vast waste of attempting to teach children who didn't want to learn, and to concentrate on those who did. On my raising the traditional argument (I was only 21 at the time!) that one learnt best as a child, he countered it by saying one learnt best when one wanted to learn. If later in life these people discovered their need for learning they could get it then , under his proposed system. But of course this wouldn't suit government statistics.