Deschooling Society - Education needs fixing

[stOx]

I have just done reading Ivan Illich's book "deschooling society", it's about how schools aren't about education, They are about engineering the working lower classes to follow procedure, routine and instructions and to confuse process with substance; as in, we confuse the efficiency of the police with safety, We mistake a hospital's ability to meet targets with health care and, fundamentally, we mistake exam grades with a students ability to understand the subject.

I'm not suggesting it is a conspiricy, I believe it is a product of the way we live these days.

You can get the gist of the book from the first paragraph.

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work

So how would you fix the failing education system?

[lightless]

Good thread. Schools have the right goal but they teach the wrong things. I have forgot half the things i learned in school and i don't think I'll really have any use for them.

Then again you can't really ask kids what career they want to pursue and provide specialized education because some of us change our minds about our careers a hundred times. The book "Rich dad Poor dad" bemoans the fact that children aren't being made financially literate at schools and says that traditional schooling isn't the way to riches and that the mindset of complete your studies and get a job needs to be changed.

Here might be some things that may be considered for teaching at schools.

1] Ethics and morals and basic human values.
2] How to boost and maintain self-confidence and self-esteem.
3] Dealing with other people.
4] Learning about the self and basic human psychology and physiology. Like how to know what you want, what your goals are, the basics of how brains and minds work and so on.
5] How to use common gadgets and technology.

Basically the things that prove useful to every man throughout [or through most of his] life no matter what he does. Leave out the things that a man will have no use for unless he is going into a specialized career.

[iul]

I would bring in finnish people and let them do it. Seriously. They have a superb education system.

The problem with most education systems is that they rely on grades to grade your knowledge. And you need to have good grades to advance, so ,in a way, what they're actually teaching you is to get big grades. I don't know how the education system works in your countries but here in Romania another crappy part about it is that it relies waaaaaay too much on memorising stuff that you will forget in a couple of months anyway. Another problem is the overcrowded curriculum with crap like religion for example (yes, religion is taught in all public schools as an "optional" class.) or highly advanced math, chemistry, physics, etc

[guerilla]

In the west, the issue more than not, is central planning when it comes to education.

Students should have access to variety in education, variety only the free market can provide.

LewRockwell.com regularly features articles by educators, and Lew himself has written numerous pieces on education. This is one of the best IMO.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/...abolished.html

Excerpt

There will be two stages to the transition. In the first stage, many seemingly bad things will happen. How are the physical buildings handled in our example? They are sold to the highest bidder, whether that be to new school owners, businesses, or housing developers. And the teachers and administrators? All let go. You can imagine the outcry.

With property taxes abolished, people with kids in public schools might move away. There will be no premium for houses in school districts that are considered good. There will be anger about this. For the parents that remain, there is a major problem of what to do with the kids during the day.

With property taxes gone, there is extra money to pay for schools, but their assets have just fallen in market value (even without the Fed), which is a serious problem when it comes to shelling out for school tuition. There will, of course, be widespread hysteria about the poor too, who will find themselves without any schooling choices other than homeschool.

Now, all that sounds pretty catastrophic, doesn't it? Indeed. But it is only phase one. If we can somehow make it to phase two, something completely different will emerge. The existing private schools will be filled to capacity and there will be a crying need for new ones. Entrepreneurs will quickly flood into the area to provide schools on a competitive basis. Churches and other civic institutions will gather the money to provide education.

At first, the new schools will be modeled on the public school idea. Kids will be there from 8 to 4 or 5, and all classes will be covered. But in short order, new alternatives will appear. There will be schools for half-day classes. There will be large, medium, and small schools. Some will have 40 kids per class, and others 4 or 1. Private tutoring will boom. Sectarian schools of all kinds will appear. Micro-schools will open to serve niche interests: science, classics, music, theater, computers, agriculture, etc. There will be single sex schools. Whether sports would be part of school or something completely independent is for the market to decide.

And no longer will the "elementary, middle school, high school" model be the only one. Classes will not necessarily be grouped by age alone. Some will be based on ability and level of advancement too. Tuition would range from free to super expensive. The key thing is that the customer would be in charge.

After all, is it really necessary that each child, learn all of the same things, from the same book, at the same time? That doesn't seem to be very creative or reflective of cultural, geographical, economic, artistic etc differences between students.

[lightless]

Originally Posted by guerilla

After all, is it really necessary that each child, learn all of the same things, from the same book, at the same time?

The answer is a big No. Each child should learn what he likes or will have use for.

[cientificoloco]

Does every child (I mean, 6 years old) know what s/he will have use for?

[lightless]

Originally Posted by cientificoloco

Does every child (I mean, 6 years old) know what s/he will have use for?

No.But [most] adults do know what [most] children will have need of later on. So we will teach the child the basic things that most adults will [really] have use for.

[cientificoloco]

Originally Posted by lightless

No.But [most] adults do know what [most] children will have need of later on. So we will teach the child the basic things that most adults will [really] have use for.

That's the problem. Many adults (I'm not really sure most, are you?) do know it, but many others don't really. I agree many parents are educated and conscious enough to know what's good for their children and will be able to pick the right program/course offer but many others aren't, so they need to trust a school program that will cover the essentials.
I'm not so sure if they should trust a school program that is market driven though.

[guerilla]

Originally Posted by cientificoloco

That's the problem. Many adults (I'm not really sure most, are you?) do know it, but many others don't really. I agree many parents are educated and conscious enough to know what's good for their children and will be able to pick the right program/course offer but many others aren't, so they need to trust a school program that will cover the essentials.

I trust parents to make decisions for their own children, before these guys.









Personally, I resent the notion that the government should raise children instead of parents.

Originally Posted by cientificoloco

I'm not so sure if they should trust a school program that is market driven though.

Not to sound confrontational, but whether they should or shouldn't, should probably be their choice to make, not yours. When we tell others what they can and cannot choose or do, we are obstructing their free choice.

Market driven = customer centric. The market wants to make a profit, so it has an incentive to beat competitors at price and quality. The state has no such incentive, which is why socialism always creates waste and stagnation, and the free market consistently creates innovation and meets demand.