What’s the point of education anyway?
To create good participants in the current system:
Schools should be focusing on [the capacity to communicate effectively or to cooperatively solve problems], as well as ethical reasoning. Wall Street’s meltdown, linked to shady lending practices, reveals the moral bankruptcy of huge segments of the market. Yet political leaders now urge our children to quietly fill-in bubble tests, seeking only to become productive cogs in a broken wheel.
I’ve been thinking about pedagogy this past week and the downfalls of various methods of teaching and testing. It reminds me of a Paulo Freire quote I ran across a while back. I cannot for the life of me remember where it came from.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
That is inspiring however it is at the same time discouraging to see institutions and educators who continue to foster the present system(s).
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Just google “John Taylor Gatto” for some wild thinking on this subject …
I’m not saying I agree with everything he says. He’s both extreme and provocative. He’s also a radical. But there is some truth to be found amongst the chaffe. And he’s worth reading.
sonja
24 Oct 08 at 12:19 pm
interesting. i’m watching youtube videos of him now. i need to read more about it. any particular book you would recommend?
blake
24 Oct 08 at 1:03 pm