User:Ozhu/The purpose of education

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What's the purpose of education? There are lots of frustrating aspects to the public education system in the U.S., which is notable among developed nations in its shortcomings in educational standards. However, even the U.S. education system has advantages over systems. (After all, last time I checked we are still the greatest nation on Earth.) In each of these educational systems, there are groups of people, both well-meaning and sinister, who seek to influence that system, and it seems that their efforts largely cancel each other out. For every organization like StudentsFirst, there are teachers' unions that vehemently oppose its efforts; for every teachers' union, there are cohorts of angry Republicans that object to its existence.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that these educational programs are targeted toward diverse communities with different needs. Youths from inner city ghettos would probably flounder if they were subjected to the standards of a high-achieving magnet school. And there are many hard working students whose curiosity, creativity, and motivation can be wasted for years on the tedium of relatively low educational standards.

Because of the complexity of policy decisions related to education, I feel like people tend to lose sight of the core purpose(s) of education, and specifically the public school system. A note: most of my thoughts on this subject deal with K-12 education in particular, both because of its importance in students' development and because it is such a bottleneck of achievement in the American education system.

The original purpose of American education

To give us some perspective, and to provide a motivating case for why the purpose of education is an important topic to think about, we can reflect on the historical origins of public education in the United States. One of the key figures in shaping the American public education system as we know it today was Horace Mann, who helped pass the first mandatory attendance public school program in the U.S. in 1852. Mann had been deeply influenced by his observations of Germany's public education system a decade before then, so our modern public school system, which operates "virtually unchanged since the mid-nineteenth century",^[1] is said to be based from the Prussian education system, or the "Prussian model".^[2]

Although Mann's reforms were driven by liberal ideals like "creat[ing] a tolerant, civilized society" and practical concerns like "prepar[ing] American youth for the 20th century industrialized economy" (i.e. factory work),^[1] the Prussian model has been described as having a much more domineering purpose. John Taylor Gatto describes the Prussian conception of centralized schooling as a program to develop

Obedient soldiers to the army;

Obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms;

Well-subordinated civil servants, trained in their function;

Well-subordinated clerks for industry;

Citizens who thought alike on most issues;

National uniformity in thought, word, and deed.^[3]

[1] Outside of training students as workers and citizens, it seems that public schools are also designed as babysitting centers so that parents are free to be productive members of society.

Some reasonable functional purposes for an education system

Provide broad and flexible vocational training and practical career guidance
Foster a citizenry that is responsible, civil, well-informed, and can think critically
Provide tools to satisfy the desire to create things, and to stoke and satisfy intellectual curiosity

Vocational training, career guidance

If we're going to be letting all of these kids grow up in this country, might as well make them useful right? At the very least, we should be letting our kids out into the real world with enough skills and experience to not starve. This goal is actually pretty consistent with Horace Mann's model of public education, which gave young Americans the skills and mindset to work in factories. But just giving students basic prep to work entry-level jobs is a wasted investment, especially since the nature of work is becoming more skill-intensive. In a post-industrial society like ours, where predictable factory work has been replaced by jobs that require bachelors' degrees and where the average worker can anticipate several career switches in a lifetime,^[4]^[5] students should have access to flexible vocational training programs and a practical understanding of what kinds of career opportunities are available. Vocational training should be broad and flexible; students should be able to apply what they learn in school to learn deeper and varied skills later in life, and curricula should be adaptable to adults who need to learn more.

Providing career guidance also includes preparing students for college admissions and an environment of higher learning.

Citizenship

List of cognitive biases

Scholarship

Misc ideas

Abandon summer vacation for a trimester system
Have older students teach younger students
[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Rose, Joel (9 May 2012). "How to Break Free of Our 19th-Century Factory-Model Education System". The Atlantic. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
^ Paul E. Peterson, Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning (2010) pp 21-36
^ Gatto, John Taylor (2000). The Underground History of American Education. The Odysseus Group. ISBN 9780945700043.
^ Alboher, Marci (1 May 2007). "When It Comes to Careers, Change Is a Constant". New York Times. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
^ Bialik, Carl (4 September 2010). "Seven Careers in a Lifetime? Think Twice, Researchers Say". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2014.