Sunday, March 08, 2009
Thought for the day: The purpose of education
In any industrial or post-industrial society, the purpose of primary and secondary education should be to develop in the student the capacity and aspiration to learn constantly over the student's entire life. To the extent that primary and secondary education does not do that, it is failing. To the extent that it promotes objectives other than these, it is straying from its mission and wasting the time of the student and the resources of the society.
Discuss.
15 Comments:
By 
Christopher Chambers, at
Sun Mar 08, 06:11:00 PM:
[Some of your cohorts would say the purpose is purely "base level" workforce development, with elite level (e.g. not a diploma mill/online U) higher education for those who are better conditioned to lead.]
I agree with you--instilling a love of learning, growing, evolving (oops...with some "intelligent design" guiding it lol) should be the goal. Everything else flows from that. In the DC-MD-No.Va. area I can say the failure's across the board: from the elite--and yes conservative--private schools, to public and charter or religious schools. There's something rotten extending from this jumping off point, all the way to college and beyond. Students expecting B's just for coming to class; surveys showing that MBA students are the most likely to cheat among all the professional/post grad areas (law, med, etc.).
I have no clue how to stem/stanch this.
By Mrs. Davis, at
Sun Mar 08, 06:19:00 PM:
This proposition presumes that people (1) want to, (2) ought to, and (3) are able to be life long learners. While I am not prepared to refute any of those assumptions, I also don't know the extent to which they are defensible.
I also worry about any public institution that is involved in shaping people's aspirations. It seems to me that is best left for other institutions.
What I do believe is that primary and secondary education should teach the skills needed to be an active participant in the ir communities. This means basic skills such as the three Rs, dealing with normal commercial transactions such as balancing a checkbook, using credit, saving and investing, obtaining housing, leased and purchased, nutrition, health, our constitutional form of government and its heritage, and the greater world about us. To the extent primary and secondary education fails to accomplish these goals, it is failing.
This should be accomplished by the age of 14. Then, young people should begin productive lives that incorporate whatever degree of life long learning they can afford. Life long learning, like the stay at home mother, is the ultimate social luxury in a materialist society like ours. While the upper middle class may be sufficiently well off to afford it, the rest of society is still working their buns off trying to make ends meet.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Mar 08, 06:26:00 PM:
All fair points, Mrs. Davis, although I am not sure I agree with the last. When I say "life long learning" I do not mean the endless sitting in classrooms or taking of courses. I mean the ability to keep learning in important and useful ways, often very practical ways. Most towns have a decent public library that costs nothing. Most people spend time watching television that might be spent reading or teaching themselves something, but they do not because they are missing either the capacity or the aspiration. (This can be taken to extremes, of course. Yesterday afternoon I took the kids to see Watchmen, and then came home and watched two recorded episodes of Battlestar Galactica, so I am no ascetic.)
By SR, at
Sun Mar 08, 06:31:00 PM:
Mrs D. Has it right. The basics she mentions are extremely boring when compared with today's online world. This is where computer gamers are failing the next generation. Somebody has got to figure out how to leverage the online community to inculcate the basics. I took my daughters to Japanese style math classes on Sunday mornings so they would be able to do basic math without a calculator. The reward:
Cheeseburgers,Fries, and a Milkshake at Johnny Rocket's. One of their regular teachers complained that she wanted to have something left to teach. And this was a great teacher. At least there are two young adults who can do math in their heads.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Mar 08, 07:19:00 PM:
Suppose we are successful in teaching our children how to be lifelong learners...how will that help them adapt to a society whose mores leaves little to those who think outside the box?
At Hopkins, we were told that it is more important to be taught HOW TO THINK than WHAT TO KNOW. That concept gives rise to creative, extraordinary physicians.
We now have a society that will gauge the "excellence" of it's medical care by the ability of the participants to adhere to rigid guidelines, often developed by mediocre intellects.
I suspect the same is true in every walk of life.
Society will suffer much more for KEEPING children behind than it will for LEAVING children behind.
So, I'm an elitist...somebody has to stick up for it.
By 
, at
Sun Mar 08, 07:27:00 PM:
I concur that instilling the wish and the capacity for life-long learning is tremendously important. However, I do not think it a waste of the students' time or the Republic's resources to add another objective of primary and secondary education: understanding the story about how and why our Republic was created and the values that undergird it. The more our citizens understand that, the more likely they will be to conserve and protect it.
Best wishes,
Jim
By , at
Sun Mar 08, 08:44:00 PM:
While we have well-entrenched institutions for all education thru grad school, there are none for "lifelong learning." The institutional assumption was that you would enter lifelong employment in one or more organizations, which might help you continue learning. They did not do it, except in rare instances. As more and more knowledge workers become independent contractors, they will be able to arrange their work stints so they can have learning and renewal experiences. There is probably a market for this, whose delivery medium may well be web 3.0. But learning purveyors seem to be intent on displacing our currently inefficient universities, not addressing this market. Tom
By Mrs. Davis, at
Sun Mar 08, 09:11:00 PM:
Tom,
I have good news for you. The hammer of this depression has not yet fallen on our betters in the hallowed halls of academe. But it is about to do so. With a vengeance. And there will be dramatic changes in their business models as they respond to the market forces as every other enterprise in America has had to.
Not only will they be responding to the pressure of fewer numbers of high school seniors graduating and heading for college, they will have to deal with parents who are unwilling to subject themselves or their children to the ridiculous levels of debt that have heretofore been accumulated to finance the purchase of a valuable sheepskin.
As a result, there will be lots of innovation on the net, at alternative providers, such as community colleges and private providers, as well as flexibility unknown in the past. And there will be wails for bailouts before the inevitable shutdowns. But a better system will emerge, if we let it.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Sun Mar 08, 11:14:00 PM:
Unfortunately, there is a new business model--present sadly in some "elite" private schools at the elementary and secondary level, and now in higher ed.
It's the "student as customer" model. The school and the education become the product. (on the elementary level the parent, I suppose, is the customer). We're told to bend to what the students want, not antagonize them, keep enrollments up.
Bullshit.
The only business model that is worth a damn is one in the student in the product him/herself, and the system is taking the raw material and refining, fabricating, improving and packaging.
By , at
Mon Mar 09, 12:07:00 AM:
Jim Nichols is correct. In addition to learning how to read and write, every child needs to be taught about the constitution and the history of the country. This is essential to promote life long learning because our past has shaped our present just as surly as our present will shape our future.
I have met college educated people who thought that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat and that the Republicans started the KluKluxKlan. That is a tragedy, even more so because people like that vote.
By , at
Mon Mar 09, 12:47:00 AM:
I'm considering putting my daughter in private school because our "great" school system is failing. Failing no child left behind, in spite of being full of professionals and college professors, whose child are appropriately motivated to learn. Failing because all its resources are directed to the few in each classroom whose home environment is awful, and they bring their behavioral problems before anything else. Their families can't put a decent breakfast in them let alone send them with lunch, expectation of appropriate behavior and an outcome that includes learning grade level subject matter. The school exists to babysit the miscreant or two per class. Our afterhours math class for our daughter (Kumon) is necessary because there is no attempt at all to move the bright kids forward, only to move that trailing ones up. That is not a model for the future of America, and we're a top system for NC. It is badly broken.
Private schools down here exist because even towns as affluent as mine cannot offer a classroom setting that's not Welcome Back Kotter. All we're asking for is the three R's, and all we get is a month of "black history" and uninspired "teaching" and a bureacracy that's more concerned with hurting someone's feelings, a lawsuit, or accusation that it's somehow unfair that the most eager to learn actually get their needs met along with those with the greatest need to learn the value of education, and the promise of escape from a difficult start/home. The bright and properly adjusted kids are getting screwed. We fully integrated, so the kids getting screwed are a cross section of the town.
If I'm on the other side of you on this Chris, I'm not surprised, but it isn't bullshit. The schools and educators aren't getting the job done, and it's creating a great business opportunity for the few who are willing, and private, and not bound by a model that discriminates against our future leaders. The student can't be a marketable end product when the system is operated to produce a subpar outcome.
By , at
Mon Mar 09, 02:06:00 AM:
The only business model that is worth a damn is one in [which] the student in [sic] the product him/herself, and the system is taking the raw material and refining, fabricating, improving and packaging.
They didn't teach us much business back in Diesel College, so maybe I'm missing the obvious here, but: shouldn't you be able to show your business model to your suppliers without them fleeing your office? Since we know kids are just raw material, I'm left wondering what's in it for their parents,to induce them to offer that kid up to the funnel end of Professor Chambers' refining-fabricating-improving-packaging machine.
By , at
Mon Mar 09, 08:40:00 AM:
But I thought the purpose of education was to indoctrinate the gullible into politically correct thinking???
By Mrs. Davis, at
Mon Mar 09, 08:59:00 AM:
JT,
Prepare to be disappointed. The private schools only have to be marginally better than the public and keep out the totally disfunctional students to survive. The problems of primary and secondary education have so thoroughly permeated our culture that they are neigh on to inescapable. So prepare to do remedial education at the supper table no matter where you send your children.
Unless you homeschool.
By Mike, at
Mon Mar 09, 11:00:00 AM:
Strikes me this is an argument between elitism and pragmatism - as opposed to left and right.
The Princetons and Hopkins of the world move in social circles with many elites - and think a lot of the world "looks" like them. There's a good place for elitism, but it isn't in providing services to the masses. Leaving aside market distortions, most Americans need standardized services (a la McDonalds) or possibly mass customization. This is true both of medicine (where lots of people can't afford a decent GP or even an LPN) and education.
Education was wonderful back in the Fifties (it didn't hurt that discrimination made this an excellent career choice for many women and Jews). The schools focused on the 3Rs, but many people came out with a lifelong love of knowledge. Those who didn't were still well-equipped to be plumbers, cops, and nurses.
We got fancy and decided that primary education was about more than mastery of the course material, classroom discipline, and rote learning ("Another Brick in the Wall", anyone?). Advanced degrees, self-esteem, and individualized learning plans rule the roost now.
There has to be a breaking point to this mess. Maybe it will grow out of the burgeoning homeschooling movement.
PS - I applaud CC's efforts to wake up his students with real grading. However, I can assure him that the widespread cheating is not confined to MBAs or JDs. Everyone is doing it - even engineering students.
