February 22nd, 2009
Toren posted a link from a TED talk on his blog – it’s about wisdom and morality and I really liked it. (Here is a link to the talk on YouTube.) Just today I started a new book and the introductory paragraph is related, so I thought I’d post it here not only for Toren but in case my wise and thoughtful readers have any thoughts on the topic:
Chapter 1: Why We Must Disestablish School
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. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating mroe resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.
Illich, Ivan. (1971). Deschooling Society. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
I find this a very interesting idea. Just last night Husband and I were out with our cousin/friend Chris and discussing school: what does it accomplish, particularly for the young? Are there better alternatives to traditional schooling (which is itself not so traditional, being something like only 100 years old as a standard institution)? In particular, how does school address the important issues of moral learning, values, emotional development and wellbeing, in addition to academic work?
I’m just beginning to think about this stuff so I have no firm conclusions. I will say my school experience when I was young was pretty dismal – the other kids seemed like savage, nasty rotters to me, I was deeply unhappy, and also bored and unchallenged by the academic work. I don’t think I came out of public school with much in the way of integrity, dignity, self esteem, happiness, emotional well being, or for that matter education. Of course it’s not the job of school to provide the full measure of all of those but I think it should be the job of school to provide some portion of all of those – otherwise how can they justify demanding the presence of developing children all day long?
Any thoughts?
I was thinking about my business ethics course just the other day, and suddenly realized that I had never studied any ethics in elementary or high school. Seseme Street and Pokadot Door had things to say on the subject, but it is not part of our formal education when we are young. Isn’t that crazy! Like you and I were discussing the other day…although people have varying views on ethics, most people agree on about 99% of things. Surely that common ground is enough to incorperate ethics into school somehow? Remember in kindergarten when your report card had less to do with how you scored on tests, and more to do with how you treated your classmates, listened to the teacher, and shared your toys?
Right. The question is, does teaching ethics teach ethics? My sense is that people need to live ethics (that’s the subject of Toren’s linked TED talk too) – you can regulate ethics and turn it into a curriculum, but it’s not at all clear to me that that will actually result in people behaving in a more ethical manner. Also, do we trust the school system to come up with ethics we endorse or agree with (thinking of my veganism and atheism here)?
And then there’s the danger of the curriculum standing in place of actual learning (ie, if we teach a workplace course in racial sensitivity that will stop racism at work once and for all! Clearly false but for a time a major plank in the methods of companies fearing lawsuits related to racist practices.) Does having a formal ethics course merely relieve us of the responsibility to impart ethics, because we can tell ourselves it’s already being handled? This goes back to whether ethics can be taught didactically.
On the other hand, it’s something that probably needs to be explicitly talked about, perhaps in the context of doing or reflecting after an event. I dunno.
But we can probably all agree it’s vital to share one’s toys.
You stay away from my toys! MINE!
Does not play well with others!
Vex,
You’ve touched on the key point with comments re: atheism and veganism. Which ethics do we teach? The present system seems to be predicated on a culture of deceit. There is a vast diversity of ethical systems in Canada, mostly whitewashed in school with a patronizing nod to some sort of inclusive educational philosophy. The mean kids might not call the FAS kid a “retard” in front of the teachers, but they certainly will mutter it under their breath, have a good laugh, and exclude him from every meaningful social interaction that isn’t mandated. People are naturally going to form cliques, and exclude others in a variety of ways.
The speaker made a good point about moral exemplars, and Allan Bloom made it earlier in “Closing of the American Mind”, which is a scathing critique on the educational system. The school system, at our demand advocates tolerance, of choices, of beliefs, of difference, and ultimately of mediocre. If anything is tolerated, there is little reason to strive. You don’t have to earn acceptance, you can demand it. They will try to legislate it for you, but it will be hollow and worthless.
However even if we had our schools as the impossible paradigm of virtuous education, with virtuous educators, we would still fall short. Popular media is so pervasive and morally bankrupt, that educating children in virtue is a Sisyphean task. The goal is not to be virtuous Atticus Finch, but to be 50 Dent, dripping with bling and ho’s, or Paris Hilton partying with rockstars at the hottest clubs. The cult of celebrity and the anti-hero focus of movies, music and television have more influence in the lives of most children than educators ever will. The media has their attention nearly every waking moment of their lives. Parents for the most part, have been lulled into contentment and mortgaged their children for selfish affairs, and “self discovery.”
The only real answer is private and traditional schools that teach what you want your kids to learn, and are much more ready to throw out trouble makers that public schools are forced to deal with. For public schools, it’s a matter of being a hand on enough parent to equip them to succeed in a far less than ideal academic environment. Of course some kids will rise to the top based strictly on being intellectually superior, but for averages, private school lets you “pick your paradigm” in a way public institutions do not.
All this goes hand in hand with Parents committing the time to raising their kids, and not letting the media do it. TV is the easy out. Reading and discussing with your child takes time and effort. I credit a great portion of my academic achievements to my Mom’s early effort teaching me to read prior to my enrollment in school, very limited TV growing up, and twice and sometimes thrice trips to the library to restock on new books to read.
You may not have much use for the Bible, but the dangers of idol worship should be evident today, more than ever; American, Canadian, Pop or other.
In short, as a whole we’re mostly doomed, individual students can be saved with parental effort, private schools, and/or luck.
Regards,
~ I.
I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with you. Well said.