Education Reform for the Good of Society

in #education8 years ago (edited)

In response to an article suggesting that in school, children should be made to obey, conform and behave “good”.

Any person who judges children, and can then sort "good children" from "bad children" should be ashamed of themselves.

Instead of training children as if they were dogs meant to obey, or worse, machines meant to store information only long enough to spill it onto a test or exam, we should allow children access to, and guidance regarding information.

Teaching should be nothing more than keeping children safe as they explore the real world around them, and the conceptual world found within books, the internet, encyclopedias, and each other.

Because children and people are naturally curious and have a desire to learn, and due to the instinct of empathy and kindness within nearly all of us, I think that beneficial behavior will be naturally learned as a person learns more about philosophy and the many topics within, as well as physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, programming, mathematics, history and the general purposes of society.

All of these are important, and cannot be forgotten, even if it ends up being a long, boring list. Because these things surround all of us at all times, to ignore them would almost have to be taught.

And it is taught. Children are often taught to not question things.
They are taught to censor themselves.
They are taught to fear things.

They are taught to care about superficial details regarding concepts, and not actually bother to understand the entirety of a concept. Or worse, to trust bias, to have faith in assumptions and belief in prejudices.

They are taught to obey, conform and look like good people only as long as they're being watched.

They are tamed.

But children are not animals to be tamed.

They are people who will go out into the world and attempt to make it better, or pessimistically, fix the damage we've already done.
They can only do this upon their own volition.

Right now, people are not raised in an environment of learning, understanding, and sometimes love and friendship within their community.

We are all severely biased and handicapped because we are missing out on what could be. Because any natural curiosity was stunted by the demand that we stop talking and listen to a teacher dictate to us what they were told to teach by a government curriculum, this generation of people will be stunted for their entire lives.

We need to demand education reform and an abolishment to the current "learning as labor" school system. Our capitalistic lifestyle cannot last as the population grows larger and machines do more and more for us.

We need children who are excited to wake up and live every day, because those children will grow into adults who are happy and excited about every day. Those adults will have the energy, drive, and most vitally, the knowledge, to build a better world and shape society into a direction that benefits all people, and more importantly, our robot overlords.

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Yep yep yep! I totally agree although I think the current system is so authoritarian and entrenched it would take way too much to overthrow it.

I've had similar thoughts and share my experience here https://steemit.com/school/@alexc/school-is-a-form-of-child-abuse

Yeah, I saw that article awhile ago, and really enjoyed it.
I commented on it even! =D

Yes you did, thank you. I just wanted to share it again for others to read - as a kind of 'related article'

The main purpose of public education is to create conformist, subservient, non-thinking indivuals who excel at following the orders handed down by management. It's a sad fact. Even more depressing, is that this situation is incapable of changing as long as we contiinue to operate under the current system of government.

Please check out John Taylor Gatto if you already haven't. He explains the true purspose and intention of public schooling with impeccable precision.

On the up side is that there are some (but not many) much more progressive schools my favorite of which are based around Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory.

A brief breakdown:

While this is by no means the mainstream, volume based cookie cutter education, there are programs that have been running successfully for a while now. I have hope to see education move to something closer to this.

The Gardner School curriculum is defined as “everything we take responsibility for.” Everything we do at The Gardner School — our curriculum, our lessons, our interactions — centers around these four pillars: Knowledge and Understanding, Character, Stance and Impact.
We enable children to become critical thinkers, posing and solving problems with integrity and responsibility while embracing challenge in a supportive community of learners.
The Gardner School curriculum is defined as “everything we take responsibility for.” Everything we do at The Gardner School — our curriculum, our lessons, our interactions — centers around these four pillars: Knowledge and Understanding, Character, Stance and Impact.
We enable children to become critical thinkers, posing and solving problems with integrity and responsibility while embracing challenge in a supportive community of learners.

  • Gardner School Curriculum Model

https://gardnerschool.org/learning/curriculum-model/

What can I say, I'm an optimist. :)

A couple other similar programs:
http://www.newcityschool.org/academics/multiple-intelligences
http://newschoolva.com/intelligence_theories.php

Education systems that actually empower each individuals uniqueness and challenges students to find their muse are gradually making a slow dent in the make or break educational system which is currently still the norm.

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