A provocative
title like this needs a bit of explanation. I'm not asking a
rhetorical question, with the implication that there is no point in
education. I'm asking what the real point of education is, the goal
of the thing.
With that out of
the way, let us ask ourselves, “What is the practical point of
education?”
First, education
is about letting a kid know a little bit about a lot of things. Even
if he'll never go to China or meet a Chinese person (which is
unlikely in our increasingly multi-cultural society), he'll at least
know where China is and some of its history, so that if China becomes
important in some way in his life, he'll know something about it.
Second, education
is about learning to understand how the world works, both
scientifically, socially, and otherwise.
Third, (and this
one, I think, is the main point), education is about preparing people
for life. This takes on a variety of forms.
a) Education
should prepare a person for what they want to do in life—that is,
their job.
b) Education
should prepare a person for what they will encounter in life—like,
for instance, basic math skills needed for things like money matters.
c) Education
should prepare a person to communicate and interact effectively in
society.
I think that
pretty much covers it.
The
reason I bring this up is because, before something is done, you
should first understand why
it is done. When something becomes about the method rather than the
reason behind the method, then the method can stray from its original
purpose.
So maybe that's a
little confusing. Let me explain, in the context of education.
What has happened
to education, in almost all forms, is that education has become the
end rather than the means. Education is the “method” to helping
children become adults who are equipped to face the world. But today
the point of education, it seems, is education.
If this is true,
that education has become the end rather than the means, then there
should be certain results.
First, that
education will be more about tangible results rather than intangible
knowledge. This will mean that the focus will shift from people to
statistics, and that the new “method” of education will heavily
involve the measuring of those statistics.
Second, that
people will view education as a necessity, resulting in people who go
to school for no reason other than to go to school, or people who go
to college for no other reason besides going to college.
These
results are exactly what we see in today's education. Schools are
rated by their statistics; if they produce kids who have “good
grades”, they are a good school. This is also why testing is
apparently so important to schools. They're always measuring people
to see how well they're doing.
The
thing is, if rules are based off of reasons, if the rules break the
reasons, you ought to break the rules. In other words, if the point
of education is to prepare a kid for life, and education instead
inhibits
that preparation, then education must be changed.
So here's the deal about our methods of education:
Point number one. Education today is about tangible results instead
of intangible knowledge. There is no harm in measuring how well a
person is absorbing the knowledge taught in school, but tests have
gone far beyond that. Tests become the end rather than the means.
Last
year, I had to study to take a chemistry semester test. I studied
long and hard and took the test, got a pretty good score. The point
of my studying, however, was not to learn
more,
but to get a good
score.
This meant that what I understood, right or not, was that tests were
not about measuring learning
but about scores.
(This issue has been given to Third World countries to a more
drastic degree. Literally half of the school year where I live in
West Africa is comprised of test after test about stuff the students
never even learned with textbooks they never had.)
This
is the message that is given, whether intentionally or not, by
today's education system. Tests are about scores, not learning.
Classes are about good school statistics, not knowledge. This, in
the end, results in less
real learning.
Point number two. This makes education a disturbingly commercial
operation, making school function like an assembly line: more
efficient and less individualistic. Businesses are all about making
more money and achieving higher rates, which makes school sound more
and more like a business. And the bad thing about businesses is that
they're not afraid to cut corners in order to cut costs and maximize
efficiency, which is the last thing you want for a school.
This also means, as much as schools might want to, they cannot
minister to each person's individual needs and goals in life. They
can provide a flat education. By that, I mean, education that's
almost exactly the same for each person, which is not half as
effective and limits potential.
This,
too, results in less
real learning.
Point
number three. Education for the point of education results in a
waste of money and time. For instance, take college. Some people go
to college because society tells them that you basically have
to go to college to get anywhere in life.
Remember that the point of education, particularly higher education,
is to prepare for life. If that is true, then a person ought to know
what they're preparing for when they're going to college. But if
college is the end in itself, then people will go to college simply
for the experience...which is what has happened to a lot of American
teenagers and twenty-somethings. Some people constantly change
colleges and change majors because they honestly don't know what
they're going to do in life – but the message they've been given is
that you've got to go to college if you're going to get anywhere.
And if you don't know where you're going, I wonder how much you're
actually learning.
So
what are we left with? A system where education itself has become
the point of education, whether on purpose or not.
What the education system needs is a way to regain the original point
of education, a practical application of what people need in order to
be prepared for life and gain knowledge of the world around them.
The paradox is, the most effective way to do this is to get rid of
effectiveness. If you're running education like an impersonal
business in order to gain effectiveness and efficiency, you're going
to lose effectiveness and efficiency, because school has to be
personal in order to be effective.
Either school's got to change or Wal-Mart and McDonald's are going to
get a steady stream of new employees.
