CraigHShould School be Compulsory?
October 7th 2006 22:23
Continuing on the theme of compulsory education, it's worth asking if removing every child in the country from his or her family and confining them in the artificial construct of a school is really the best way to prepare them for life.
The UK based Institute of Economic Affairs commissioned a publication Towards a Liberal Utopia? (pdf) for which they asked various authors "look forward 50 years, ignore the politically possible, and show how a liberal policy framework should look in their own areas of expertise."
James Tooley wrote a brilliant article imagining how people in 2055 would view the education of today, part of which runs as follows.
In 2055, according to my semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders in education, people looked back on our obsession with schooling with a mixture of horror and bewilderment. They thought it only folly to imagine that all the diverse aims of education; to prepare young people for adult life, for citizenship, careers and family life, and to initiate them into the best that had been thought and known; could be sensibly realised in one venue; the school or college; and by segregating young people away from adult life. They described schools and colleges as "youth ghettoes", creating an alienated youth culture, miserably cut off from adulthood, forcing young people into compulsory idleness and irresponsibility. "The prolonged agony of adolescence" was one term that was used to describe the result. And they thought our views on teachers were odd, too. Why, they asked, were inspirational teachers given not only the same pecuniary rewards but also the same number of children to teach as teachers who lacked motivational ability? "Even back in 2005," it was pointed out to me, "you had the technological capability to allow inspiring teachers to reach millions of young people, but instead you forced all teachers into an egalitarian straitjacket."
Tooley's reflections remind me of a passage from Churchill's "My Early Life" in which he muses on how unsuited he was for primary school and how all he wanted to do was learn about the "real" world. He wanted to be with his parents ad their friends, find out what they did, learn how the trades and commerce, politics and family life worked rather then being shunted off to school to recite "amo, amas, amat..."
The UK based Institute of Economic Affairs commissioned a publication Towards a Liberal Utopia? (pdf) for which they asked various authors "look forward 50 years, ignore the politically possible, and show how a liberal policy framework should look in their own areas of expertise."
James Tooley wrote a brilliant article imagining how people in 2055 would view the education of today, part of which runs as follows.
In 2055, according to my semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders in education, people looked back on our obsession with schooling with a mixture of horror and bewilderment. They thought it only folly to imagine that all the diverse aims of education; to prepare young people for adult life, for citizenship, careers and family life, and to initiate them into the best that had been thought and known; could be sensibly realised in one venue; the school or college; and by segregating young people away from adult life. They described schools and colleges as "youth ghettoes", creating an alienated youth culture, miserably cut off from adulthood, forcing young people into compulsory idleness and irresponsibility. "The prolonged agony of adolescence" was one term that was used to describe the result. And they thought our views on teachers were odd, too. Why, they asked, were inspirational teachers given not only the same pecuniary rewards but also the same number of children to teach as teachers who lacked motivational ability? "Even back in 2005," it was pointed out to me, "you had the technological capability to allow inspiring teachers to reach millions of young people, but instead you forced all teachers into an egalitarian straitjacket."
Tooley's reflections remind me of a passage from Churchill's "My Early Life" in which he muses on how unsuited he was for primary school and how all he wanted to do was learn about the "real" world. He wanted to be with his parents ad their friends, find out what they did, learn how the trades and commerce, politics and family life worked rather then being shunted off to school to recite "amo, amas, amat..."
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