The Value and Purpose of Education

The Value and Purpose of Education

By Tim Heigel

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.”

-Albert Einstein

It is a pitiful thing that many young people in the world today grow up believing school to be nothing more than a tool for future employment. One would be hard pressed to find a teenage student who disagrees that their future options are limited to university or bust. Despite valiant efforts by tradespersons to declare their fields to be viable alternatives, education is still pushed as being a destination and not a journey. This must change, first with the attitudes and philosophies towards school, then the structure and substance of the curriculum, and ultimately the function of school in society.

Foremost among the follies of today’s institutions of learning is that they fail to regard the intergenerational transfer of knowledge as something to be cherished. Rather, the bureaucracy of the modern school system works in a continuum: first they teach literacy and arithmetic, then being to hammer out future goals, followed by needless standardized testing right up until the end of secondary school. Preparation is lauded as the key to success, with success on tests being considered the only important thing. For this reason, students begin to see school as a rat race wherein learning itself is not important, but retaining the information long enough to pass a test is. The continuum of education stresses that if one wants to succeed in life, they must prepare for the next level of education and once they get there they begin preparation for the next one. In this sort of system, there is no time for learning in the present for learning’s value. Furthermore, this type of system breeds a mindset wherein we view those who do not toe the line in this system as failures and therefore unworthy of anything along the lines of a decent pay, a comfortable life, or happiness in general. They are screw-ups who missed their shot at happiness. It is a mentality that victimizes working people and transforms their place in society from being those who produce wealth via their labour to being the underlings of the ruling classes, who naturally came to their position through their success in the education continuum. These philosophies on what it means to learn must change. We must begin to view school as the foundation for healthy citizens who use their knowledge for the betterment of mankind. We must view education as a means of enhancing one’s ability to enjoy life and not as a means of some day living a corporate life. In summation, school must be a place of enjoyment where one can explore their creativity and curiosity and not have an authoritarian, carbon-copy model bearing down upon them.

Naturally, the next step would be a complete revolution in the schools. Curriculums must function in a way that allows for the greatest possible flexibility in a student’s learning. This means loosening deadlines, providing students with options for emphasis on certain subjects while maintaining emphasis on literacy, and decentralizing the role of a teacher to a student-requested assistant rather than a director and thereby allowing for different levels of skill to be taught alongside each other in the same classroom. The intellectual apartheid that exists in parts of Europe, where students are separated into different schools depending on their performance in early education, does nothing more than set the foundation for elitism. Even in Ontario high schools, where students select different classes based on difficulty levels, separates students based on their levels of intelligence and does not fully integrate them with each other. Rather, classrooms should function by giving students the option of moving up or down the ladder of difficulty while remaining alongside those on different levels. As mentioned, for this to come about the role of the teacher must be changed. Instead of giving classroom lessons, a teacher should allow the students to learn in a self-directed manner and provide assistance at the student’s request. Furthermore, teachers and tutors should be available for after regularly scheduled classes should a student find him or herself in need of extra assistance. On top of this, the buildings themselves must be maintained and beautified so that students may learn in a healthy, positive environment where they feel comfortable rather than being herded into brick and mortar prisons. Between-class breaks must be sufficient to allow for exercise and social interaction. After Grade 9, students should be allowed complete freedom of choice over the content of their education. Classroom attendance should not be compulsory but the course work must be handed in on an even basis. All in all, the curriculum must be based on three philosophies: students are not vessels waiting to be filled but fully-functional and aware humans being, that the purpose of education is not preparation for the next level but learning in the present that will consequently result in preparation, and that learning must be designed based on what’s best for the individual student.

One of the most pressing issues is that students are completely stripped of their ability to have a say in their day-to-day affairs. Students of any age, whether six or eighteen, are placed under the thumb of the educators and demonized if they attempt to step out of line. For high school students, the only solution is the organization of every single student into a fully participatory union divided into small, localized councils of no more than twenty students that feed into the union as a whole so that their voices may be heard. The current “student councils” are a farce made to look like a democracy, wherein over-achievers and the occasional class clown battle it out for a position of autocracy completely detached from the student body. Oftentimes, they bow to the demands of the administration and become nothing more than their proxies to try to legitimate anti-student policies. Private education must be scrapped – all education should be public and high-quality. Allowing the rich to buy their children a better education throws off the learning curve for public school students and siphons away valuable resources such as good teachers from the public schools. The place of schools in society must not be a place where they are bred to become productive citizens for the ruling class, but productive citizens for themselves and their fellow human. Schools of all levels, from pre-school to university, must be fully funded and free to all people from the cradle to the grave. Education is a right, not a privilege, and must be extended to all members of society and used for their personal direction of their own lives, not for them to find a place in a world of false dreams and envy for more and more.

Institutional education is not a bad thing, but when it becomes a haven for repression of curiosity and creativity then something must change. The fundamental philosophies, direction and place of education in society must change. Some cultures around the world today still value education as a means of enriching one’s life, and it is this attitude that must come to our side of the world.