Should it be? No.
Simple answers.
Our current education system is set up like a factory, but is this effective for the 21st century?
Absolutely not.
Watch Sir Ken Robinson and he'll elaborate on how our education system is a factory, we are put in the system in batches according to an irrelevant demographic (age).
We are then pushed through the system in levels, each supposed to make us slightly better at what we do. We are taught to value external rewards like grades to get us ready to receive paychecks. We are taught that discipline means success, and that questioning anything will means punishment. Refusing to conform to anything will either get you branded as a troublemaker by your teachers or a loser by our peers. School is a factory that pumps out obedient workers ready to do whatever job the next institution needs them to do.
What should our education system look like?
Well for starters, education needs to be personalized. Students should progress at the pace they do well at; they shouldn't be confined to an age group. Children who excel in something should be guided into an education program that centers around that thing. Grades shouldn't even exist, if you educate people right then you don't need an evaluation method to see who is better than the others. All of your pupils will be at the same level, or at the very least a level in which they can do the job they have adequately. Education should be free, it should be mandatory. Everyone in the world should have some basic foundation of knowledge, after that is accomplished people should then be free to pursue the knowledge that interests them. This only works, however, if society functions very efficiently. That would mean that people are free to pursue the things they love, but are required to do the things they are good at. No matter how much a neurosurgeon wants to paint, he must do his job saving peoples lives and paint in his free time.
Or at least, that's what I think.
Watch Sir Ken Robinson and he'll elaborate on how our education system is a factory, we are put in the system in batches according to an irrelevant demographic (age).
We are then pushed through the system in levels, each supposed to make us slightly better at what we do. We are taught to value external rewards like grades to get us ready to receive paychecks. We are taught that discipline means success, and that questioning anything will means punishment. Refusing to conform to anything will either get you branded as a troublemaker by your teachers or a loser by our peers. School is a factory that pumps out obedient workers ready to do whatever job the next institution needs them to do.
What should our education system look like?
Well for starters, education needs to be personalized. Students should progress at the pace they do well at; they shouldn't be confined to an age group. Children who excel in something should be guided into an education program that centers around that thing. Grades shouldn't even exist, if you educate people right then you don't need an evaluation method to see who is better than the others. All of your pupils will be at the same level, or at the very least a level in which they can do the job they have adequately. Education should be free, it should be mandatory. Everyone in the world should have some basic foundation of knowledge, after that is accomplished people should then be free to pursue the knowledge that interests them. This only works, however, if society functions very efficiently. That would mean that people are free to pursue the things they love, but are required to do the things they are good at. No matter how much a neurosurgeon wants to paint, he must do his job saving peoples lives and paint in his free time.
Or at least, that's what I think.
Very interesting view of education... I hope you read the text I sent you this week-end...
ReplyDeleteI did read that article, but I had written this before and forgotten to actually publish it. It's funny that some of the things that I suggested line up with what the article said should be taught to maintain control, it's also fun to think that what they described has so many parallels to what I had for an education. "fun"
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