How Education is Ruining Your Life(davetroy.com)
davetroy.com
How Education is Ruining Your Life
http://davetroy.com/?p=888
13 comments
well, I suppose its not incorrect to say the roots are medieval, but it is most accurate to lay the foundation of our educational system with the prussian school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
The progression existed, but it was for the elite. Most people didn't spend so many years in school when they were going to work on a farm or join a trade where they would be apprentice. The idea that everyone should go through 12 years of compulsory age-based schooling and then ideally through college and into an office is fairly recent.
Different bits of it were at different times. In Europe middle class kids started going to schools in the late medieval period. Whereas college was for the rich roughly till WWII.
In fact, it's recent enough that my great grandfather (who was born in 1908) never went to high school. His formal education ended in the 8th grade, and that was plenty good enough for him.
[deleted]
Yeah, I'm sick of seeing that idea being passed about without sources. I think most of the people talking about it haven't even heard of John Taylor Gatto, which is where it came from.
But, do you have sources?
But, do you have sources?
I read a lot about the history of education for "The Age of the Essay." There are links to some in the notes.
http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Sch...
For anyone that hasn't read JTG, this is his most well known work and I highly recommend it (and his others). Surprised that no one had mentioned it yet as it's highly relevant to the issue at hand.
For anyone that hasn't read JTG, this is his most well known work and I highly recommend it (and his others). Surprised that no one had mentioned it yet as it's highly relevant to the issue at hand.
A fundamental change due to industry: before modern education, it was the teacher's fault if the student didn't learn. You don't tell the local nobleman that his son and heir did a C- job. Today, we see education as an opportunity for students to demonstrate how hard they've worked, usually as part of the job-qualification process. Actual learning is still important, but secondary. (Will this be on the test?)
Democratic credentialism is probably better than elitist humanism, but in a niche-and-network economy education has to be applicable and customizable. If it won't fit in a few blog posts, today's internet has a hard time teaching it.
-nb-- Education's medieval structure died in the late 1800s when the ancient religious universities (Oxfords, Harvards) swapped it for the PhD model. Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time.
The PhD developed to meet the research staffing needs of the German chemical industry.
Democratic credentialism is probably better than elitist humanism, but in a niche-and-network economy education has to be applicable and customizable. If it won't fit in a few blog posts, today's internet has a hard time teaching it.
-nb-- Education's medieval structure died in the late 1800s when the ancient religious universities (Oxfords, Harvards) swapped it for the PhD model. Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time.
The PhD developed to meet the research staffing needs of the German chemical industry.
>Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time.
OT: Have you heard of Relativity? What's wrong with choosing an arbitrary reference point to be local.
OT: Have you heard of Relativity? What's wrong with choosing an arbitrary reference point to be local.
What's wrong with choosing an arbitrary reference point to be local.
Choosing a non-inertial reference frame would be the problem.
Relative velocities (including temporal velocity...) are essentially arbitrary, but acceleration is not; and the accelerating forces experienced by objects in the solar system are overwhelmingly dominated by the sun.
Choosing a non-inertial reference frame would be the problem.
Relative velocities (including temporal velocity...) are essentially arbitrary, but acceleration is not; and the accelerating forces experienced by objects in the solar system are overwhelmingly dominated by the sun.
Yes a non-IFoR is a problem but then then pretty much every point we'd want to choose is accelerating relative to us. I'd dispute that for the majority of people the sun's gravity is the dominating force - seems Earth's gravity is pretty dominant to me.
But I think I must have had my trolling hat on for this one, sorry.
But I think I must have had my trolling hat on for this one, sorry.
"Some of them had refused to accept a heliocentric solar system before until that time."
Are you saying that's unclear? I still find it hard to believe, so I can't tell.
Are you saying that's unclear? I still find it hard to believe, so I can't tell.
Perhaps the most accurate way to put it is that the same broad systemic forces that produced the corporation also produced the current educational system.
And the same broad systemic forces that is forcing us away from the corporate model, is also forcing, gradually, our educational system to change.
And as always, those of us living at the margins, feel the impending changes most keenly. I have a lot of friends who still feel quite comfortable within the current educational system.
And the same broad systemic forces that is forcing us away from the corporate model, is also forcing, gradually, our educational system to change.
And as always, those of us living at the margins, feel the impending changes most keenly. I have a lot of friends who still feel quite comfortable within the current educational system.
I'm the author of this piece. For what it's worth, I had a pretty good experience in our educational system. I excelled in high school and was voted most likely to succeed, graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins, then went on to form a tech startup which I sold at age 32.
What I object to is the design of the system and particularly to the denigration of sense of place.
I should point out that I have a series of articles in mind to write, and this particular article was something foundational that I needed to get out in order to make some later arguments.
Ken Ronbinson's label of "agricultural" model for education is perhaps less than ideal, particularly because it creates associations with pre-industrial economics. I think perhaps what he means is something more like "organic" education.
Thanks for all of the comments; wish they were directly linked to my blog so others could more readily benefit from them.
What I object to is the design of the system and particularly to the denigration of sense of place.
I should point out that I have a series of articles in mind to write, and this particular article was something foundational that I needed to get out in order to make some later arguments.
Ken Ronbinson's label of "agricultural" model for education is perhaps less than ideal, particularly because it creates associations with pre-industrial economics. I think perhaps what he means is something more like "organic" education.
Thanks for all of the comments; wish they were directly linked to my blog so others could more readily benefit from them.
A common problem I have with articles like this is they are often coming from folks who had a horrible experience going through the contemporary educational system. This results in them throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and oscillating in the extreme opposite direction, trying to move us as far away from the way things are today as they can.
At the risk of being called a South Park philosopher, I think for education the right solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think having people be transplanted away from their families and friends for a 4 year hiatus to focus on learning is a crucial part of becoming a well rounded person. That said, the current methodology of cramming knowledge into students' heads is highly flawed, simply because it doesn't try to leverage the way the brain actually learns new things.
I think a more flexible model for education that still fits within the current "go off to college" model can yield huge improvements while both being possible and practical. For example, students should be able to have more control over the direction of a class. If a topic comes up that a large number of students are interested into going into more depth, then they should be able to 'fork' the class and go thataway.
Additionally, assessment is totally broken. Assessment should be a means of re-enforcing knowledge not verifying that it has been absorbed. There's a whole host of thinking about this, but it really comes down to changing the timing, content, and impact of administered exams towards one that disincentivizes cramming and incentivizes true learning of the material.
At the risk of being called a South Park philosopher, I think for education the right solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think having people be transplanted away from their families and friends for a 4 year hiatus to focus on learning is a crucial part of becoming a well rounded person. That said, the current methodology of cramming knowledge into students' heads is highly flawed, simply because it doesn't try to leverage the way the brain actually learns new things.
I think a more flexible model for education that still fits within the current "go off to college" model can yield huge improvements while both being possible and practical. For example, students should be able to have more control over the direction of a class. If a topic comes up that a large number of students are interested into going into more depth, then they should be able to 'fork' the class and go thataway.
Additionally, assessment is totally broken. Assessment should be a means of re-enforcing knowledge not verifying that it has been absorbed. There's a whole host of thinking about this, but it really comes down to changing the timing, content, and impact of administered exams towards one that disincentivizes cramming and incentivizes true learning of the material.
> I think having people be transplanted away from their families and friends for a 4 year hiatus to focus on learning is a crucial part of becoming a well rounded person.
If someone asked you how to educate a society and this was the answer you gave, they might think you were crazy.
If someone asked you how to educate a society and this was the answer you gave, they might think you were crazy.
There are other things you need to learn beside what's in books, like how to live on your own, be responsible for your actions and so forth. Living away from the nest can be helpful in learning these things. I don't understand why this would make you "crazy."
I am not suggesting that people shouldn't move out of their parents' house. I do think, however, that the system is built in such a way that a false-choice of specialty encourages people to move outside of their native regions for no particular reason.
Staying within a region is not the same as saying that someone should continue to live with their parents. Undoubtedly we have too much of that right now.
Staying within a region is not the same as saying that someone should continue to live with their parents. Undoubtedly we have too much of that right now.
Right. Another big thing I didn't mention explicitly is that college exposes students to people outside their comfort zone. Cross pollination of ideas and culture are hugely important if we want to stamp out racism, ignorance, and intolerance.
From your comment, it seems your political indoctrination is more important than cost (monetarily, level of quality, breaking of relationships, etc) of an education.
And where in gods name did you extract the notion of political indoctrination from my comment? So is it now the case that suggesting people should take an opportunity to live in new places around new people is considered a political statement or one that suggests that that experience is itself indoctrination?
Does that actually happen, though? To a large extent, colleges are socioeconomically segregated much like high-schools are. Rich kids from private schools go to the Ivy League, poor kids go to state school or community college.
Can't one do this without going tens of thousands into debt (unless one has scholarships or grants)?
Not necessarily. The idea that higher education should be organised with all the best professors &c. in one place, and students come from all around to a centralised place of learning, isn't crazy at all. And, as gfodor pointed out, those 4 years are character-building.
I think the article raises some issues but in far too aggressive a way. There are problems with the way students are forced to pick a career path so early, but the assertion that "any system that asks you to devalue a relationship with place or with extended family is evil" doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. He doesn't consider any of the benefits of spending time away from home, and doesn't really back up his claim with anything at all.
I think the article raises some issues but in far too aggressive a way. There are problems with the way students are forced to pick a career path so early, but the assertion that "any system that asks you to devalue a relationship with place or with extended family is evil" doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. He doesn't consider any of the benefits of spending time away from home, and doesn't really back up his claim with anything at all.
I suggest that you tune in for the next post, which will discuss the downsides of excess mobility in society, in very specific ways.
It's not crazy for specialized schooling, but it is another thing to suggest that it's the best way to educate a society.
Complete aside: I'd never heard this term "South Park philosopher" before and it seems to be rare on Google. Did you make this up or did you hear it somewhere.
It's a good image. I understood it to mean splitting the difference and calling that wisdom, like the end of every South Park episode. Is that about right?
It's a good image. I understood it to mean splitting the difference and calling that wisdom, like the end of every South Park episode. Is that about right?
Yup, you got it. Not sure where I picked it up.
Well, he is right. The education system I went through was designed around a myth of what the corporate landscape supposedly looks like and it's out of date in the information age. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call "anything that asks you to uproot your relationships with place and with people as evil" nor would I return to an agricultural model.
It's worth reading.
It's worth reading.
I don't think by "agricultural model" people mean "move out to the farms" or anything; I think he means more that the values of self-reliance in matters educational is what he is pushing. A bunch of city kids could adopt the "agricultural model" with no contradiction.
Personally, I think it's a bad moniker; it makes it sound like a step backward and invites misunderstanding. We need a network-age education that takes advantage of the things we had that never existed in agricultural times; it may happen to resemble the agricultural model in some ways, but it will still resemble the industrial in others, and in other ways won't resemble either.
(Incidentally, this is why I want to homeschool my kid(s). I want to give them the 21st century education they can't get anywhere else right now. Maybe their children won't find it so hard.)
Personally, I think it's a bad moniker; it makes it sound like a step backward and invites misunderstanding. We need a network-age education that takes advantage of the things we had that never existed in agricultural times; it may happen to resemble the agricultural model in some ways, but it will still resemble the industrial in others, and in other ways won't resemble either.
(Incidentally, this is why I want to homeschool my kid(s). I want to give them the 21st century education they can't get anywhere else right now. Maybe their children won't find it so hard.)
"agricultural" is a bad moniker for sure. Still, a model that emphasizes growing ties to your location is a poor one. David Weinberger hit the nail on the head in his philosophical arguments in "Small pieces loosely joined" that our understanding of "place" has completely changed in the information age. Perhaps the author should have focused on an education system that focuses on ties to _community_ rather than on the place their from?
The agricultural model is one of regional self reliance, where cheap consumer goods aren't shipped in from places where people work for a very few of your society's dollars. When you keep things local, the standard of living rises for everybody and you get a more egalitarian society. Shuffling people and resources around usually ends up widening inequality gaps among different classes and different geographic locations.
While I agree with most of what he's saying, I think the solution doesn't start with education.
Consider this: why did we create the education system as we know it today? Not for some altruistic desire to have an enlightened populace, but to fill the needs of our industrialized society. The change didn't come from within, it came from the corporate world.
As long as companies keep requiring a minimum GPA and a degree from a name brand university, higher education will be crippled by a constant need to establish themselves as one of those name brands, emphasis will continue to be placed on numeric performance, and admissions will be based on likelihood to achieve the all-important high gpa because those will be the people that get jobs and make the school look good. As long as this is how higher education acts, high schools around the country will continue to groom kids for a career of servitude in the same system.
Consider this: why did we create the education system as we know it today? Not for some altruistic desire to have an enlightened populace, but to fill the needs of our industrialized society. The change didn't come from within, it came from the corporate world.
As long as companies keep requiring a minimum GPA and a degree from a name brand university, higher education will be crippled by a constant need to establish themselves as one of those name brands, emphasis will continue to be placed on numeric performance, and admissions will be based on likelihood to achieve the all-important high gpa because those will be the people that get jobs and make the school look good. As long as this is how higher education acts, high schools around the country will continue to groom kids for a career of servitude in the same system.
Yeah, I think you would actually see more idealistic innovation in schools, especially those considered mid-tier in prestige, if they felt they could get away with it. As it stands now, schools below the top-tier are spending all their time worried that their grads won't be able to get jobs anywhere, so don't feel they can take any chances on something that would seem experimental and crazy. There's a lot of defensiveness and worry about seeming wacky or non-mainstream.
Unfortunately a lot of those big companies are entrenched in old ways and filled with people manufactured by the education system, so it's really up to the startups :)
one things for sure: if I ever hire I won't contribute to the problem.
one things for sure: if I ever hire I won't contribute to the problem.
Towards the end of the article, he reaches a conclusion about the importance of regional self-sufficiency which I don't understand at all. Firstly, because it has seemingly no connection to anything he was writing about. Secondly, because it contradicts basic economics of comparative advantage.
Regional self sufficiency is exactly what I was writing about; did you miss the part about disconnection from place?
And no, it doesn't contradict notions of comparative advantage. It puts a value on connection to place that the current system has valued at zero. By valuing connection to place you neutralize notions of competitive advantage achieved by absolute mobility.
This doesn't mean physical mobility is a bad thing, it just means that long term connection to a place should be valued. As such it acts as a tempering force against mobility. There's a reasonable middle ground and our system denies that.
And no, it doesn't contradict notions of comparative advantage. It puts a value on connection to place that the current system has valued at zero. By valuing connection to place you neutralize notions of competitive advantage achieved by absolute mobility.
This doesn't mean physical mobility is a bad thing, it just means that long term connection to a place should be valued. As such it acts as a tempering force against mobility. There's a reasonable middle ground and our system denies that.
The problem certainly isn't that "education" is ruining peoples' lives. It's that the way our schools are structured (with the exception of some private schools), they're almost certain to squeeze anything resembling creativity and free thought out of a child before he learns his multiplication tables. One of the fundamental functions of schools seems to be to keep kids occupied, lined up in rows of desks, while their parents are at work.
I think the reason we could get away with this type of educational system in the industrial era is that factory work doesn't require a whole lot of knowledge or critical thinking skills. For that matter, neither does low-level management at most companies (I'm thinking of the "shop foreman" or "team leader" type positions here).
Educating people for a knowledge economy is likely to be more labor-intensive than the 30+ student per teacher classrooms we see sometimes in public schools today. So far, the best model I've seen that even comes close to educating children to be creative, critical thinkers without fundamentally denying what it means to be a child is the Montessori model. Unfortunately, the Montessori model isn't a practical one upon which to base the entire country's education system right now, in no small part because there just aren't enough teachers to make it work.
I really wish I had the answer, but I don't.
I think the reason we could get away with this type of educational system in the industrial era is that factory work doesn't require a whole lot of knowledge or critical thinking skills. For that matter, neither does low-level management at most companies (I'm thinking of the "shop foreman" or "team leader" type positions here).
Educating people for a knowledge economy is likely to be more labor-intensive than the 30+ student per teacher classrooms we see sometimes in public schools today. So far, the best model I've seen that even comes close to educating children to be creative, critical thinkers without fundamentally denying what it means to be a child is the Montessori model. Unfortunately, the Montessori model isn't a practical one upon which to base the entire country's education system right now, in no small part because there just aren't enough teachers to make it work.
I really wish I had the answer, but I don't.
I agree with many of the points in this article, but this:
"You’re asked inane questions about what you want to study (unanswerable at that age), shown some brochures, and make a fundamentally random choice about where you want to spend the next four years of your life."
is lies. Lots of upper class and upper-middle class children are told explicitly by their parents that they should go into the most prestigious college they can get into, and most follow that advice. The middle class doesn't as much, which helps the upper classes preserve social immobility.
"Is it so hard to see now why so many wealthy, jet-setting people are unhappy and commit suicide? "
More lies. Rich people are, in fact, happier (on average) than non-rich people. See, eg. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ub/competent_elites/.
"You’re asked inane questions about what you want to study (unanswerable at that age), shown some brochures, and make a fundamentally random choice about where you want to spend the next four years of your life."
is lies. Lots of upper class and upper-middle class children are told explicitly by their parents that they should go into the most prestigious college they can get into, and most follow that advice. The middle class doesn't as much, which helps the upper classes preserve social immobility.
"Is it so hard to see now why so many wealthy, jet-setting people are unhappy and commit suicide? "
More lies. Rich people are, in fact, happier (on average) than non-rich people. See, eg. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ub/competent_elites/.
It's an interesting mishmash.
Presumes educators won't adapt to the changing economy. Perhaps they won't, but consumers of education eventually will, and will find new educators. The bigger problem to me is that the skills needed in the future are not terribly obvious to most people.
The devaluation of place argument is unusual. If I sit still what how will I be benefitting from repeated interaction with the local yokels? I must be blinded by my corporate education. Seems to me we can interact with people across time and distance using technology, but we are still learning how.
The experiencing self v. the remembering self is a nice meme. Must write a note to my remembering self.
Presumes educators won't adapt to the changing economy. Perhaps they won't, but consumers of education eventually will, and will find new educators. The bigger problem to me is that the skills needed in the future are not terribly obvious to most people.
The devaluation of place argument is unusual. If I sit still what how will I be benefitting from repeated interaction with the local yokels? I must be blinded by my corporate education. Seems to me we can interact with people across time and distance using technology, but we are still learning how.
The experiencing self v. the remembering self is a nice meme. Must write a note to my remembering self.
I'm coming late to commenting on this, but I have to ask whether the cultivation of a sense of place is really a good idea. An "idea economy" functions best as an urban economy, preferably one composed along the lines proposed by Jane Jacobs; but the author of this work, as far as I can tell at least, has a "neo-agrarian" outlook that thinks in terms of villages, not cities -- if the defining characteristic of a village, including a "cluster of villages city" like Somerville in Boston, or Tokyo in the Edo period, is that one is fundamentally rooted to the village and unwilling to leave it even to pursue greater opportunities. Geographic immobility is not the friend of intellectual enterprise; just ask Paul Graham, who requires all Y Combinator startups to move to Silicon Valley (IIRC) for their initial stage.
So I think this proposal would make things worse, not better; it would be better to cultivate the "moral roots" of the final stage of the Freudian model of psychology (or of Zen, if it comes to that), which permit the individual to function well whatever his environment and whatever his social group or acquaintances.
Let me also point out that highly rooted village life encourages clannishness and asabiyya (the nasty variety, the type condemned by Muhammad, which includes nationalism, racism, and xenophobia), while rootless, urban life discourages it -- in favor of either purely personal selfishness, or objective moral standards. Obviously, the second, not the first, are what's to be pursued; but objective standards are much harder to attain in the village model of life.
So I think this proposal would make things worse, not better; it would be better to cultivate the "moral roots" of the final stage of the Freudian model of psychology (or of Zen, if it comes to that), which permit the individual to function well whatever his environment and whatever his social group or acquaintances.
Let me also point out that highly rooted village life encourages clannishness and asabiyya (the nasty variety, the type condemned by Muhammad, which includes nationalism, racism, and xenophobia), while rootless, urban life discourages it -- in favor of either purely personal selfishness, or objective moral standards. Obviously, the second, not the first, are what's to be pursued; but objective standards are much harder to attain in the village model of life.
If anyone understood this, I'd be grateful for a summary...
The overall idea is that our educational system was designed for a world that no longer exists and is unsuited for what our world is becoming.
Essentially, he's saying that our educational system is designed to produce people that can operate interchangeably, and in doing so is suppressing individuality and twisting our values. He's saying that we've been conditioned to ignore the value of having roots and of being individuals.
This might have worked (and our educational system might have worked) when our economy relied on production and required "cogs", but it's crippling us now when we rely on ideas and creativity.
I'm probably missing half of what was there, but hopefully that helps. I'm not sure I agree with everything there, but that's mostly because I think this raises some excellent points/questions that bear a lot of thinking about and I haven't really had a chance to do so yet.
Essentially, he's saying that our educational system is designed to produce people that can operate interchangeably, and in doing so is suppressing individuality and twisting our values. He's saying that we've been conditioned to ignore the value of having roots and of being individuals.
This might have worked (and our educational system might have worked) when our economy relied on production and required "cogs", but it's crippling us now when we rely on ideas and creativity.
I'm probably missing half of what was there, but hopefully that helps. I'm not sure I agree with everything there, but that's mostly because I think this raises some excellent points/questions that bear a lot of thinking about and I haven't really had a chance to do so yet.
Yeah, we all know it was broken, hackers know that. Many of us felt like misfits, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with us.
And this guy might have some idea on what to do about education and the whole institute around it, it's down there at the end of the article.
[deleted]
In German, the notion of education (Bildung) is distinguished from training (Ausbildung). It seems to me that in English these two concepts are often intermingled and that, for historical reasons, a concept of education as Bildung is missing.
Anyway, the article is IMHO a weird mix of extreme right and left wing point of views. I particularly liked the fact that a Sir speaks in favour of an agricultural education system.
Anyway, the article is IMHO a weird mix of extreme right and left wing point of views. I particularly liked the fact that a Sir speaks in favour of an agricultural education system.
I dropped out of school and later earned a BSc. I found out later that rather than taking the performance of the highest scholarship award you have, some people and companies take the entire history of your education when deciding on jobs or further education. This seems wrong to me.
This is false. This progression predated the corporation.
The present educational system has been influenced by the desire to produce employees, but that's not where its structure originated. The structure is medieval.