Today I was reading an article in The New Republic called “Why Go to School?” by Paul Goodman…
The point of the article is that society as a whole, and those involved in providing education in particular, should really examine the motivation (or lack thereof) which exists for going to school. Goodman talks about how the education system has evolved and created grades, advanced placement, standardized test scores, etc., and the effects these systems have had on the process of education as well as the students that are forced to endure that process in the United States.
The damage is universal. Intelligent youngsters, whether bookish or non-bookish, can of course perform, but for the non-bookish the performance is a second-best activity and the achievement is fraudulent. The slower are tormented and humiliated. But in my opinion, the authentically scholarly are even more injured; the competition, the speed-up and the rewards create false values and destroy the meaning of their gifts. The studies are no longer presented as though they were intrinsically valuable. Bright youngsters “do” Bronx Science in order to “make” Harvard; but of course they also “do” Harvard. In fact, the motivation of society is narrow and anti-intellectual; it is to give, at public expense and eventually at the parents’ expense, apprentice-training for the corporations and the armed forces. President Kennedy, in his 1963 message on education, explained to us the motivation to explore the unknown: it is “for economic, military, medical and other reasons”! (A professor of astronomy at Yale complained to me that, though his students included many excellent mathematicians who had “mastered” the subject, not one of them would be a good astronomer. How was that? “They don’t love the stars,” he said.)
Speaking as someone who teaches high school and has been a student long enough to earn a Masters, I could not agree more with Goodman’s sentiments.
I believe in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I believe that learning is its own reward. However, most of my students seem to have been taught if there is not reward, if there is not something tangible in it for them, then they should not bother with intellectual pursuits.
The rest of the article lays out some very interesting ideas, which I believe are worthy of consideration. But one of the best points is made at the end of the article…
…all should be educated and at the public expense, but the idea that most should be educated in something like schools is a delusion and often a cruel hoax. Our present way is wasteful of wealth and human resources and destructive of young spirit. The better way is to expand social needs that are also opportunities for education appropriate to different dispositions. Of course what I am here proposing involves a radical change in our present false standards of prestige, status and salary; it would be opposed by government, corporations, labor unions, and even the present urban poor who would consider themselves downgraded. It would certainly deflate the education business and require very different educators.
If only more people shared this vision.
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